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JANUARY 4
tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be up immediately from the water; and behold,
baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw
15 But Jesus answered and said to him, “Per- the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
mit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice
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fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. came from heaven, saying, “This is My
16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

DAY 3:What is the difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees?
The Pharisees were a small (about 6,000), legalistic sect of the Jews.Their name means “sepa-
rated ones,”not in the sense of isolationists but in the puritanical sense, i.e., they were highly zeal-
ous for ritual and religious purity according to the Mosaic Law as well as their own traditions that
they added to the Old Testament legislation. They represented the orthodox core of Judaism and
very strongly influenced the common people of Israel. Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees was
usually adversarial. He rebuked them for using human tradition to nullify Scripture (15:3–9), and
especially for rank hypocrisy (15:7,8; 22:18; 23:13,23,25,29; Luke 12:1).
The Sadducees were known for their denial of things supernatural.They denied the resurrec-
tion of the dead (22:23) and the existence of angels (Acts 23:8). Unlike the Pharisees, they rejected
human tradition and scorned legalism. They accepted only the Pentateuch as authoritative. They
tended to be wealthy,aristocratic,members of the priestly tribe,and in the days of Herod their sect
controlled the temple, though they were fewer in number than the Pharisees.
Pharisees and Sadducees had little in common. Pharisees were ritualists; Sadducees were
rationalists.Pharisees were legalists;Sadducees were liberals.Pharisees were separatists;Sadducees
were compromisers and political opportunists. Yet they united together in their opposition of
Christ (22:15,16,23,34,35). John publicly addressed them as deadly snakes.

year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the
January 4 seventeenth day of the month, on that day all
the fountains of the great deep were broken
up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and
Genesis 7:1–8:22
forty nights.
Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into 13 On the very same day Noah and Noah’s
7 the ark, you and all your household, sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s
because I have seen that you are righteous wife and the three wives of his sons with them,
before Me in this generation. You shall take entered the ark— they and every beast after
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with you seven each of every clean animal, a its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creep-
male and his female; two each of animals that ing thing that creeps on the earth after its
are unclean, a male and his female; also seven
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each of birds of the air, male and female, to
keep the species alive on the face of all the
earth. For after seven more days I will cause
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it to rain on the earth forty days and forty 7:11 all the fountains of the great deep were
nights, and I will destroy from the face of the broken up. The subterranean waters sprang
earth all living things that I have made.” And up from deep fountains inside the earth to
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form the seas and rivers (1:10; 2:10–14), which
Noah did according to all that the LORD com- were not produced by rainfall, since it never
manded him. Noah was six hundred years old rained before the Flood. the windows of
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when the floodwaters were on the earth. heaven. The celestial waters in the canopy
So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his encircling the globe were dumped on the
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sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the earth and joined with the terrestrial and the
waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals subterranean waters (see 1:7). The Flood
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that are unclean, of birds, and of everything ended the water canopy surrounding the
that creeps on the earth, two by two they earth and unleashed the water in the earth.
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went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as Thus began the earth’s cycle of hydrology,
God had commanded Noah. And it came to with rain and evaporation (see Job 26:8; Eccl.
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pass after seven days that the waters of the 1:7; Is. 55:10; Amos 9:6).
flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth
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