I am he – Day 1

₁Jesus went on into Jericho and was passing through. ₂There was a chief tax collector there named Zacchaeus, who was rich. ₃He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowd. ₄So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycomore tree to see Jesus, who was going to pass that way. ₅When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus, “Hurry down, Zacchaeus, because I must stay in your house today.”

₆Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him with great joy. ₇All the people who saw it started grumbling, “This man has gone as a guest to the home of a sinner!”

₈Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Listen, sir! I will give half my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times as much.”

₉Jesus said to him, “Salvation has come to this house today, for this man, also, is a descendant of Abraham. ₁₀The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

₁₀When Daniel learnt that the order had been signed, he went home. In an upstairs room of his house there were windows that faced towards Jerusalem. There, just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

₁₁When Daniel's enemies observed him praying to God, ₁₂all of them went together to the king to accuse Daniel. They said, “Your Majesty, you signed an order that for the next thirty days anyone who requested anything from any god or from any human being except you, would be thrown into a pit filled with lions.”

The king replied, “Yes, a strict order, a law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed.”

₁₈This was how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. ₁₉Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement privately. ₂₀While he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. ₂₁She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus — because he will save his people from their sins.”

₂₄So when Joseph woke up, he married Mary, as the angel of the Lord had told him to do. ₂₅But he had no sexual relations with her before she gave birth to her son. And Joseph named him Jesus.

₂₄He spent his life in fellowship with God, and then he disappeared, because God took him away.

₅It was faith that kept Enoch from dying. Instead, he was taken up to God, and nobody could find him, because God had taken him up. The scripture says that before Enoch was taken up, he had pleased God.

₁₂The LORD's angel appeared to him there and said, “The LORD is with you, brave and mighty man!”

₁₃Gideon said to him, “If I may ask, sir, why has all this happened to us if the LORD is with us? What about all the wonderful things that our fathers told us the LORD used to do — how he brought them out of Egypt? The LORD has abandoned us and left us to the mercy of the Midianites.”

₂₄One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (called the Twin), was not with them when Jesus came. ₂₅So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

₂₆A week later the disciples were together again indoors, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ₂₇Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands; then stretch out your hand and put it in my side. Stop your doubting, and believe!”

₂₈Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

₂₉Jesus said to him, “Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me!”

₆₉Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard when one of the High Priest's servant women came to him and said, “You, too, were with Jesus of Galilee.”

₇₀But he denied it in front of them all. “I don't know what you are talking about,” he answered, ₇₁and went on out to the entrance of the courtyard. Another servant woman saw him and said to the men there, “He was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

₇₂Again Peter denied it and answered, “I swear that I don't know that man!”

₇₃After a little while the men standing there came to Peter. “Of course you are one of them,” they said. “After all, the way you speak gives you away!”

₇₄Then Peter said, “I swear that I am telling the truth! May God punish me if I am not! I do not know that man!”

Just then a cock crowed, ₇₅and Peter remembered what Jesus had told him: “Before the cock crows, you will say three times that you do not know me.” He went out and wept bitterly.

₁The following spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, David sent out Joab with his officers and the Israelite army; they defeated the Ammonites and besieged the city of Rabbah. But David himself stayed in Jerusalem.

₂One day, late in the afternoon, David got up from his nap and went to the palace roof. As he walked about up there, he saw a woman having a bath. She was very beautiful. ₃So he sent a messenger to find out who she was, and learnt that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. ₄David sent messengers to fetch her; they brought her to him and he made love to her. (She had just finished her monthly ritual of purification.) Then she went back home. ₅Afterwards she discovered that she was pregnant and sent a message to David to tell him.