Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

My God, I adore and thank your loving and wise Providence, manifested on every page of Sacred Scripture. You have always been close to sinful and erring humanity, and have indicated the way and given hope. Amid the shadows of error and corruption, you kindled the light of your truth; amid universal corruption, you are the Just One; amid so much idolatry, humanity in every corner of the earth has cultivated a sincere worship of you.
Let my reading today increase my trust in your goodness, your mercy, and your unfailing faithfulness.

Today's chapters are 2 Kings 24-25, 1 Chronicles 1, and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 61 and 62.

Today's final chapters of the Second Book of Kings narrate the unthinkable: not just the fall of Jerusalem, but the destruction of the Temple of the One True God.  The great prophets at this time (circa 597 BC)  were Jeremiah and Ezekiel, so we will revisit these days more than once. Jeremiah predicted both the exile and its duration (70 years; Jer 25) and the destruction of the Temple. Ezekiel, a Temple priest, had a vision of God leaving his Temple, desecrated by idols. Jeremiah was such a thorn in the king's side that Johoiakim had the scrolls Jeremiah's secretary Baruch read from burned (Jer 36)! As Jeremiah had warned, the Babylonians, the new masters of the world, came into Jerusalem, stripped the city of all valuables, appointed a puppet king and deported the vast majority of the people to Babylon while the Temple of the Lord was ransacked and then burned to a pile of ash. Ezekiel was one of the exiles; Jeremiah and Baruch were sentenced to remain in the forlorn city of Jerusalem (but I am getting ahead of myself)...

And so we begin a new book of the Bible (yay!). 

The name of the next two books varies according to the translation of the Bible. Most versions simply go with First and Second Book of Chronicles. Older Catholic Bibles based on the Greek Septuagint translation call them 1 and 2 Paralipomenon, meaning "things left over." Jerome called it "Chronicle of the whole Sacred History" (we would say "Salvation History"). It may seem as though we will be rereading some of the same things we just got through in the books of Samuel and of Kings! Scholars say that the Books of Chronicles may have originally been one big writing project along with the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, dating shortly after the return of the community from Babylon. Because of this, the emphasis is on the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin and on the priestly tribe of Levi (because of the Temple connection).

Psalm 61 asks God to hear the petitioner who calls "from the ends of the earth." It is a fitting Psalm for an exile.

Start reading here, 1 Chronicles here, and the Psalms here.

If you are looking for a solid but approachable companion to the Bible, I can wholeheartedly recommend A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. Although the authors are top-level Scripture scholars, they write for "real" readers. Notes include recent findings from archaeology and ancient manuscripts, and how each book of the Bible has been understood by the Church Fathers and used in Liturgy.