101 At that time the Lord said to me, Make two other stones, cut like the first two, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2 And I will put on the stones the words which were on the first stones which were broken by you, and you are to put them into the ark. 3 So I made an ark of hard wood, and had two stones cut like the others, and went up the mountain with the stones in my hands. 4 And he put on the stones, as in the first writing, the ten rules which the Lord gave you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the great meeting: and the Lord gave the stones to me. 5 And turning round I came down from the mountain and put the stones in the ark which I had made; and there they are as the Lord gave me orders. 6 (And the children of Israel went on from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah: there death came to Aaron and he was put to rest in the earth; and Eleazar, his son, took his place as priest. 7 From there they went on to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water. 8 At that time the Lord had the tribe of Levi marked out to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement, to be before the Lord and to do his work and to give blessings in his name, to this day. 9 For this reason Levi has no part or heritage for himself among his brothers: the Lord is his heritage, as the Lord your God said to him.) 10 And I was in the mountain, as at the first time, for forty days and forty nights; and again the ears of the Lord were open to my prayer, and he did not send destruction on you. 11 Then the Lord said to me, Get up and go on your journey before the people, so that they may go in and take the land which I said in my oath to their fathers that I would give them.
12 And now, Israel, what would the Lord your God have you do, but to go in the fear of the Lord your God, walking in all his ways and loving him and doing his pleasure with all your heart and all your soul, 13 Doing the orders of the Lord and keeping his laws which I give you this day for your good? 14 The Lord your God is ruler of heaven, of the heaven of heavens, and of the earth with everything in it. 15 But the Lord had delight in your fathers and love for them, marking out for himself their seed after them, even you, from all peoples, as at this day. 16 Let your circumcision be of the heart, and put away your pride. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, strong in power and greatly to be feared, who has no respect for any man's position and takes no rewards: 18 Judging uprightly in the cause of the widow and of the child who has no father, and giving food and clothing in his mercy to the man from a strange country. 19 So be kind to the man from a strange country who is living among you, for you yourselves were living in a strange country in the land of Egypt. 20 Let the fear of the Lord your God be before you, give him worship and be true to him at all times, taking your oaths in his name. 21 He is your God, the God of your praise, your God who has done for you all these works of power which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you like the stars of heaven in number.
111 So have love for the Lord your God, and give him worship, and keep his laws and his decisions and his orders at all times. 2 And be certain in your minds this day; for these words are not said to your children, who have had no experience of the training of the Lord your God, and who have not seen his great power or his strong hand and his stretched-out arm, 3 Or his signs and wonders which he did in Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his land; 4 And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their war-carriages; how he made the waters of the Red Sea come up over them when they went after you, and how the Lord put an end to them even to this day; 5 And what he did for you in the waste land, till you came to this place; 6 And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben; when they went down into the open mouth of the earth, with their families and their tents and every living thing which was theirs, before the eyes of all Israel: 7 But your eyes have seen all the great works of the Lord which he has done.
8 So keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may be strong, and go in and take the land which is to be your heritage; 9 And that your days may be long in the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers and to their seed after them, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land where you are going is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you put in your seeds, watering them with your foot, like a planted garden: 11 But the land where you are going is a land of hills and valleys, drinking in the rain of heaven: 12 A land cared for by the Lord your God: the eyes of the Lord your God are on it at all times from one end of the year to the other. 13 And it will be that if you truly give ear to the orders which I put before you this day, loving the Lord your God and worshipping him with all your heart and all your soul, 14 Then I will send rain on your land at the right time, the early rains and the late rains, so that you may get in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, so that you may have food in full measure. 16 But take care that your hearts are not turned to false ways so that you become servants and worshippers of other gods; 17 For if you do so, the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and the heaven will be shut up so that there is no rain and the land will give no fruit; and in a very little time you will be cut off from the good land which the Lord is giving you.
18 So keep these words deep in your heart and in your soul, and have them fixed on your hand for a sign and marked on your brow; 19 Teaching them to your children, and talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up: 20 Writing them on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns: 21 So that your days, and the days of your children, may be long in the land which the Lord by his oath to your fathers said he would give them, like the days of the eternal heavens. 22 For if you take care to keep all the orders which I give you, and to do them; loving the Lord your God and walking in all his ways and being true to him: 23 Then the Lord will send these nations in flight before you, and you will take the lands of nations greater and stronger than yourselves. 24 Every place where you put your foot will be yours: from the waste land and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates as far as the Great Sea, will be the limits of your land. 25 All people will give way before you: for the Lord your God will put the fear of you on all the land through which you go, as he has said.
26 Today I put before you a blessing and a curse: 27 The blessing if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God, which I give you this day: 28 And the curse if you do not give ear to the orders of the Lord your God, but let yourselves be turned from the way which I have put before you this day, and go after other gods which are not yours. 29 And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land of your heritage, you are to put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not on the other side of Jordan, looking west, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, by the holy tree of Moreh? 31 For you are about to go over Jordan to take the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you, and it will be your resting-place. 32 And you are to take care to keep all the laws and the decisions which I put before you today.
121 These are the laws and the decisions which you are to keep with care in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to be your heritage all the days of your life on earth. 2 You are to give up to the curse all those places where the nations, whom you are driving out, gave worship to their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree: 3 Their altars and their pillars are to be broken down, and their holy trees burned with fire, and the images of their gods cut down; you are to take away their names out of that place. 4 Do not so to the Lord your God.
5 But let your hearts be turned to the place which will be marked out by the Lord your God, among your tribes, to put his name there; 6 And there you are to take your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up to the Lord, and the offerings of your oaths, and those which you give freely from the impulse of your hearts, and the first births among your herds and your flocks; 7 There you and all your families are to make a feast before the Lord your God, with joy in everything to which you put your hand, because the Lord has given you his blessing. 8 You are not to do things then in the way in which we now do them here, every man as it seems right to him: 9 For you have not come to the rest and the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you have gone over Jordan and are living in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as your heritage, and when he has given you rest from all those on every side who are fighting against you, and you are living there safely; 11 Then there will be a place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name, and there you will take all the things which I give you orders to take: your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up, and the offerings of your oaths which you make to the Lord; 12 And you will be glad before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your men-servants and your women-servants, and the Levite who is with you in your house, because he has no part or heritage among you. 13 Take care that you do not make your burned offerings in any place you see: 14 But in the place marked out by the Lord in one of your tribes, there let your burned offerings be offered, and there do what I have given you orders to do. 15 Only you may put to death animals, such as the gazelle or the roe, for your food in any of your towns, at the desire of your soul, in keeping with the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may take of it. 16 But you may not take the blood for food, it is to be drained out on the earth like water. 17 In your towns you are not to take as food the tenth part of your grain, or of your wine or your oil, or the first births of your herds or of your flocks, or anything offered under an oath, or freely offered to the Lord, or given as a lifted offering; 18 But they will be your food before the Lord your God in the place of his selection, where you may make a feast of them, with your son and your daughter, and your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite who is living with you: and you will have joy before the Lord your God in everything to which you put your hand. 19 See that you do not give up caring for the Levite as long as you are living in your land. 20 When the Lord your God makes wide the limit of your land, as he has said, and you say, I will take flesh for my food, because you have a desire for it; then you may take whatever flesh you have a desire for. 21 If the place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name is far away from you, then take from your herds and from your flocks which the Lord has given you, as I have said, and have a meal of it in the towns where you may be living. 22 It will be your food, like the gazelle and the roe; the unclean and the clean may take of it. 23 But see that you do not take the blood for food; for the blood is the life; and you may not make use of the life as food with the flesh. 24 Do not take it for food but let it be drained out on the earth like water. 25 Do not take it for food; so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, while you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. 26 But the holy things which you have, and the offerings of your oaths, you are to take to the place which will be marked out by the Lord: 27 Offering the flesh and the blood of your burned offerings on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your offerings is to be drained out on the altar of the Lord your God, and the flesh will be your food. 28 Take note of all these orders I am giving you and give attention to them, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you for ever, while you do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.
29 When the people of the land where you are going have been cut off before you by the Lord your God, and you have taken their land and are living in it; 30 After their destruction take care that you do not go in their ways, and that you do not give thought to their gods, saying, How did these nations give worship to their gods? I will do as they did. 31 Do not so to the Lord your God: for everything which is disgusting to the Lord and hated by him they have done in honour of their gods: even burning their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 You are to keep with care all the words I give you, making no addition to them and taking nothing from them.
121 And he gave them teaching in the form of stories. A man had a vine-garden planted, and put a wall about it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and put up a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country. 2 And when the time came, he sent a servant to get from the workmen some of the fruit of the garden. 3 And they took him, and gave him blows, and sent him away with nothing. 4 And again he sent to them another servant; and they gave him wounds on the head, and were very cruel to him. 5 And he sent another; and they put him to death: and a number of others, whipping some, and putting some to death. 6 He still had one, a dearly loved son: he sent him last to them, saying, They will have respect for my son. 7 But those workmen said among themselves, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property; come, let us put him to death, and the heritage will be ours. 8 And they took him and put him to death, pushing his body out of the garden. 9 What then will the master of the garden do? He will come and put the workmen to death, and will give the garden into the hands of others. 10 Have you not seen this which is in the Writings: The stone which the builders put on one side, the same was made the chief stone of the building: 11 This was the Lord's doing, and it is a wonder in our eyes? 12 And they made attempts to take him; but they were in fear of the people, because they saw that the story was against them; and they went away from him.
13 Then they sent to him certain of the Pharisees and the Herodians, so that they might make use of his words to take him by a trick. 14 And when they had come, they said to him, Master, we are certain that you are true, and have no fear of anyone: you have no respect for a man's position, but you are teaching the true way of God: Is it right to give taxes to Caesar or not? 15 Are we to give or not to give? But he, conscious of their false hearts, said to them, Why do you put me to the test? give me a penny, so that I may see it. 16 And they gave him one. And he said to them, Whose is this image and name on it? And they said to him, Caesar's. 17 And Jesus said to them, Give to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's. And they were full of wonder at him.
18 And there came to him Sadducees, who say there is no coming back from the dead; and they put a question to him, saying, 19 Master, in the law Moses says, If a man's brother comes to his end, and has a wife still living and no child, it is right for his brother to take his wife, and get a family for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers: and the first took a wife, and at his death there were no offspring; 21 And the second took her, and at his death there were no offspring; and the third the same: 22 And all the seven had no seed. Last of all the woman herself came to her death. 23 In the future life, when they come back from the dead, whose wife will she be? for the seven had her for a wife. 24 Jesus said to them, Is not this the reason for your error, that you have no knowledge of the holy Writings or of the power of God? 25 When they come back from the dead, they do not get married, but are like the angels in heaven. 26 But as to the dead coming back to life; have you not seen in the book of Moses, about the burning thorn-tree, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: you are greatly in error.
(Read Mark 12:1-12)
Christ showed in parables, that he would lay aside the Jewish church. It is sad to think what base usage God's faithful ministers have met with in all ages, from those who have enjoyed the privileges of the church, but have not brought forth fruit answerable. God at length sent his Son, his Well-beloved; and it might be expected that he whom their Master loved, they also should respect and love; but instead of honouring him because he was the Son and Heir, they therefore hated him. But the exaltation of Christ was the Lord's doing; and it is his doing to exalt him in our hearts, and to set up his throne there; and if this be done, it cannot but be marvellous in our eyes. The Scriptures, and faithful preachers, and the coming of Christ in the flesh, call on us to render due praise to God in our lives. Let sinners beware of a proud, carnal spirit; if they revile or despise the preachers of Christ, they would have done so their Master, had they lived when he was upon earth.
(Read Mark 12:13-17)
The enemies of Christ would be thought desirous to know their duty, when really they hoped that which soever side he took of the question, they might find occasion to accuse him. Nothing is more likely to insnare the followers of Christ, than bringing them to meddle with disputes about worldly politics. Jesus avoided the snare, by referring to the submission they had already made as a nation; and all that heard him, marvelled at the great wisdom of his answer. Many will praise the words of a sermon, who will not be commanded by the doctrines of it.
(Read Mark 12:18-27)
A right knowledge of the Scripture, as the fountain whence all revealed religion now flows, and the foundation on which it is built, is the best preservative against error. Christ put aside the objection of the Sadducees, who were the scoffing infidels of that day, by setting the doctrine of the future state in a true light. The relation between husband and wife, though appointed in the earthly paradise, will not be known in the heavenly one. It is no wonder if we confuse ourselves with foolish errors, when we form our ideas of the world of spirits by the affairs of this world of sense. It is absurd to think that the living God should be the portion and happiness of a man if he is for ever dead; and therefore it is certain that Abraham's soul exists and acts, though now for a time separate from the body. Those that deny the resurrection greatly err, and ought to be told so. Let us seek to pass through this dying world, with a joyful hope of eternal happiness, and of a glorious resurrection.
