
"Go and proclaim
in the ears of
"I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth,
The love of your betrothals,
Your following after Me in the
wilderness,
Through a land not sown.
"
The first of His harvest.
All who ate of it became guilty;
Evil came upon them," declares the LORD.'"
Then Miriam and
Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite
woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite
woman); and they said, "Has the LORD indeed spoken only through
Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?" And the LORD heard it. (Now
the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the
earth.) Suddenly the LORD said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam,
"You three come out to the tent of meeting." So the three of them came out. Then
the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both
come forward, He said,
"Hear now My words:
If there is a prophet among you,
I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to
him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream.
"Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household;
With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the LORD.
Why then were you not afraid
To speak against My servant, against
Moses?"
But there will be
no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated
the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it
glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the
Gentiles.
"Let me pass through
your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water
from wells. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your
border."
"But you shall
seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all your
tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come. There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your
tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill
offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. There
also you and your households shall eat before the LORD your God, and rejoice in
all your undertakings in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
"You shall not do
at all what we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right
in his own eyes; for you have not as yet come to the resting place
and the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving you. When
you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the LORD your God is giving you
to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so
that you live in security, then it shall come about that the place
in which the LORD your God will choose for His name to dwell, there you shall
bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your
tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice votive offerings
which you will vow to the LORD. And you shall rejoice before the
LORD your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants,
and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance
with you.
"Be careful that
you do not offer your burnt offerings in every cultic place you see, but
in the place which the LORD chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall
offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
"However, you
may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates, whatever you desire,
according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you; the
unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer.
The king of
Then the king of
Assyria commanded, saying, "Take there one of the priests whom you carried away
into exile and let him go and live there; and let him teach them the custom of
the god of the land." So one of the priests whom they had carried
away into exile from
But every nation
still made gods of its own and put them in the houses of the high places which
the people of
To this day they
do according to the earlier customs: they do not fear the LORD, nor do they
follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law, or the commandments which
the LORD commanded the sons of Jacob, whom He named Israel; with
whom the LORD made a covenant and commanded them, saying, "You shall not fear
other gods, nor bow down yourselves to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to
them. But the LORD, who brought you up from the land of Egypt
with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, and to Him
you shall bow yourselves down, and to Him you shall sacrifice. The
statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment which He wrote for
you, you shall observe to do forever; and you shall not fear other gods. The
covenant that I have made with you, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear
other gods. But the LORD your God you shall fear; and He will
deliver you from the hand of all your enemies." However, they did
not listen, but they did according to their earlier custom. So
while these nations feared the LORD, they also served their idols; their
children likewise and their grandchildren, as their fathers did, so they do to
this day.
Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan
the scribe, "I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan
who read it. Shaphan the scribe came to the king and brought back
word to the king and said, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was
found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have
the oversight of the house of the LORD." Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king saying, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.
When the king
heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Then
the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah
the king's servant saying, "Go, inquire of the LORD for me and the
people and all Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found, for
great is the wrath of the LORD that burns against us, because our fathers have
not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that is written
concerning us."
"But you shall
seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all
your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall
come.
And a lawyer stood
up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law?
How does it read to you?" And he answered, "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as
yourself." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; do
this and you will live." But wishing to justify himself, he said
to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied
and said, "A man was going down from
Scripture taken from the NEW A
(c) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995 by
The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
(www.Lockman.org)
© 2003 Near East Tourist Agency (NET)
Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur