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: 

Everlasting Father,

All time belongs to you, and all the ages. In signs, in songs, in words of promise, you reassured your chosen ones, “I am with you; fear not.” You taught them through the prophets to trust that your saving deeds were not limited to the past.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled “all that was written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

The Church has found him everywhere in these same holy books.

Help me to find Jesus in my reading today, to listen to him, and to follow him with all my heart.

Amen.

Today's chapters are Isaiah 10-12.

Don't let the unfamiliar names in Chapter 10 distract you from God's mighty promises! He is assuring his people that, although he permits Jerusalem to be conquered by foreign nations because of the betrayal of the covenant, the Holy City's conquerers will be judged for every inch of excess they indulge in. Historic disasters serve as exemplars.

In Chapter 11 we find another Emmanuel prophecy. If you ever made an Advent Jesse Tree, it was inspired by Is 11:1. If you ever memorized the "gifts of the Holy Spirit," that list (wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord) came from the next two verses. In this prophecy, God is promising that King David's ancestral line still has a future and that future is nothing less than a new creation! The image of the "peaceable kingdom" in which all of creation is restored ("the wolf shall lie down with the lamb") comes from this chapter of Isaiah.

Start reading 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.