Habakkuk 1:5-11 – NIV
5. “Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. 6. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. 8. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour; 9. they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. 10. They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them. 11. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”
Mark 4:1-20 – NIV
1. Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2. He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3. “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” 9. Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” 10. When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12. so that, “ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’ ” 13. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14. The farmer sows the word. 15. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19. but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
Malachi 1:8 – NIV
8. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty.
Jude 1:17-19 – NIV
17. But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19. These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
3 John 1:10 – NIV
10. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.
Zechariah 6:1-3 – NIV
1. I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze. 2. The first chariot had red horses, the second black, 3. the third white, and the fourth dappled—all of them powerful.
Ezekiel 19:1-5 – NIV
1. “Take up a lament concerning the princes of Israel 2. and say: “ ‘What a lioness was your mother among the lions! She lay down among them and reared her cubs. 3. She brought up one of her cubs, and he became a strong lion. He learned to tear the prey and he became a man-eater. 4. The nations heard about him, and he was trapped in their pit. They led him with hooks to the land of Egypt. 5. “ ‘When she saw her hope unfulfilled, her expectation gone, she took another of her cubs and made him a strong lion.