For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    Greedy people strive to profit from conflicts and wars, doing everything they can to make them worse so that they can gain from others misfortune. However, those who trust God, and therefore follow His commands, will prosper in the long run.

    Take your troubles to the Lord. Cry out to Him in prayer and He will answer you. Be honest even when those around you are deceitful and God will rescue you. Search for peace even when those among whom you live seek violence and war.

    The writer wrote this letter to teach us how to not sin. However, he points out that if we do sin, we have an advocate who will plead our case before God. That advocate is Jesus Christ. It does us no good to have an advocate with God if we do not know God. The writer tells us that everyone who knows God will obey God’s commands (perhaps intermittently, but obey nonetheless). The key command is both new and old. This new and old command is that we love one another. The command to love one another is old because it goes back to Moses and before. On the other hand it is new because Jesus gave us an example of what it means to live following it.
    The writer goes on to write that if we live in God’s light(returning to the theme he introduced in yesterday’s passage) we will not love this world or the things which it offers. The world offers only selfish pleasures, while God offers us the opportunity to help and serve others. Rather than seek after the pleasures of this world in an effort to please ourselves, let us do those things which please God.

    In today’s passage, Daniel describes another vision. In this vision, he saw the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander the Great and the divide of Alexander’s Empire into four pieces. It is explained to Daniel that a ruler will rise over one of those pieces who will dominate those around him and commit sacrilege against the Temple and God. That final ruler will be brought down by the power of God. While most of this vision is concerning the things which happened from the fall of the Persian Empire until the rise of the Roman Empire, there is a lesson here for us to note. Rulers will arise who believe they have the power to take on God and His people. They may have success for a short time, but God will always triumph.