Psalm 45^[a]

For the director of music. To the tune of ‘Lilies’. Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil.^[b] A wedding song.

Olive oil and bread set before the Lord

24 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually. ³ Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. ⁴ The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord must be tended continually.

⁵ ‘Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using one fifth of an ephah^[a] for each loaf. ⁶ Arrange them in two piles, six in each pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. ⁷ By each pile put some pure incense as a memorial^[b] portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the Lord. ⁸ This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. ⁹ It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the Lord.’

A blasphemer put to death

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. ¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman used the Name blasphemously with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) ¹² They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.

¹³ Then the Lord said to Moses: ¹⁴ ‘Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. ¹⁵ Say to the Israelites: “Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; ¹⁶ anyone who uses the name of the Lord blasphemously is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they use the Name blasphemously they are to be put to death.

¹⁷ ‘“Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution – life for life. ¹⁹ Anyone who injures their neighbour is to be injured in the same manner: ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. ²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. ²² You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.”’

²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses.

The work of the Holy Spirit

²⁶ ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father – the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father – he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

16 ‘All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. ² They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. ³ They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. ⁴ I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, ⁵ but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, “Where are you going?” ⁶ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. ⁷ But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because people do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹ and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

¹² ‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.’