Day 236: Rich in Love (2026)

**Fr. Mike Schmitz** (0:04)
Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story. Today, it is day 236 Congratulations. I know I might say that more often than I need to, but I have to say, you guys, day 236, that's not a small thing. That's like a pretty significant thing, and I'm just really proud of you. So we're reading today from Jeremiah chapter 16 and 17, Ezekiel chapter 45 and 46 We're also reading Proverbs 15 verses 17 through 20 As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast in case you weren't aware of that, didn't know that. It might be a secret, actually something I don't like talking about very often, but I figured it's Day 236 I might as well let you in on a secret that you can actually subscribe to this podcast by clicking on subscribe and then you get daily updates and you get also a whole host of traits that are completely free. As I said, it's Day 236 We're reading Jeremiah 16 and 17, Ezekiel 45 and 46, Proverbs 15 verses 17 through 20
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 16, Jeremiah's Celibacy and Message. The word of the Lord came to me. You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place and concerning the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who begot them in this land. They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.
For thus says the Lord, Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament, or bemoan them. For I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, my steadfast love and mercy. Both great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, and no one shall lament them, or cut himself, or make himself bald for them. No one shall break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead. Nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will make to cease from this place before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. And when you tell this people all these words and they say to you, Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law. And because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore, I will hurl you out of this land, into a land which neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.
God will restore Israel. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, as the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land which I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. And I will doubly recompense their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols and have filled my inheritance with their abominations. O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say, Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can man make for himself gods? Such are no gods. Therefore, behold, I will make them know. This once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.