Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
11 How dare you tell me, “Flee[a] to the mountains for safety,” when I am trusting in the Lord?
2 For the wicked have strung their bows, drawn their arrows tight against the bowstrings, and aimed from ambush at the people of God. 3 “Law and order have collapsed,”[b] we are told. “What can the righteous do but flee?”
4 But the Lord is still in his holy temple; he still rules from heaven. He closely watches everything that happens here on earth. 5 He puts the righteous and the wicked to the test; he hates those loving violence. 6 He will rain down fire and brimstone on the wicked and scorch them with his burning wind.
7 For God is good, and he loves goodness; the godly shall see his face.[c]
15 The entire inside, from floor to ceiling, was paneled with cedar, and the floors were made of cypress boards. 16 The thirty-foot inner room at the far end of the Temple—the Most Holy Place—was also paneled from the floor to the ceiling with cedar boards. 17 The remainder of the Temple—other than the Most Holy Place—was sixty feet long. 18 Throughout the Temple the cedar paneling laid over the stone walls was carved with designs of rosebuds and open flowers.
19 The inner room was where the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was placed. 20 This inner sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high. Its walls and ceiling were overlaid with pure gold, and Solomon made a cedar-wood altar for this room. 21-22 Then he overlaid the interior of the remainder of the Temple—including the cedar altar—with pure gold; and he made gold chains to protect the entrance to the Most Holy Place.
23-28 Within the inner sanctuary Solomon placed two statues of Guardian Angels[a] made from olive wood, each fifteen feet high. They were placed so that their outspread wings reached from wall to wall, while their inner wings touched each other at the center of the room; each wing was 7-1/2 feet long, so each Angel measured fifteen feet from wing tip to wing tip. The two Angels were identical in all dimensions, and each was overlaid with gold.
29 Figures of Guardian Angels, palm trees, and open flowers were carved on all the walls of both rooms of the Temple, 30 and the floor of both rooms was overlaid with gold.
31 The doorway to the inner sanctuary was a five-sided opening, 32 and its two olive-wood doors were carved with Guardian Angels, palm trees, and open flowers, all overlaid with gold.
33 Then he made square doorposts of olive wood for the entrance to the Temple. 34 There were two folding doors of cypress wood, and each door was hinged to fold back upon itself. 35 Angels, palm trees, and open flowers were carved on these doors and carefully overlaid with gold.
36 The wall of the inner court had three layers of hewn stone and one layer of cedar beams.
37 The foundation of the Temple was laid in the month of May in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, 38 and the entire building was completed in every detail in November of the eleventh year of his reign. So it took seven years to build.
16 “You didn’t choose me! I chose you! I appointed you to go and produce lovely fruit always, so that no matter what you ask for from the Father, using my name, he will give it to you. 17 I demand that you love each other, 18 for you get enough hate from the world! But then, it hated me before it hated you. 19 The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t—for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave isn’t greater than his master!’ So since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you! 21 The people of the world will persecute you because you belong to me, for they don’t know God who sent me.
22 “They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Anyone hating me is also hating my Father. 24 If I hadn’t done such mighty miracles among them they would not be counted guilty. But as it is, they saw these miracles and yet they hated both of us—me and my Father. 25 This has fulfilled what the prophets said concerning the Messiah, ‘They hated me without reason.’
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.