M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Rules about sacrifices

15 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Say to the Israelites, “You will go into the land that I am giving to you. ³ When you are living there, you can sacrifice bulls, male sheep or goats to the Lord. You will burn them on the altar as a burnt offering. You may offer special sacrifices to the Lord when you have promised to do it. Or you may offer sacrifices because you choose to do it. Also, you will give sacrifices during your regular festivals. The smell of these sacrifices as they burn will please the Lord. ⁴ The person who gives the gift to the Lord must also give a gift of flour. He must mix the flour with oil. It should be 1 kilogram of your best flour. Mix this flour with 1 litre of olive oil. ⁵ You must also give 1 litre of wine for each lamb. You must give that as a drink offering with each burnt offering or sacrifice.

⁶ If the animal is a male sheep, you must also offer 2 kilograms of flour. Mix this flour with 1.5 litres of olive oil. ⁷ Also, you must pour 1.5 litres of wine on the altar as a drink offering. The smell of the smoke from this sacrifice will please the Lord.

⁸ A person can give a young bull as a burnt offering. This may be a special sacrifice that he has promised to give to God. Or it may be a friendship offering to the Lord. ⁹ Also, you must offer 3 kilograms of flour. Mix this flour with 2 litres of olive oil. Do that if the bull is a burnt offering, or a friendship offering. Do the same if you offer this sacrifice because of a promise. ¹⁰ Also, you must pour 2 litres of wine on the altar as a drink offering. The smell of this smoke will please the Lord.

¹¹ You must do the same thing for each bull or for each male sheep. And you must do the same thing for each male lamb or for each young goat. ¹² You must do that for every animal that you offer as a gift to God. ¹³ All the Israelites must do that when they burn sacrifices. The smell of them as they burn will please the Lord. ¹⁴ A stranger who is living in your land may want to give a gift by fire to the Lord. He must do the same as you do now, and for all future time. ¹⁵ These rules will be the same for the Israelites and for all foreign people who live with them. These rules are for now and for all future time. Both you and the foreign person must obey the Lord's rules. ¹⁶ There is the same law for you and for the foreign person who is living among you. There is only one set of rules.” ’

¹⁷ The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁸ ‘Tell the Israelites this. I am bringing them into the land of Canaan. After they have gone into it, they must obey my rules. ¹⁹ When they first eat the food from that land, they must give a special offering to the Lord. ²⁰ You must give a cake as a special offering from the first of your flour. You must do it as you give your special gift from your threshing floor. ²¹ From the first of your flour, you must give to the Lord a special offering. And your descendants must continue to do that.

²² The people might not obey a rule that the Lord told Moses about. But they might not know that they are not obeying a rule. ²³ It might be any rule that the Lord gave to you by Moses. ²⁴ Perhaps somebody does not know that they are not obeying one of my rules. When that happens, they must sacrifice a young bull as a burnt offering. The smell of the smoke from this sacrifice will please the Lord. Also, they must give a grain offering, a drink offering and a male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵ Then the priest will make things right with God for all the Israelites. The Lord will forgive them. That is because their sin was a mistake. They have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord. And they have brought their sin offering to the Lord, for their mistake. ²⁶ God will forgive all the Israelites and the foreign people who live among you. That is because your sin was a mistake. And also you offered the proper sacrifices to me.

²⁷ Also, a person may not know that something is a sin. If he does that thing, he must sacrifice a female goat. The goat must be one year old. It will be a sin offering. ²⁸ The priest will bring the gift to the Lord. That is to make things right. Then the Lord will forgive that person who did the sin. The person did not know that he had done a wrong thing. ²⁹ The same rule is for the Israelites and for all the foreign people who live among them. That is when it was a mistake. ³⁰ But a person might do something that he knows to be wrong. He does it because he wants to do it. That person is as bad as someone who insults the Lord. It does not matter whether he is an Israelite or a foreign person. You must make that person separate from all the people. ³¹ That person thought that the Lord's command was not important. He has not obeyed God's rules. So you must make that person completely separate from the people. He is a guilty person.’

A man does not obey the rules for the day of rest

³² When the Israelites were in the desert, a man was picking up sticks on the day of rest. ³³ Some people found him while he was picking up the sticks. They took him to Moses and Aaron and to all the people. ³⁴ They were not sure what to do with the man. So they put him by himself in a tent. Men stood at the door of the tent so that he could not leave it. ³⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ‘This man must die. All the people must take him outside the camp. They must throw stones at him to kill him.’ ³⁶ So the people took the man outside the camp. They threw stones at him until he died. That was what the Lord had told Moses to do.

Tassels

³⁷ The Lord said to Moses, ³⁸ ‘Tell the Israelites that they must put tassels on the corners of their clothes. They must fix the tassels on blue strings. They must do this now and for all future time. ³⁹ You will be able to look at the tassels. They will help you to remember all the Lord's rules. Then you can obey them. Then you will not only do what you yourself want to do. You will not turn away from me. ⁴⁰ When you see the tassels, you will remember to obey all my rules. You will be holy for your God. ⁴¹ I am the Lord your God. I brought you out from Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.’

David wrote this psalm for the music leader.

It was when the prophet Nathan came to him, after David had sex with Bathsheba.

Please forgive me, Lord^[a]

The song of the vineyard

5 Now I will sing a song for the person that I love. I will sing to him about his vineyard.

³ So now, listen to me, you people who live in Jerusalem and in Judah. You must be the judge! Who did what was right? Was it me or my vineyard? You decide!

⁴ I did everything that I could to help my vineyard. I could have done no more! But when I waited to get sweet grapes from the vines, there were only bitter ones! Why was that?

⁵ Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will break down its walls, so that it becomes an open field. Then wild animals will go in and they will destroy the vines.

⁶ I will make the land become useless. Nobody will take care of the vines. Nobody will dig the ground. Weeds and thorn bushes will grow there. I will command the clouds, ‘Do not drop any rain on it.’

⁷ Israel's nation is like the vineyard of the Lord Almighty. Judah's people are his beautiful garden. But when the Lord looked there for justice, he found only murder! When he looked for people who were righteous, he saw that they were cruel.

Bad trouble will come

⁸ It will be very bad for you people who buy many houses for yourselves. You also buy land to join to the land that you already have. Then there is no more land left for anyone else. You are the only people who remain on the land.

⁹ I have heard the Lord Almighty promise this: ‘All these great, beautiful houses will certainly become empty. There will be nobody to live in them.

¹⁰ Large vineyards will give only a few bottles of wine. If you plant ten bags of seed, you will only get one bag of grain as your harvest.’

¹¹ It will be bad for you people who like to get up early to start drinking. You continue to drink late into the night, until you are very drunk.

¹² You have wild parties with plenty of music and wine. You make music with your lyres, harps, tambourines and flutes. But you do not understand the things that the Lord is doing. You do not see the things that he has made.

¹³ Because of that, my people will go into exile in countries far away. They do not know God. Their leaders will die because they have nothing to eat. All the other people will have nothing to drink.

¹⁴ So the deep hole of death will be hungry! It will open wide to eat the people of Jerusalem. The leaders and the people will go down into it. It will eat up those who are happy at their wild parties in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ So the Lord will bring its people down low. Its proud people will become ashamed.

¹⁶ But the Lord Almighty will be lifted up high by his justice. People will know that he is holy when he comes as judge.

¹⁷ Then lambs will find good grass to eat, as they do in their own fields. Fat sheep will find food to eat among the stones of the old houses.

¹⁸ It will be very bad for you people who are always deceiving others. You cannot leave your sins behind, like someone who pulls a cart with a rope.

¹⁹ People like that laugh at God. They say, ‘The Lord should do something quickly! We want to see what he can do. The holy God of Israel should do what he has decided to do. Then we will really know what that is!’

²⁰ It will be very bad for people who call evil things good. And they call good things evil. They say, ‘It is light’, when it is dark. And they say, ‘It is dark’, when it is light. They say that bitter things are sweet. And they say that sweet things are bitter.

²¹ It will be very bad for people who think that they are wise. They think that they are very clever.

²² It will be very bad for people who think that they are famous because they can drink a lot of wine. They think that they are very brave to mix strong drinks together.

²³ If people like that receive a bribe, they will not say that wicked people are guilty. They also refuse to say that righteous people are not guilty.

²⁴ Because of that, they will come to a bad end. It will be for them like a hot fire that destroys dry grass. Their roots will die and their flowers will blow away like dust. They have refused to obey the laws of the Lord Almighty. They have not listened to the message that the holy God of Israel has taught them.

²⁵ So the Lord has become angry with his people. He is ready to punish them. He has lifted up his hand, so that the mountains shake. Dead bodies of people are lying all over the streets. But that is not enough! The Lord is still angry with them. His hand is ready to punish them even more.

²⁶ The Lord will send a message to foreign nations to come and attack. He calls to nations that are far away, and now they are already coming! Their armies march quickly to Jerusalem.

²⁷ None of their soldiers are tired. They do not fall down. Nobody rests. Nobody sleeps. They have tied their belts strongly. Their shoes do not break in pieces. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp. Their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses' feet are as hard as stones. The wheels of their chariots go round very fast.

²⁹ As they march to fight, they roar like lions. They are like strong young lions that catch other animals to eat. They carry their prisoners away to places where nobody can rescue them.

³⁰ On the day that they attack, the enemy will roar over the people that they catch. They will make a noise like a rough sea. If anyone looks across the land, it will be completely dark because of all the trouble. Clouds will make the light of day become dark.

Be strong as servants of God

12 So we have learned about many people who trusted God long ago. They are like a very big crowd all round us and we should copy their example. We must be like people who run in a race.^[a] We must throw away everything that stops us from running well. The sins that we do make us fall down very easily. We must not let those sins rule us. God has prepared the way that is in front of us. We must continue to be strong while we run along that way. We must choose to run that race well. ² As we run, we must always look towards Jesus. He is the one who trusted God completely. Our faith starts with him, and he will help us to trust God all the way to the end. Jesus accepted punishment on the cross. He chose to receive much pain. He did not think about being ashamed to die like that. He knew that God had prepared something very good for him that would make him happy. Now he has sat down at the right side of God to rule with him in heaven.

³ So think carefully about how Jesus lived on earth. Bad people did very bad things against him, but he continued to be strong. Think about him, and then you will not become weak as Christians. You will not stop trusting God.

⁴ You have been fighting against sin in your lives. But you have not yet had to fight like that until someone killed you. ⁵ God speaks to you as his children. Do not ever forget these words in the Bible that will make you strong:^[b]

⁷ When you have troubles in your life, you must be patient and strong. Remember that God is teaching you what is right because you are his children. There has never been any son whose father did not punish him. ⁸ God teaches all his children not to do wrong things. So if he does not punish you, it shows that you are not really his children. Instead, you are like children who do not really belong to him. ⁹ Also, we have all had human fathers who punished us. As a result, we respected them. So think about our Father that our spirits belong to. We must surely obey him, and then he will give us true life.

¹⁰ Our human fathers punished us for a few years. They did this in a way that they thought was good. But God punishes us in a way that will really help us. As a result, we can become completely good, like he is. ¹¹ Punishment never makes us happy at the time when we receive it. No, the pain makes us sad. But later we know that the punishment has taught us good things. It helps us to live in a right way that gives us peace in our minds.

¹² So be strong as servants of God! If your hands feel weak, lift them up! If your knees are not strong, stand up straight! ¹³ Walk straight in front of you, step by step! Your example will help other Christians to serve God well. People who cannot walk well will not become worse and fall down. Instead, their legs will become strong again.^[c]

We must not refuse to do what God says

¹⁴ Do everything that you can to live in peace with other people. Make yourself separate from bad things. Nobody will see the Lord unless their life is good and clean. ¹⁵ Remember that God is very kind. Nobody should refuse to let God help them. Make sure that nobody among you causes trouble so that people turn against God. A person who is angry against God is like poison. He spoils many other people's lives so that God does not accept them.

¹⁶ Make sure that nobody among you has sex in a wrong way. Be careful that nobody is careless about God's rules, like Esau was long ago.^[d] He gave away everything that he would have received as his father's first son. He gave it all away so that he could get only one meal. ¹⁷ As you know, after that, he still wanted to receive those good things from his father. He wanted his father to ask God to bless him. But his father refused to do that. Esau cried very much when he asked his father to give him those good things. But there was no way that Esau could change what he had done.

A picture of two mountains

¹⁸ You have come near to God. But you have not come to a place that you can touch, like Sinai mountain.^[e] That mountain burned with fire. But where the people stood, it was completely dark. They could not see at all. There was also a very strong wind and a storm. ¹⁹ There was the loud sound of a trumpet. There was a powerful voice that spoke to them. When the people heard that voice, they were very afraid. So they asked that the voice would not speak to them any more. ²⁰ They were very afraid of what God had told them. God had said, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, you must kill it with stones.’ ²¹ Even Moses was very afraid when he saw God's great power. He said, ‘I am full of fear!’

²² But as believers in Christ, you have not come to God in that way. You have come to Mount Zion.^[f] You have come to the city of the true God who lives. You have come to the city of Jerusalem that is in heaven. There are many thousands of happy angels all together in that place. ²³ All God's people meet together there. They are like his most important sons. They belong in heaven because God has written down their names. You have come to God himself, who will judge all people. You have come to the place where the spirits of God's people are. Those people have become right with God. God has now finished his work in them. ²⁴ You have come to Jesus, who brought the new agreement from God to his people. In that agreement, the blood of Jesus' death makes us clean from our sins. It tells us that God has forgiven us. When Cain killed his brother Abel, Abel's blood brought God's punishment. So we see that Jesus' blood brought us something much better than that.^[g]

²⁵ So be careful! Always be ready to listen when God speaks. God used Moses as his servant on the earth to speak to Israel's people. When they refused to obey, God punished them. They could not get away. As for us, God speaks to us from heaven. So we will certainly not get away from God's punishment if we turn away from him. ²⁶ At Sinai mountain many years ago, God's voice caused the earth to shake. But now God has promised this: ‘Once again I will cause the earth to shake. But this time I will also cause heaven to shake.’ ²⁷ These words, ‘once again,’ show us that God will take away the things that he has made. All things on the earth that he causes to shake will finish. After that, everything that nobody can shake will continue to be there.^[h]

²⁸ But we are receiving a place where we will rule with God. We belong to God's kingdom, and nobody can ever shake that! So we should thank God. We should worship him in a way that makes him happy. He is great, and we should serve him well and respect him. ²⁹ Remember that our God is like a fire. He destroys everything that is not good.