The Seven Lamps

¹Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Speak to Aaron and say to him, When you set up the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.” ³And Aaron did so: he set up its lamps in front of the lampstand, as the Lord commanded Moses. ⁴And this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold. From its base to its flowers, it was hammered work; according to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.

Cleansing of the Levites

⁵And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ⁶“Take the Levites from among the people of Israel and cleanse them. ⁷Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them go with a razor over all their body, and wash their clothes and cleanse themselves. ⁸Then let them take a bull from the herd and its grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, and you shall take another bull from the herd for a sin offering. ⁹And you shall bring the Levites before the tent of meeting and assemble the whole congregation of the people of Israel. ¹⁰When you bring the Levites before the Lord, the people of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites, ¹¹and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering from the people of Israel, that they may do the service of the Lord. ¹²Then the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, and you shall offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering to the Lord to make atonement for the Levites. ¹³And you shall set the Levites before Aaron and his sons, and shall offer them as a wave offering to the Lord.

¹⁴“Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the people of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. ¹⁵And after that the Levites shall go in to serve at the tent of meeting, when you have cleansed them and offered them as a wave offering. ¹⁶For they are wholly given to me from among the people of Israel. Instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the people of Israel, I have taken them for myself. ¹⁷For all the firstborn among the people of Israel are mine, both of man and of beast. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I consecrated them for myself, ¹⁸and I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel. ¹⁹And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel when the people of Israel come near the sanctuary.”

²⁰Thus did Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the people of Israel to the Levites. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, the people of Israel did to them. ²¹And the Levites purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes, and Aaron offered them as a wave offering before the Lord, and Aaron made atonement for them to cleanse them. ²²And after that the Levites went in to do their service in the tent of meeting before Aaron and his sons; as the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them.

Retirement of the Levites

²³And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴“This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they1 shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. ²⁵And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. ²⁶They minister2 to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”

Come to Our Help

To the choirmaster. A Maskil1 of the Sons of Korah.

¹O God, we have heard with our ears,

our fathers have told us,

what deeds you performed in their days,

in the days of old:

²you with your own hand drove out the nations,

but them you planted;

you afflicted the peoples,

but them you set free;

³for not by their own sword did they win the land,

nor did their own arm save them,

but your right hand and your arm,

and the light of your face,

for you delighted in them.

⁴You are my King, O God;

ordain salvation for Jacob!

⁵Through you we push down our foes;

through your name we tread down those who rise up against us.

⁶For not in my bow do I trust,

nor can my sword save me.

⁷But you have saved us from our foes

and have put to shame those who hate us.

⁸In God we have boasted continually,

and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah

⁹But you have rejected us and disgraced us

and have not gone out with our armies.

¹⁰You have made us turn back from the foe,

and those who hate us have gotten spoil.

¹¹You have made us like sheep for slaughter

and have scattered us among the nations.

¹²You have sold your people for a trifle,

demanding no high price for them.

¹³You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,

the derision and scorn of those around us.

¹⁴You have made us a byword among the nations,

a laughingstock2 among the peoples.

¹⁵All day long my disgrace is before me,

and shame has covered my face

¹⁶at the sound of the taunter and reviler,

at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

¹⁷All this has come upon us,

though we have not forgotten you,

and we have not been false to your covenant.

¹⁸Our heart has not turned back,

nor have our steps departed from your way;

¹⁹yet you have broken us in the place of jackals

and covered us with the shadow of death.

²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God

or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

²¹would not God discover this?

For he knows the secrets of the heart.

²²Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

²³Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?

Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!

²⁴Why do you hide your face?

Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust;

our belly clings to the ground.

²⁶Rise up; come to our help!

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

Others

¹Where has your beloved gone,

O most beautiful among women?

Where has your beloved turned,

that we may seek him with you?

Together in the Garden of Love

She

²My beloved has gone down to his garden

to the beds of spices,

to graze1 in the gardens

and to gather lilies.

³I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine;

he grazes among the lilies.

Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

He

⁴You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,

lovely as Jerusalem,

awesome as an army with banners.

⁵Turn away your eyes from me,

for they overwhelm me—

Your hair is like a flock of goats

leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

⁶Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

that have come up from the washing;

all of them bear twins;

not one among them has lost its young.

⁷Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate

behind your veil.

⁸There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,

and virgins without number.

⁹My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,

the only one of her mother,

pure to her who bore her.

The young women saw her and called her blessed;

the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

¹⁰“Who is this who looks down like the dawn,

beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun,

awesome as an army with banners?”

She

¹¹I went down to the nut orchard

to look at the blossoms of the valley,

to see whether the vines had budded,

whether the pomegranates were in bloom.

¹²Before I was aware, my desire set me

among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.2

Others

¹³3 Return, return, O Shulammite,

return, return, that we may look upon you.

He

Why should you look upon the Shulammite,

as upon a dance before two armies?4

¹Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ²and of instruction about washings,1 the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³And this we will do if God permits. ⁴For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. ⁷For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. ⁸But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

⁹Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. ¹⁰For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. ¹¹And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, ¹²so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

The Certainty of God's Promise

¹³For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” ¹⁵And thus Abraham,2 having patiently waited, obtained the promise. ¹⁶For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. ¹⁹We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.