For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    I like the NIV a little better here. Merchants and tradesmen who use honest measuring devices serve God. When we carefully measure so as to deliver as much as we told people they were paying for, it is as if God Himself made our tools.

    I will not let evil-doers distract me from keeping God’s commands. Those who stray from God’s commands are fooling themselves, true joy only comes from following God. I turn to God for sustenance. Let us turn to God for discernment so that we can understand His instructions. Let us live as servants of God, so that we may experience His unfailing love. As we obey His commands, He will teach us ever more how to live according to His will. His commands are more valuable than anything we can imagine or desire. They will provide us with a better life than any amount of wealth.

    When the religious leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, Pilate asked them what they charged Him with. Rather than answering his question, they replied by saying that they would not have brought Jesus to Pilate if He was not guilty of something. When the religious leaders would not tell him what they were accusing Jesus of, he questioned Jesus directly. Let us take a lesson from Jesus, when the opponents of Christianity have accused us of non-specific wrong doing, we should not testify against ourselves. When Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king, Jesus replied by asking Pilate if that was his own idea, or did someone else suggest it to him. Jesus responded that His kingdom was not of this world. He had no intention of mounting a revolution and violently overthrowing the political order of the day.
    Pilate then asked the natural question, if Jesus did not intend to overthrow the political order, why did the local political leaders desire His death? Jesus’ answer was that He came to testify to the truth. The implication here is that the powers-that-be are threatened by the truth. Pilate then stated the question so many ask when they desire to dismiss their own wrong-doing, “What is truth?” I follow Christ and believe that there is objective truth to be learned. It is not that I believe that I know that truth in its entirety, but I know that such truth exists and desire to learn it. Those who wish to justify their own actions will often deny that there is such a thing as objective truth. Let us never fall for that deception and continue to seek to know God’s Truth.

    As David fled Jerusalem ahead of his son Absalom’s army, he was cursed by Shimei, who was from the same clan as Saul. When one of David’s men sought to strike Shimei down, David prevented him. From later passages it seems that Shimei played some important role in the Kingdom of Israel. David was unwilling to damage the running of the Kingdom in order as part of his struggle for power with Absalom. He did not strike down Shimei, even though Shimei was opposing him, when doing so would not advance his position in his struggle with Absalom.