The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ Then the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh answered the heads of the divisions of Israel. ²² They said, “The Lord is ⌞the only true⌟ God! The Lord is ⌞the only true⌟ God! He knows, so let Israel know! If our act is rebellious or unfaithful to the Lord, ²³ don’t spare us today. If we built an altar with the intention of no longer following him, and if we built it for making burnt offerings, grain offerings, or fellowship offerings, let the Lord punish us.

²⁴ “We were worried because of the situation we’re in. We thought sometime in the future your children might say to our children, ‘What relationship do you have with the Lord God of Israel? ²⁵ The Lord has made the Jordan River a dividing line between us and you, the descendants of Reuben and Gad. You have no connection with the Lord!’ So your descendants would stop our descendants from worshiping the Lord. ²⁶ Then we said, ‘Let’s build an altar for ourselves. It will not be for burnt offerings or sacrifices, ²⁷ but it will stand as a witness between us for generations to come. It will stand as a witness that we may worship in the presence of the Lord with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and fellowship offerings.’ Then your descendants cannot say to our descendants, ‘You have no connection with the Lord!’ ²⁸ So we thought, if this statement is made to us or to our descendants in the future, we will answer, ‘Look at the model of the Lord’s altar our ancestors made. They didn’t make it for burnt offerings or sacrifices but to stand as a witness between us.’ ²⁹ It would be unthinkable for us to rebel against the Lord or to turn back today from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offerings, grain offerings, or sacrifices in addition to the altar of the Lord our God that is in front of his tent.”

³⁰ When the priest Phinehas, the leaders of the congregation, and the heads of the divisions of Israel heard what the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh said, they were satisfied. ³¹ Then Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, said to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know the Lord is among us, because you did not commit an unfaithful act against the Lord. Now you have rescued the people of Israel from the Lord’s punishment.”

³² Then Phinehas (son of the priest Eleazar) and the leaders returned from Reuben and Gad in Gilead to Israel in Canaan and gave them the report. ³³ The people of Israel were satisfied with the report. So they praised God and didn’t talk anymore about going to war against Reuben and Gad and destroying the land where they were living.

³⁴ The tribes of Reuben and Gad gave the altar a name: Witness Between Us That the Lord Is ⌞the Only True⌟ God.

A Reminder to Follow Moses’ Teachings

23 A long time afterward, the Lord gave the Israelites peace with all their enemies around them. Joshua was old, near the end of his life. ² So he called all the leaders, chiefs, judges, and officers of Israel together. He said to them, “I am old, near the end of my life. ³ You have seen for yourselves everything the Lord your God did to all those nations. The Lord your God fought for you! ⁴ I have given you the territory of the nations that still remain as an inheritance for your tribes. This includes the territory of all the nations I have already destroyed from the Jordan River westward to the Mediterranean Sea. ⁵ The Lord your God will expel them right in front of your eyes and force them out of your way. You will take their land as the Lord your God told you. ⁶ Now you must be very strong to keep and to do everything written in the Book of Moses’ Teachings. Don’t turn away from them. ⁷ Don’t get mixed up with the nations left in your territory. Don’t ever mention the names of their gods or swear an oath to them. Don’t ever serve their gods or bow down to them. ⁸ But you must be loyal to the Lord your God, as you have been until now. ⁹ The Lord has forced important and powerful nations out of your way. Not one person has ever been able to stand up to you. ¹⁰ One of you used to chase a thousand. That was because the Lord your God was fighting for you, as he had promised you. ¹¹ Be very careful to love the Lord your God.

¹² “But if you turn away and go along with the other nations within your ⌞borders⌟, if you intermarry with them or associate with them, ¹³ then you should know that the Lord your God will never again force these people out of your way. Instead, they will be a snare and a trap for you, a whip laid to your sides, and thorns in your eyes until none of you are left in this good land that the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Pay attention, because I will soon die like everyone else. You know with all your heart and soul that not one single promise which the Lord your God has given you has ever failed to come true. Every single word has come true.

¹⁵ “Every good word the Lord your God has promised you has come true for you. In the same way the Lord will bring about every evil curse until he has destroyed you from this good land that he has given you. ¹⁶ When you ignore the conditions ^[a] placed on you by the Lord your God and follow other gods, serve them and bow down to them, the Lord will be angry with you. Then you will quickly disappear from the good land he has given you.”

The Dead Come Back to Life^(A)

²⁷ Some Sadducees, who say that people will never come back to life, came to Jesus. They asked him, ²⁸ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If a married man dies and has no children, his brother should marry his widow and have children for his brother.’ ²⁹ There were seven brothers. The first got married and died without having children. ³⁰ Then the second brother married the widow, ³¹ and so did the third. In the same way all seven brothers married the widow, died, and left no children. ³² Finally, the woman died. ³³ Now, when the dead come back to life, whose wife will she be? The seven brothers had married her.”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “In this world people get married. ³⁵ But people who are considered worthy to come back to life and live in the next world will neither marry ³⁶ nor die anymore. They are the same as the angels. They are God’s children who have come back to life.

³⁷ “Even Moses showed in the passage about the bush that the dead come back to life. He says that the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ³⁸ He’s not the God of the dead but of the living. In God’s sight all people are living.”

³⁹ Some experts in Moses’ Teachings responded, “Teacher, that was well said.” ⁴⁰ From that time on, no one dared to ask him another question.

How Can David’s Son Be David’s Lord?^(B)

⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “How can people say that the Messiah is David’s son? ⁴² David says in the book of Psalms,

⁴⁴ David calls him Lord. So how can he be his son?”

Jesus Disapproves of the Example Set by the Experts in Moses’ Teachings^(C)

⁴⁵ While all the people were listening, Jesus said to the disciples, ⁴⁶ “Beware of the experts in Moses’ Teachings! They like to walk around in long robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces, to have the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at dinners. ⁴⁷ They rob widows by taking their houses and then say long prayers to make themselves look good. The experts in Moses’ Teachings will receive the most severe punishment.”