Deuteronomy 25 - 26, 2 Corinthians 3 - 4, Psalms 120 - 122

25“^aIf there is a dispute between men and they go to court for judgment, and ¹the judges judge their case, ^band they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, ²then it shall be if the wicked man ¹^,^adeserves to be struck, the judge shall then make him lie down and be struck in his presence with the number of stripes according to his ²guilt. ³“^aHe may strike him forty times but no more, lest he strike him with many more stripes than these and your brother be ^bdishonored in your eyes.

⁴“^aYou shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing.

⁵“If brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, then the wife of the one who died shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. ^aHer husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶“And it will be that the firstborn whom she bears shall ¹assume the name of his dead brother, so that ^ahis name will not be blotted out from Israel. ⁷“^aBut if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to raise up a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸“Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he stands and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’ ⁹^athen his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and ^bspit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰“And in Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal is removed.’

¹¹“If two men, a man and his brother, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and she puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, ¹²then you shall cut off her ¹hand; ²^,^ayou shall not show pity.

¹³“^aYou shall not have in your bag ¹differing weights, a large and a small. ¹⁴“You shall not have in your house ¹differing measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵“You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just ¹measure, ^athat your days may be prolonged in the ²land which Yahweh your God gives you. ¹⁶“For ^aeveryone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly, is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

¹⁷“^aRemember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, ¹⁸how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear, but you were faint and weary; and he ^adid not ¹fear God. ¹⁹“Therefore it will be, when Yahweh your God has given you ^arest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance to ¹possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.

Bringing First Fruits and Tithes

26“Then it will be, when you enter the land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance and you possess it and live in it, ²that you shall take some of ^athe first of all the fruit of the ground which you bring in from your land that Yahweh your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and ^bgo to the place where Yahweh your God chooses for His name to dwell. ³“And you shall go to the priest who is in office in those days and say to him, ‘I declare this day to Yahweh ¹my God that I have entered the land which Yahweh swore to our fathers to give us.’ ⁴“Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of Yahweh your God. ⁵“And you shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, ‘^aMy father was a ¹wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and ²sojourned there, ^bfew in number; but there he became a ^cgreat, mighty, and populous nation. ⁶‘And the ^aEgyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us and imposed hard slave labor on us. ⁷‘Then ^awe cried out to Yahweh, the God of our fathers, and Yahweh heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression; ⁸^aand Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders; ⁹and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, ^aa land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰‘So now behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground ^awhich You, O Yahweh, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before Yahweh your God and worship before Yahweh your God; ¹¹and you and ^athe Levite and the sojourner who is among you shall ^bbe glad in all the good which Yahweh your God has given you and your household.

¹²“^aWhen you have finished ¹paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the ²orphan, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates and be satisfied. ¹³“Then you shall say before Yahweh your God, ‘I have purged the sacred portion from my house, and I also have given it to the Levite and the sojourner, the ¹orphan and the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; ^aI have not trespassed against or forgotten any of Your commandments. ¹⁴‘I have not eaten of it ¹while mourning, nor have I purged any of it while I was unclean, nor have I given any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of Yahweh my God; I have done according to all that You have commanded me. ¹⁵‘^aLook down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the ground which You have given to us, ^ba land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers.’

¹⁶“This day Yahweh your God commands you to do these statutes and judgments. You shall therefore be careful to do them ^awith all your heart and with all your soul. ¹⁷“^aYou have today declared Yahweh to be your God, and ¹that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments, and listen to His voice. ¹⁸“And Yahweh has today declared you to be ^aHis people, a treasured possession, as He promised you, and ¹that you should keep all His commandments; ¹⁹and ¹that He will ^aset you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, a name, and beauty; and that you shall be ^ba holy people to Yahweh your God, as He has spoken.”

Ministers of a New Covenant

3Are we beginning to ^acommend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, ^bletters of commendation to you or from you? ²^aYou are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, ³being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, ^aministered to by us, having been written not with ink but with the Spirit of ^bthe living God, not on ^ctablets of stone but on ^dtablets of hearts of ^eflesh.

⁴And such ^aconfidence we have through Christ toward God. ⁵Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but ^aour sufficiency is from God, ⁶who also made us sufficient as ^aministers of a ^bnew covenant, not of ^cthe letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but ^dthe Spirit gives life.

⁷But if the ^aministry of death, ^bin letters having been engraved on stones, came ¹with glory, ^cso that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end, ⁸how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more in glory? ⁹For if ^athe ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ^bministry of righteousness abound in glory. ¹⁰For indeed what had been glorious, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹For if that which was being brought to an end was ¹with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

¹²^aTherefore having such a hope, ^bwe use great boldness, ¹³and are not like Moses, ^awho used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the consequence of what was being brought to an end. ¹⁴But their minds were ^ahardened; for until this very day at the ^breading of ^cthe old covenant the same veil ¹remains unlifted, because it is brought to an end in Christ. ¹⁵But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart, ¹⁶but ^awhenever a person turns to the ¹Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where ^athe Spirit of the Lord is, ^bthere is freedom. ¹⁸But we all, with unveiled face, ^abeholding as in a mirror the ^bglory of the Lord, are being ^ctransformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from ^dthe Lord, the Spirit.

The Gospel of the Glory of Christ

4Therefore, since we have this ^aministry, as we ^breceived mercy, we ^cdo not lose heart, ²but we have renounced the ^ahidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or ^badulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth ^ccommending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. ³And even if our ^agospel is ^bveiled, it is veiled ¹to ^cthose who are perishing, ⁴in whose case ^athe god of ^bthis age has ^cblinded the minds of the unbelieving ¹so that they might not see the ^dlight of the gospel of the ^eglory of Christ, who is the ^fimage of God. ⁵For we ^ado not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves ¹for the sake of Jesus. ⁶For God, who said, “^aLight shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has ^bshone in our hearts to give the ^cLight of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in ^aearthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of ^bthe power will be of God and not from ourselves; ⁸^ain every way afflicted, but not ^bcrushed; ^cperplexed, but not despairing; ⁹^apersecuted, but not ^bforsaken; ^cstruck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰^aalways carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that ^bthe life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. ¹¹For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹²So death works in us, but life in you.

¹³But having the same ^aspirit of faith, according to what is written, “^bI believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, ¹⁴knowing that He who ^araised the Lord Jesus ^bwill raise us also with Jesus and will ^cpresent us with you. ¹⁵For all things are ^afor your sakes, so that the grace which is ¹^,^bspreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

¹⁶Therefore we ^ado not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our ^binner man is ^cbeing renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our momentary, ^alight affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, ¹⁸while we ^alook not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

O Yahweh, Deliver My Soul

120

A Song of ¹Ascents.

^aIn my distress I called to Yahweh,And He answered me.²O Yahweh, deliver my soul from a ^alying lip,From a ^bdeceitful tongue.³What shall He give to you, and what shall He add to you,O ^adeceitful tongue?⁴^aSharp arrows of the warrior,With the burning ^bcoals of the broom tree.⁵Woe is me, for I sojourn in ^aMeshech,For I dwell among the ^btents of ^cKedar!⁶Too long has my soul had its dwellingWith those who ^ahate peace.⁷I ^aam for peace, but when I speak,They are ^bfor war.

My Help Comes from Yahweh

121

A Song of Ascents.

I will ^alift up my eyes to ^bthe mountains;From where shall my help come?²My ^ahelp comes from Yahweh,Who ^bmade heaven and earth.³¹He will not ^aallow your foot to stumble;²He who ^bkeeps you will not slumber.⁴Behold, He who keeps IsraelWill not slumber and will not sleep.⁵Yahweh is your ^akeeper;Yahweh is your ^bshade on your right hand.⁶The ^asun will not strike you by day,Nor the moon by night.⁷Yahweh will ^akeep you from all evil;He will keep your soul.⁸Yahweh will ^akeep your going out and your coming in^bFrom now until forever.

Go to the House of Yahweh

122

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

I was glad when they said to me,“Let us ^ago to the house of Yahweh.”²Our feet are standingWithin your ^agates, O Jerusalem,³Jerusalem, which is ^abuiltAs a city ^bjoined altogether;⁴To which the tribes, the tribes of Yah, ^ago up—A testimony for Israel—To give thanks to the name of Yahweh.⁵For there, ^athrones sit for judgment,The thrones of the house of David.⁶Pray for the ^apeace of Jerusalem:“May they prosper who ^blove you.⁷“May peace be within your ^awalls,And tranquility within your ^bpalaces.”⁸For the sake of my ^abrothers and my friends,I will now say, “^bMay peace be within you.”⁹For the sake of the house of Yahweh our God,I will ^aseek your good.