Day 246: Rejoice in Doing Good (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 246 We're reading three chapters today, Jeremiah 32, as well as Judith chapters 1 and 2, which is a new book for us, maybe a new book for you entirely because of the fact that in Catholic Bibles and Orthodox Bibles, Judith is there, but in some Protestant Bibles, it is not. So this will be a great introduction to all of us, to Judith 1 and 2, as well as Proverbs 16, verses 25 through 28 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 by clicking on subscribe and you receive daily updates and help the algorithm when it comes to the visibility of this podcast. As I said, today is day 246 Well done by the way. Jeremiah 32, Judith 1 and 2 in Proverbs 16, 25-28.
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 32 Jeremiah buys a field at Amethoth. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time, the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah. For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had imprisoned him, saying, Why do you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Zedekiah, king of Judah, shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye, and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, says the Lord. Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed. Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me. Behold, Hanamel, the son of Shalom, your uncle will come to you and say, By my field, which is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours. Then Hanamel, my cousin, came to me in the court of the guard in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, Buy my field, which is at Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. And I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel, my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions and the open copy, and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Nerea, the son of Messiah, in the presence of Hanamel, my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. I charged Baruch in their presence saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
God's Assurance of the People's Return After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying, Ah, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you, who show mercy to thousands, but repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them. O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of men, rewarding every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings, who have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and to this day in Israel and among all mankind, and have made you a name as at this day. You brought your people Israel, out of the land of Egypt, with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror. And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore, you have made all this evil come upon them. Behold, the siege-mounts have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence, the city is given to the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.