Preparations for Building the Temple^(A)

2 King Solomon decided to build a temple where the Lord would be worshiped, and also to build a palace for himself. ² He put 70,000 men to work transporting materials, and 80,000 to work cutting stone in the hill country. There were 3,600 others responsible for supervising the work.

³ Solomon sent a message to King Hiram of Tyre: “Do business with me as you did with my father, King David, when you sold him cedar logs for building his palace. ⁴ I am building a temple to honor the Lord my God. It will be a holy place where my people and I will worship him by burning incense of fragrant spices, where we will present offerings of sacred bread to him continuously, and where we will offer burnt offerings every morning and evening, as well as on Sabbaths, New Moon Festivals, and other holy days honoring the Lord our God. He has commanded Israel to do this forever. ⁵ I intend to build a great temple, because our God is greater than any other god. ^6 (B)Yet no one can really build a temple for God, because even all the vastness of heaven cannot contain him. How then can I build a temple that would be anything more than a place to burn incense to God? ⁷ Now send me a man with skill in engraving, in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in making blue, purple, and red cloth. He will work with the craftsmen of Judah and Jerusalem whom my father David selected. ⁸ I know how skillful your lumbermen are, so send me cedar, cypress, and juniper logs from Lebanon. I am ready to send my men to assist yours ⁹ in preparing large quantities of timber, because this temple I intend to build will be large and magnificent. ¹⁰ As provisions for your lumbermen, I will send you 100,000 bushels of wheat, 100,000 bushels of barley, 110,000 gallons of wine, and 110,000 gallons of olive oil.”

¹¹ King Hiram sent Solomon a letter in reply. He wrote, “Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you their king. ¹² Praise the Lord God of Israel, Creator of heaven and earth! He has given King David a wise son, full of understanding and skill, who now plans to build a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself. ¹³ I am sending you a wise and skillful master metalworker named Huram. ¹⁴ His mother was a member of the tribe of Dan and his father was a native of Tyre. He knows how to make things out of gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood. He can work with blue, purple, and red cloth, and with linen. He can do all sorts of engraving and can follow any design suggested to him. Let him work with your skilled workers and with those who worked for your father, King David. ¹⁵ So now send us the wheat, barley, wine, and olive oil that you promised. ¹⁶ In the mountains of Lebanon we will cut down all the cedars you need, tie them together in rafts, and float them by sea as far as Joppa. From there you can take them to Jerusalem.”

Construction of the Temple Begins^(C)

¹⁷ King Solomon took a census of all the foreigners living in the land of Israel, similar to the census his father David had taken. There were 153,600 resident foreigners. ¹⁸ He assigned 70,000 of them to transport materials and 80,000 to cut stones in the mountains, and appointed 3,600 supervisors to make sure the work was done.

Christ Our Helper

2 I am writing this to you, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have someone who pleads with the Father on our behalf—Jesus Christ, the righteous one. ² And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone.

³ If we obey God's commands, then we are sure that we know him. ⁴ If we say that we know him, but do not obey his commands, we are liars and there is no truth in us. ⁵ But if we obey his word, we are the ones whose love for God has really been made perfect. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God: ⁶ if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.

The New Command

^7 (A)My dear friends, this command I am writing you is not new; it is the old command, the one you have had from the very beginning. The old command is the message you have already heard. ⁸ However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.

⁹ If we say that we are in the light, yet hate others, we are in the darkness to this very hour. ¹⁰ If we love others, we live in the light, and so there is nothing in us that will cause someone else^[a] to sin. ¹¹ But if we hate others, we are in the darkness; we walk in it and do not know where we are going, because the darkness has made us blind.

¹² I write to you, my children, because your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ. ¹³ I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you have defeated the Evil One.

¹⁴ I write to you, my children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you are strong; the word of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. ¹⁶ Everything that belongs to the world—what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of—none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. ¹⁷ The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but those who do the will of God live forever.

The Enemy of Christ

¹⁸ My children, the end is near! You were told that the Enemy of Christ would come; and now many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and so we know that the end is near. ¹⁹ These people really did not belong to our fellowship, and that is why they left us; if they had belonged to our fellowship, they would have stayed with us. But they left so that it might be clear that none of them really belonged to us.

²⁰ But you have had the Holy Spirit poured out on you by Christ, and so all of you know the truth. ²¹ I write you, then, not because you do not know the truth; instead, it is because you do know it, and you also know that no lie ever comes from the truth.

²² Who, then, is the liar? It is those who say that Jesus is not the Messiah. Such people are the Enemy of Christ—they reject both the Father and the Son. ²³ For those who reject the Son reject also the Father; those who accept the Son have the Father also.

²⁴ Be sure, then, to keep in your hearts the message you heard from the beginning. If you keep that message, then you will always live in union with the Son and the Father. ²⁵ And this is what Christ himself promised to give us—eternal life.

²⁶ I am writing this to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about everything, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit's teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.

²⁸ Yes, my children, remain in union with him, so that when he appears we may be full of courage and need not hide in shame from him on the Day he comes. ²⁹ You know that Christ is righteous; you should know, then, that everyone who does what is right is God's child.

1 ^(A)This is a message about Nineveh, the account of a vision seen by Nahum, who was from Elkosh.

The Lord's Anger against Nineveh

¹¹ From you, Nineveh, there came someone full of wicked schemes, who plotted against the Lord. ¹² This is what the Lord says to his people Israel: “Even though the Assyrians are strong and numerous, they will be destroyed and disappear. My people, I made you suffer, but I will not do it again. ¹³ I will now end Assyria's power over you and break the chains that bind you.”

¹⁴ This is what the Lord has decreed about the Assyrians: “They will have no descendants to carry on their name. I will destroy the idols that are in the temples of their gods. I am preparing a grave for the Assyrians—they don't deserve to live!”

^15 (B)Look, a messenger is coming over the mountains with good news! He is on his way to announce the victory! People of Judah, celebrate your festivals and give God what you solemnly promised him. The wicked will never invade your land again. They have been totally destroyed!

Sin^(A)

17 Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that make people fall into sin are bound to happen, but how terrible for the one who makes them happen! ² It would be better for him if a large millstone were tied around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. ^3 (B)So watch what you do!

“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴ If he sins against you seven times in one day, and each time he comes to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Faith

⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, “Make our faith greater.”

⁶ The Lord answered, “If you had faith as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Pull yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea!’ and it would obey you.

A Servant's Duty

⁷ “Suppose one of you has a servant who is plowing or looking after the sheep. When he comes in from the field, do you tell him to hurry along and eat his meal? ⁸ Of course not! Instead, you say to him, ‘Get my supper ready, then put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may have your meal.’ ⁹ The servant does not deserve thanks for obeying orders, does he? ¹⁰ It is the same with you; when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are ordinary servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Jesus Heals Ten Men

¹¹ As Jesus made his way to Jerusalem, he went along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² He was going into a village when he was met by ten men suffering from a dreaded skin disease. They stood at a distance ¹³ and shouted, “Jesus! Master! Have pity on us!”

^14 (C)Jesus saw them and said to them, “Go and let the priests examine you.”

On the way they were made clean.^{[a] 15} When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself to the ground at Jesus' feet and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Jesus spoke up, “There were ten who were healed; where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Why is this foreigner the only one who came back to give thanks to God?” ¹⁹ And Jesus said to him, “Get up and go; your faith has made you well.”

The Coming of the Kingdom^(D)

²⁰ Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. His answer was, “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. ²¹ No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is within you.”^[b]

²² Then he said to the disciples, “The time will come when you will wish you could see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. ²³ There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, over there!’ or, ‘Look, over here!’ But don't go out looking for it. ²⁴ As the lightning flashes across the sky and lights it up from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. ²⁵ But first he must suffer much and be rejected by the people of this day. ^26 (E)As it was in the time of Noah so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. ^27 (F)Everybody kept on eating and drinking, and men and women married, up to the very day Noah went into the boat and the flood came and killed them all. ^28 (G)It will be as it was in the time of Lot. Everybody kept on eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. ²⁹ On the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and killed them all. ³⁰ That is how it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

^31 (H)“On that day someone who is on the roof of a house must not go down into the house to get any belongings; in the same way anyone who is out in the field must not go back to the house. ^32 (I)Remember Lot's wife! ^33 (J)Those who try to save their own life will lose it; those who lose their life will save it. ³⁴ On that night, I tell you, there will be two people sleeping in the same bed: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. ³⁵ Two women will be grinding meal together: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind.” ^36 [c]

³⁷ The disciples asked him, “Where, Lord?”

Jesus answered, “Wherever there is a dead body, the vultures will gather.”