Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises
Surprise of the Day
When people hold back from giving to God,
they lose more than their contribution would have been.
Haggai 1:1-11 and Haggai 2:19
Fact of the Day
- 538 BC – King Cyrus allowed his enslaved Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple and city. They completed the foundation amid enemies.
- 520 BC – King Darius I defended the Jews to their enemies and gave them what they needed to finish their temple.
- 518 BC – The Jews had done nothing. So prophet Haggai stepped in on behalf of God.
- 516 BC – They finally finished rebuilding their 2nd temple.
- THE JEWS: “It is not time to finish the temple”.
- GOD: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
- THE JEWS: “We’re earning wages, but put them in purses with holes in them.”
- GOD: “What you brought home, I blew away. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
- THE JEWS: “Why?”
- GOD: “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.”
- THE JEWS: “We’re sorry.”
- GOD: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,
So, two years later they finished building the temple. And what did God have to say then?
“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”
YOU’RE SMART. READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.



The scripture for today, August 7 (8/7), is Hosea 8:7 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:
“Then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing down on his own head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty and so establish his innocence.”
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”
“Then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing down on his own head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty and so establish his innocence.’