22 Then David said, ‘The house of the Lord God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel.’

Preparations for the temple

² So David gave orders to assemble the foreigners residing in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. ³ He provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. ⁴ He also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David.

⁵ David said, ‘My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord should be of great magnificence and fame and splendour in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make preparations for it.’ So David made extensive preparations before his death.

⁶ Then he called for his son Solomon and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. ⁷ David said to Solomon: ‘My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. ⁸ But this word of the Lord came to me: “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. ⁹ But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon,^[a] and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. ¹⁰ He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.”

¹¹ ‘Now, my son, the Lord be with you, and may you have success and build the house of the Lord your God, as he said you would. ¹² May the Lord give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. ¹³ Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the Lord gave to Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

¹⁴ ‘I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord a hundred thousand talents^[b] of gold, a million talents^[c] of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. ¹⁵ You have many workers: stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as those skilled in every kind of work ¹⁶ in gold and silver, bronze and iron – craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the Lord be with you.’

¹⁷ Then David ordered all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon. ¹⁸ He said to them, ‘Is not the Lord your God with you? And has he not granted you rest on every side? For he has given the inhabitants of the land into my hands, and the land is subject to the Lord and to his people. ¹⁹ Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the Name of the Lord.’

The Levites

23 When David was old and full of years, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

² He also gathered together all the leaders of Israel, as well as the priests and Levites. ³ The Levites thirty years old or more were counted, and the total number of men was thirty-eight thousand. ⁴ David said, ‘Of these, twenty-four thousand are to be in charge of the work of the temple of the Lord and six thousand are to be officials and judges. ⁵ Four thousand are to be gatekeepers and four thousand are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.’

⁶ David separated the Levites into divisions corresponding to the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari.

Gershonites

⁷ Belonging to the Gershonites:

Kohathites

¹² The sons of Kohath:

Merarites

²¹ The sons of Merari:

²⁴ These were the descendants of Levi by their families – the heads of families as they were registered under their names and counted individually, that is, the workers twenty years old or more who served in the temple of the Lord. ²⁵ For David had said, ‘Since the Lord, the God of Israel, has granted rest to his people and has come to dwell in Jerusalem for ever, ²⁶ the Levites no longer need to carry the tabernacle or any of the articles used in its service.’ ²⁷ According to the last instructions of David, the Levites were counted from those twenty years old or more.

²⁸ The duty of the Levites was to help Aaron’s descendants in the service of the temple of the Lord: to be in charge of the courtyards, the side rooms, the purification of all sacred things and the performance of other duties at the house of God. ²⁹ They were in charge of the bread set out on the table, the special flour for the grain offerings, the thin loaves made without yeast, the baking and the mixing, and all measurements of quantity and size. ³⁰ They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. They were to do the same in the evening ³¹ and whenever burnt offerings were presented to the Lord on the Sabbaths, at the New Moon feasts and at the appointed festivals. They were to serve before the Lord regularly in the proper number and in the way prescribed for them.

³² And so the Levites carried out their responsibilities for the tent of meeting, for the Holy Place and, under their relatives the descendants of Aaron, for the service of the temple of the Lord.

Paul accepted by the apostles

2 Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. ² I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. ³ Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴ This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵ We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶ As for those who were held in high esteem – whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism – they added nothing to my message. ⁷ On the contrary, they recognised that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,^[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised.^{[b] 8} For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹ James, Cephas^[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰ All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Paul opposes Cephas

¹¹ When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³ The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵ ‘We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in^[d] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷ ‘But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸ If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law-breaker.

¹⁹ ‘For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!’^[e]