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Old Testament Reading - An Invitation to Abundant Life

¹Say there! Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink — even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine and milk — it’s all free! ²Why spend your money on food that doesn’t give you strength? Why pay for groceries that do you no good? Listen and I’ll tell you where to get good food that fattens up the soul!

³Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, for the life of your soul is at stake. I am ready to make an everlasting covenant with you, to give you all the unfailing mercies and love that I had for King David.^{a 4}He proved my power by conquering foreign nations.^{b 5}You also will command the nations, and they will come running to obey, not because of your own power or virtue, but because I, the Lord your God, have glorified you.

⁶Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call upon him now while he is near. ⁷Let men cast off their wicked deeds; let them banish from their minds the very thought of doing wrong! Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy upon them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon! ⁸This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours! ⁹For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.

¹⁰As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, ¹¹so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it.

1. See 2 Samuel 7 for the terms of God’s covenant with David here remembered.
2. Implied