Numbers 17

Aaron's Staff Buds

¹1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²h“Speak to the people of Israel, and get from them staffs, one for each fathers' house, from all their chiefs according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. Write each man's name on his staff, ³and write Aaron's name on the staff of Levi. For there shall be one staff for the head of each fathers' house. ⁴Then you shall deposit them in the tent of meeting before the testimony, iwhere I meet with you. ⁵And the staff of the man jwhom I choose shall sprout. Thus I will make to cease from me kthe grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against you.” ⁶Moses spoke to the people of Israel. And all their chiefs gave him staffs, one for each chief, according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. And the staff of Aaron was among their staffs. ⁷And Moses deposited the staffs before the Lord in lthe tent of the testimony.

⁸On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and behold, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds. ⁹Then Moses brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the people of Israel. And they looked, and each man took his staff. ¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses, “Put back mthe staff of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept nas a sign for the rebels, othat you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die.” ¹¹Thus did Moses; as the Lord commanded him, so he did.

¹²And the people of Israel said to Moses, “Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone. ¹³pEveryone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the Lord, shall die. Are we all to perish?”

Numbers 18

Duties of Priests and Levites

¹So the Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father's house with you shall qbear iniquity connected with the sanctuary, rand you and your sons with you shall bear iniquity connected with your priesthood. ²And with you bring your brothers also, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may sjoin you and tminister to you while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony. ³They shall keep guard over you and uover the whole tent, vbut shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary or to the altar wlest they, and you, die. ⁴They shall join you and keep guard over the tent of meeting for all the service of the tent, xand no outsider shall come near you. ⁵And you shall ykeep guard over the sanctuary and over the altar, zthat there may never again be wrath on the people of Israel. ⁶aAnd behold, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the people of Israel. bThey are a gift to you, given to the Lord, to do the service of the tent of meeting. ⁷And cyou and your sons with you shall guard your priesthood for all that concerns the altar and dthat is within the veil; and you shall serve. I give your priesthood as a gift,1 and eany outsider who comes near shall be put to death.”

⁸Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, “Behold, fI have given you charge of the contributions made to me, all the consecrated things of the people of Israel. I have given them to you gas a portion and to your sons as a perpetual due. ⁹This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering of theirs and every hsin offering of theirs and every iguilt offering of theirs, which they render to me, shall be most holy to you and to your sons. ¹⁰In a most holy place shall you eat it. Every male may eat it; it is holy to you. ¹¹This also is yours: the contribution of their gift, all the jwave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to kyou, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. lEveryone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹²mAll the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, nthe firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you. ¹³The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land, owhich they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. lEveryone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹⁴pEvery devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. ¹⁵qEverything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the Lord, shall be yours. Nevertheless, rthe firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. ¹⁶And their redemption price s(at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels2 in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, twhich is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷uBut the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar and shall burn their fat as a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁸But their flesh shall be yours, as vthe breast that is waved and as the right thigh are yours. ¹⁹wAll the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. xIt is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” ²⁰And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. yI am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.

²¹z“To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, ²²aso that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, blest they bear sin and die. ²³But cthe Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, dand they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. ²⁴For the tithe of the people of Israel, which ethey present as a contribution to the Lord, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance famong the people of Israel.”

²⁵And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁶“Moreover, you shall speak and say to the Levites, ‘When you take from the people of Israel the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the Lord, ga tithe of the tithe. ²⁷hAnd your contribution shall be counted to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor, and as the fullness of the winepress. ²⁸So you shall also present a contribution to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the people of Israel. And from it you shall give the Lord's contribution to Aaron the priest. ²⁹Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every contribution due to the Lord; from each its best part is to be dedicated.’ ³⁰Therefore you shall say to them, ‘When you have offered from it the best of it, ithen the rest shall be counted to the Levites as produce of the threshing floor, and as produce of the winepress. ³¹And you may eat it in any place, you and your households, for it is jyour reward in return for your service in the tent of meeting. ³²And you shall kbear no sin by reason of it, when you have contributed the best of it. But you shall not lprofane the holy things of the people of Israel, lest you die.’”

Cast Your Burden on the Lord

To the choirmaster: with fstringed instruments. A Maskil1 of David.

¹gGive ear to my prayer, O God,

and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!

²Attend to me, and answer me;

I am restless hin my complaint and I imoan,

³because of the noise of the enemy,

because of the oppression of the wicked.

For they jdrop trouble upon me,

and in anger they bear a grudge against me.

⁴My heart is in anguish within me;

kthe terrors of death have fallen upon me.

⁵Fear and trembling come upon me,

and lhorror moverwhelms me.

⁶And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

⁷nyes, I would wander far away;

I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

⁸I would hurry to find a shelter

from othe raging wind and tempest.”

⁹Destroy, O Lord, pdivide their tongues;

for I see qviolence and strife in the city.

¹⁰Day and night they go around it

on its walls,

and riniquity and trouble are within it;

¹¹ruin is in its midst;

soppression and fraud

do not depart from its marketplace.

¹²For it is not an enemy who taunts me—

then I could bear it;

it is not an adversary who tdeals insolently with me—

then I could hide from him.

¹³uBut it is you, a man, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend.

¹⁴We used to take sweet counsel together;

within God's house we walked in vthe throng.

¹⁵Let death steal over them;

let them go down to Sheol walive;

for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.

¹⁶But I call to God,

and the Lord will save me.

¹⁷xEvening and ymorning and at znoon

I autter my complaint and moan,

and he hears my voice.

¹⁸He redeems my soul in safety

from the battle that I wage,

for bmany are arrayed against me.

¹⁹God will give ear and humble them,

he who is centhroned from of old, Selah

because they do not dchange

and do not fear God.

²⁰My companion2 estretched out his hand against his friends;

he violated his covenant.

²¹His fspeech was gsmooth as butter,

yet war was in his heart;

his words were softer than oil,

yet they were hdrawn swords.

²²iCast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you;

jhe will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

²³But you, O God, kwill cast them down

into lthe pit of destruction;

men of mblood and treachery

shall not nlive out half their days.

But I will otrust in you.

Isaiah Sent to King Ahaz

¹In the days of mAhaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, nRezin the king of Syria and nPekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. ²When the house of David was told, o“Syria is in league with1 pEphraim,” the heart of Ahaz2 and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

³And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and qShear-jashub3 your son, at the end of rthe conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field. ⁴And say to him, s‘Be careful, tbe quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two usmoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and vthe son of Remaliah. ⁵Because Syria, with Ephraim and vthe son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, ⁶“Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it4 for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” ⁷thus says the Lord God:

w“‘It shall not stand,

and it shall not come to pass.

⁸For the head of Syria is xDamascus,

and the head of Damascus is Rezin.

And within sixty-five years

Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,

and the head of Samaria is ythe son of Remaliah.

zIf you5 are not firm in faith,

you will not be firm at all.’”

The Sign of Immanuel

¹⁰Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: ¹¹“Ask aa sign of the Lord your6 God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” ¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” ¹³And he7 said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you bweary my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the cLord himself will give you a sign. dBehold, the evirgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name fImmanuel.8 ¹⁵He shall eat gcurds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. ¹⁶hFor before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be ideserted. ¹⁷jThe Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that kEphraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!”

¹⁸In that day the Lord will lwhistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and min the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.9

²⁰In that day nthe Lord will oshave with a razor that is phired beyond qthe River10—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.

²¹rIn that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, ²²and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat scurds and honey.

²³In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels11 of silver, will become tbriers and thorns. ²⁴uWith bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. ²⁵vAnd as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear tof briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

Greeting

¹aJames, a servant1 of God and bof the Lord Jesus Christ,

To cthe twelve tribes in dthe Dispersion:

Greetings.

Testing of Your Faith

²eCount it all joy, my brothers,2 when you meet trials fof various kinds, ³for you know that gthe testing of your faith hproduces steadfastness. ⁴And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be iperfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

⁵jIf any of you lacks wisdom, klet him ask God, lwho gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶But mlet him ask in faith, nwith no doubting, for the one who doubts is like oa wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸phe is a double-minded man, qunstable in all his ways.

⁹Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, ¹⁰and rthe rich in his humiliation, because slike a flower of the grass3 he will pass away. ¹¹For the sun rises with its scorching heat and twithers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

¹²uBlessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive vthe crown of life, wwhich God has promised to those who love him. ¹³Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵Then desire xwhen it has conceived gives birth to sin, and ysin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

¹⁶Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷zEvery good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from athe Father of lights, bwith whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.4 ¹⁸cOf his own will he dbrought us forth by the word of truth, ethat we should be a kind of ffirstfruits of his creatures.

Hearing and Doing the Word

¹⁹gKnow this, my beloved brothers: let every person hbe quick to hear, islow to speak, jslow to anger; ²⁰for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ²¹Therefore kput away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with lmeekness the implanted word, mwhich is able to save your souls.

²²But be ndoers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵But the one who looks into the perfect law, othe law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, phe will be blessed in his doing.

²⁶If anyone thinks he is religious qand does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's rreligion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: sto visit torphans and widows in their affliction, and uto keep oneself vunstained from the world.