Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The Lord is holy!^[a]

The priests begin their work

9 On the eighth day, Moses told Aaron and his sons and the leaders of Israel that they must come.^{[a] 2} He said to Aaron, ‘Bring a young bull for your sin offering. And bring a male sheep for your burnt offering. They must be perfect to give to the Lord.’ ³ Moses said to Aaron, ‘Tell Israel's people that they must bring a male goat for a sin offering. And they must bring a young cow and a young sheep. The young cow and the young sheep must be one year old. They must be perfect to burn as an offering. ⁴ Tell Israel's people that they must bring a bull and a male sheep. They must bring them to sacrifice as a friendship offering to the Lord. They will sacrifice them. They must mix grain and oil to offer with them. They must do that because the Lord will appear to them today.’

⁵ The people brought all the animals and the grain to the door of the Tent of Meeting. Moses and all the people came. And they stood at the door of the Tent of Meeting to worship the Lord. ⁶ Moses said to the people, ‘The Lord has told you that you must do this. Do it. And then the Lord will show you how great he is.’

⁷ Moses said to Aaron, ‘Go to the altar. Sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering to the Lord. You must do that to pay for your sins and those of the people. Then sacrifice the people's gift. Their offerings are an atonement for the bad things that they have done. The Lord said that you should do this.’

⁸ Aaron brought the young bull to the altar. He killed it. This was his offering to the Lord to atone for his sin. ⁹ His sons brought the blood to Aaron. He put his finger in the blood and he put it on the horns of the altar. He poured the blood that he did not use onto the floor in front of the altar. ¹⁰ Aaron burnt the fat, the kidneys and the best piece of the liver on the altar as a sin offering. He did it as the Lord had told Moses. ¹¹ He took the meat and the skin from the young bull outside the camp and he burnt it.

²² When Aaron had finished burning the gifts, he lifted up his hands over the people. He had sacrificed the sin offering, the burnt offering and the friendship offering. Then he asked God to do good things for the people. And Aaron came down from the altar.

²³ Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they asked God to do good things for the people. The bright light from the Lord appeared to the people to show how great he is. ²⁴ Then the Lord sent a fire to show that he accepted the gifts.^[a] It completely burnt all the fat and the offerings that were on the altar. The people were very happy when they saw this. They shouted and they fell down with their faces to the ground.

4 Christ had trouble and pain while he lived in his human body. So you should prepare yourselves to have trouble and pain too. Think about it in the same way that Christ did. If someone has trouble and pain in his body, he stops doing wrong things. ² As a result, that person will want to do what God wants him to do. In his life in this world, he will not want to do the bad things that people think are good.

³ You have already had enough time in your life to do bad things. Those are the kinds of things that people who do not know God like to do. You did many evil things that your bodies wanted to do. You had sex in a wrong way. You often became drunk. You went to wild parties where you drank too much alcohol. You also worshipped useless idols.^[a]

⁴ But now you no longer live in the same wicked way as those people do. They continue to enjoy those wrong things all the time. But you do not join with them. So they insult you. ⁵ But those people will have to explain to God what they have done. He is ready to judge every person, whether they are alive now or they have already died. ⁶ That is why even dead people needed to hear the good news about Christ. Their bodies had to die, as all people must die. But they heard the good news so that their spirits could live, as God wants them to live.^[b]