Leviticus 26 - 27, Acts 18 - 19, Psalm 88

He Walks Among Those Who Walk in His Statutes

26‘You shall not make for yourselves ¹^,^aidols, nor shall you set up for yourselves ^ba graven image or ^ca sacred pillar, nor shall you ²place a ^dcarved stone in your land to bow down ³to it; for I am Yahweh your God. ²‘^aYou shall keep My sabbaths and fear My sanctuary; I am Yahweh. ³‘^aIf you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to do them, ⁴then ^aI shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will give forth its produce and the trees of the field will give forth their fruit. ⁵‘^aIndeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your ¹food to the full and ^blive securely in your land. ⁶‘^aI shall also give you peace in the land so that ^byou may lie down, with no one making you tremble. ^cI shall also eliminate wild beasts from the land, and ^dno sword will pass through your land. ⁷‘But you will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword; ⁸^aand five of you will pursue one hundred, and one hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. ⁹‘So I will turn toward you and ^amake you fruitful and multiply you, and I will ^bconfirm My covenant with you. ¹⁰‘^aAnd you will eat the old supply and clear out the old because of the new. ¹¹‘^aMoreover, I will ¹make My ²dwelling among you, and My soul will not loathe you. ¹²‘^aI will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. ¹³‘^aI am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and ^bI broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Reject His Statutes and He Will Strike You

¹⁴‘^aBut if you do not obey Me and do not do all these commandments, ¹⁵if, instead, you ^areject My statutes, and if your soul loathes My judgments so as not to do all My commandments and so ^bbreak My covenant, ¹⁶I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a ^asudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the ^bsoul to pine away; also, ^cyou will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. ¹⁷‘And I will ¹set My face against you so that you will be ²defeated before your enemies; and ^athose who hate you will have dominion over you, and ^byou will flee when no one is pursuing you. ¹⁸‘If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will discipline you ^aseven times more for your sins. ¹⁹‘I will also ^abreak down your pride of strength; I will also give your sky over to become like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰‘^aAnd your power will be spent uselessly, for your land will not give forth its produce and the trees of the land will not give forth their fruit.

²¹‘If then, you ^awalk in hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you ^bseven times according to your sins. ²²‘^aAnd I will send out among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and cut down your cattle and reduce your number so that ^byour roads lie desolate.

²³‘^aAnd if by these things you do not accept My discipline, but walk in hostility against Me, ²⁴then I will ^awalk in hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you ^bseven times for your sins. ²⁵‘I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute ^avengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send ^bpestilence among you so that you shall be given over into enemy hands. ²⁶‘^aWhen I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by rationed weight so that you will ^beat and not become full.

²⁷‘Yet, if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but walk in hostility against Me, ²⁸then ^aI will walk in wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will discipline you seven times for your sins. ²⁹‘Further, ^ayou will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. ³⁰‘I then ^awill destroy your high places and cut down your ^bincense altars and give your corpses to lie on the corpses of your idols, for My soul shall loathe you. ³¹‘And I will give your cities over as a ^awaste and will make your ^bsanctuaries desolate, and I will not ^csmell your soothing aromas. ³²‘And I will make ^athe land desolate, ^bso that your enemies who inhabit it will themselves feel desolate because of it. ³³‘You, however, I ^awill scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.

³⁴‘^aThen the land will make up for its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, and you will be in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and make up for its sabbaths. ³⁵‘All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. ³⁶‘As for those of you who may remain, I will also bring ^aweakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee ¹as though from the sword, and they will fall. ³⁷‘^aThey will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength ¹to stand up before your enemies. ³⁸‘But ^ayou will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you. ³⁹‘^aSo those of you who may remain will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them.

⁴⁰‘^aIf they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also how they walked in hostility against Me— ⁴¹I also was walking in hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—^aor if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that ^bthey then make up for their iniquity, ⁴²then I will remember ^aMy covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also ^bMy covenant with Isaac and ^cMy covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. ⁴³‘^aFor the land will be forsaken by them and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making up for their iniquity ¹because they rejected My judgments and their ^bsoul loathed My statutes. ⁴⁴‘Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so ^aloathe them as ^bto bring an end to them, ^cbreaking My covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. ⁴⁵‘But I will remember for them the ^acovenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that ^bI might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”

⁴⁶^aThese are the statutes and judgments and laws which Yahweh has given to be between Himself and the sons of Israel by the hand of Moses at Mount Sinai.

Holy to Yahweh

27Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘^aWhen a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to Yahweh. ³‘If your valuation is of the male from twenty years even to sixty years old, then your valuation shall be ¹fifty shekels of silver, according to ^athe shekel of the sanctuary. ⁴‘Or if it is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels. ⁵‘If it be from five years even to twenty years old then your valuation for the male shall be twenty shekels and for the female ten shekels. ⁶‘But if they are from a month even up to five years old, then your valuation shall be ^afive shekels of silver for the male, and for the female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver. ⁷‘If they are from sixty years old and upward, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. ⁸‘But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be ¹presented before the priest, and the priest shall value him; ^aaccording to ²the means of the one who vowed, the priest shall value him.

⁹‘Now if it is an animal of the kind which ¹men can bring near as an offering to Yahweh, any such that one gives to Yahweh shall be holy. ¹⁰‘^aHe shall not replace it or exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good; or if he does exchange animal for animal, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. ¹¹‘If, however, it is any unclean animal of the kind which ¹men do not bring near as an offering to Yahweh, then he shall ²present the animal before the priest. ¹²‘And the priest shall value it ¹as either good or bad; as you, the priest, value it, so it shall be. ¹³‘But if he should ever wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of it to your valuation.

¹⁴‘Now if a man sets his house apart as holy to Yahweh, then the priest shall value it ¹as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. ¹⁵‘Yet if the one who sets it apart as holy should wish to redeem his house, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may be his.

¹⁶‘Again, if a man sets apart as holy to Yahweh a portion of the fields of his own possession, then your valuation shall be ¹proportionate to the seed needed for it: a ²homer of barley seed at ³fifty shekels of silver. ¹⁷‘If he sets apart his field as holy from the year of jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. ¹⁸‘If he sets apart his field as holy after the jubilee, however, then the priest shall calculate the price for ¹him ²proportionate to the years that are left until the year of jubilee; and it shall be deducted from your valuation. ¹⁹‘If the one who sets it apart as holy should ever wish to redeem the field, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it so that it may stand as his own. ²⁰‘Yet if he will not redeem the field, ¹but has sold the field to another man, it may no longer be redeemed; ²¹and it will be that when it ¹reverts in the jubilee, the field shall be holy to Yahweh, like a field that is ²devoted; ^ait shall be for the priest as his possession. ²²‘Or if he sets apart as holy to Yahweh a field which he has bought, which is not a portion of the field of his own possession, ²³then the priest shall calculate for ¹him the amount of your valuation up to the year of jubilee; and he shall on that day give your valuation as holy to Yahweh. ²⁴‘In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it, to whom the possession of the land belongs. ²⁵‘Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be according to ^athe shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty ¹gerahs.

²⁶‘^aHowever, a firstborn among animals, which as a firstborn belongs to Yahweh, no man may set it apart as holy; whether ox or sheep, it is Yahweh’s. ²⁷‘But if it is among the unclean animals, then he shall ¹ransom it according to your valuation and add to it one-fifth of it; and if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.

²⁸‘Nevertheless, ^aanything which a man ¹devotes to Yahweh out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own possession, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything ²devoted to destruction is most holy to Yahweh. ²⁹‘No ¹one who may have been ²devoted among men shall be ³ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

³⁰‘Thus ^aall the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, belongs to Yahweh; it is holy to Yahweh. ³¹‘If, therefore, a man wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he shall add to it one-fifth of it. ³²‘For every tenth part of herd or flock, whatever ^apasses under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to Yahweh. ³³‘^aHe shall not inquire whether it is good or bad, nor shall he exchange it; or if he does exchange it, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. It shall not be redeemed.’”

³⁴^aThese are the commandments which Yahweh commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai.

In Corinth

18After these things he departed ^aAthens and went to ^bCorinth. ²And he found a Jew named ^aAquila, a native of ^bPontus, and his wife ^cPriscilla, who recently came from ^dItaly because ^eClaudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them, ³and because he was of the same trade, he was staying with them and ^athey were working, for by trade they were tent-makers. ⁴And he was reasoning ^ain the synagogue every ^bSabbath and trying to persuade both ^cJews and Greeks.

⁵But when ^aSilas and Timothy ^bcame down from ^cMacedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly ^dbearing witness to the Jews that ^eJesus is the ¹Christ. ⁶But when they resisted and blasphemed, he ^ashook out his garments and said to them, “Your ^bblood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go ^cto the Gentiles.” ⁷Then he left there and went to the house of a man named ¹Titius Justus, a ^aGod-fearer, whose house was next to the synagogue. ⁸^aAnd Crispus, ^bthe leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord ^cwith all his household, and many of the ^dCorinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized. ⁹And the Lord said to Paul in the night by ^aa vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent; ¹⁰for I am with you, and no man will lay a hand on you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” ¹¹And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

¹²But while Gallio was ^aproconsul of ^bAchaia, ^cthe Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before ^dthe judgment seat, ¹³saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to ^athe law.” ¹⁴But when Paul was about to ^aopen his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you; ¹⁵but if there are ^aquestions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I am not willing to be a judge of these matters.” ¹⁶And he drove them away from ^athe judgment seat. ¹⁷And they all took hold of ^aSosthenes, ^bthe leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of ^cthe judgment seat. But Gallio was not concerned about any of these things.

Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos

¹⁸And Paul, having remained many days longer, ^atook leave of ^bthe brothers and put out to sea for ^cSyria, and with him were ^dPriscilla and ^eAquila. In ^fCenchreae ¹he ^ghad his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow. ¹⁹And they arrived at ^aEphesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered ^bthe synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. ²⁰When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, ²¹but ^ataking leave of them and saying, “I will return to you again ^bif God wills,” he set sail from ^cEphesus.

²²And when he had landed at ^aCaesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and went down to ^bAntioch. ²³And having spent some time there, he left and passed successively through the ^aGalatian region and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

²⁴Now a Jew named ^aApollos, an ^bAlexandrian by birth, ¹an eloquent man, arrived at ^cEphesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. ²⁵This man had been instructed in ^athe way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with ^bthe baptism of John; ²⁶and ¹he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when ^aPriscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him ^bthe way of God more accurately. ²⁷And when he wanted to go across to ^aAchaia, ^bthe brothers encouraged him and wrote to ^cthe disciples to welcome him; and when he had arrived, he greatly ¹helped those who had believed through grace, ²⁸for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating ^aby the Scriptures that ^bJesus is the ¹Christ.

Paul in Ephesus

19Now it happened that while ^aApollos was at ^bCorinth, Paul passed through the ^cupper regions and came to ^dEphesus and found some disciples. ²And he said to them, “^aDid you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, ^bwe have not even heard if the Holy Spirit is being received.” ³And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “^aInto John’s baptism.” ⁴Then Paul said, “^aJohn baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people ^bto believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵And when they heard this, they were ^abaptized ¹in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶And when Paul had ^alaid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began ^bspeaking with tongues and ^cprophesying. ⁷Now there were in all about twelve men.

⁸And after he entered ^athe synagogue, he continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them ^babout the kingdom of God. ⁹But when ^asome were becoming hardened and were not believing, speaking evil of ^bthe Way before the multitude, he left them and took away ^cthe disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. ¹⁰This took place for ^atwo years, so that all who lived in ¹^,^bAsia heard ^cthe word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Miracles in Ephesus

¹¹And God was doing ^aextraordinary ¹miracles by the hands of Paul, ¹²^aso that cloths or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and ^bthe evil spirits went out. ¹³But also some of the Jewish ^aexorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I implore you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” ¹⁴Now seven sons of one named Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. ¹⁵And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” ¹⁶And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them, subdued all of them, and utterly prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. ¹⁷And this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in ^aEphesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. ¹⁸Also, many of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. ¹⁹And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and were burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand ¹^,^apieces of silver. ²⁰So ¹^,^athe word of the Lord ^bwas growing mightily and prevailing.

Riots in Ephesus

²¹Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the ¹Spirit to ^ago to Jerusalem ^bafter he had passed through ^cMacedonia and ^dAchaia, saying, “After I have been there, ^eI must also see Rome.” ²²And having sent into ^aMacedonia two of ^bthose who ministered to him, ^cTimothy and ^dErastus, he himself stayed in ¹^,^eAsia for a while.

²³Now about that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning ^athe Way. ²⁴For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of ¹Artemis, ^awas bringing no little ²business to the craftsmen; ²⁵these he gathered together with the workers of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity is from this business. ²⁶“And you see and hear that not only in ^aEphesus, but in almost all of ^bAsia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable crowd, saying that ^cthings made with hands are not gods. ²⁷“And not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess ¹Artemis be considered as worthless and that she, whom all of ^aAsia and ^bthe ²world worship, is even about to be brought down from her majesty.”

²⁸When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is ¹Artemis of the ^aEphesians!” ²⁹And the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed ¹with one accord into the theater, dragging along ^aGaius and ^bAristarchus, Paul’s traveling ^ccompanions from ^dMacedonia. ³⁰And when Paul wanted to go into the ¹assembly, ^athe disciples would not let him. ³¹Also some of the ¹Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and repeatedly urged him not to ²venture into the theater. ³²^aSo then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the ¹meeting was in confusion and the majority did not know ²for what reason they had come together. ³³And some of the crowd ¹concluded it was Alexander, since the Jews had put him forward; and having ^amotioned with his hand, Alexander was intending to make a defense to the ²assembly. ³⁴But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single cry arose from them all as they shouted for about two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” ³⁵Now after calming the crowd, the city clerk *said, “Men of ^aEphesus, what man is there after all who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image which fell down from heaven? ³⁶“So, since these are undeniable facts, you ought to keep calm and to do nothing rash. ³⁷“For you have brought these men here who are neither ^arobbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess. ³⁸“So then, if Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are in session and ¹^,^aproconsuls are available; let them bring charges against one another. ³⁹“But if you want anything beyond this, it shall be settled in the ¹lawful meeting. ⁴⁰“For indeed we are in danger of being accused of a riot in connection with today’s events, since there is no cause for which we can give as an account for this disorderly gathering.” ⁴¹After saying this he dismissed the meeting.

Incline Your Ear to My Cry

A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the choir director. According to Mahalath Leannoth. A ¹Maskil of Heman ²the Ezrahite.

O Yahweh, the ^aGod of my salvation,I have ^bcried out by day and throughout the night before You.²Let my prayer ^acome before You;^bIncline Your ear to my cry of lamentation!³For my ^asoul has been saturated with calamities,And ^bmy life has reached Sheol.⁴I am counted among those who ^ago down to the pit;I am like a man ^bwithout strength,⁵Released ^aamong the dead,Like the slain who lie in the grave,Whom You remember no more,And they are ^bcut off from Your hand.⁶You have put me in ^athe pit far below,In ^bdark places, in the ^cdepths.⁷Your wrath ^alies upon me,And You afflict me with ^ball Your breaking waves. ¹ Selah.⁸You have removed ^amy acquaintances far from me;You have set me as ¹an ^babomination to them;I am ^cshut up and cannot go out.⁹My ^aeye has wasted away because of affliction;I have ^bcalled upon You every day, O Yahweh;I have ^cspread out my ¹hands to You.¹⁰Will You do wonders for the dead?Will ^athe ¹departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.¹¹Will Your lovingkindness be recounted in the grave,Your faithfulness in ¹Abaddon?¹²Will Your wonders be known in the ^adarkness?And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?¹³But as for me, O Yahweh, I have cried out ^ato You for help,And ^bin the morning my prayer comes before You.¹⁴O Yahweh, why ^ado You reject my soul?Why do You ^bhide Your face from me?¹⁵I have been afflicted and ^aabout to breathe my last from my youth on;I bear ^bYour terrors; I am ¹overcome.¹⁶Your ^aburning anger has passed over me;Your horrors have ¹^,^bdestroyed me.¹⁷They have ^asurrounded me ^blike water all day long;They have ^cencompassed me altogether.¹⁸You have removed ^alover and friend far from me;My acquaintances are in darkness.