301 Here's what will happen. While you're out among the nations where God has dispersed you and the blessings and curses come in just the way I have set them before you, and you and your children take them seriously 2 and come back to God, your God, and obey him with your whole heart and soul according to everything that I command you today, 3 God, your God, will restore everything you lost; he'll have compassion on you; he'll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered. 4 No matter how far away you end up, God, your God, will get you out of there 5 and bring you back to the land your ancestors once possessed. It will be yours again. He will give you a good life and make you more numerous than your ancestors. 6 God, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. 7 God, your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you. 8 And you will make a new start, listening obediently to God, keeping all his commandments that I'm commanding you today. 9 God, your God, will outdo himself in making things go well for you: you'll have babies, get calves, grow crops, and enjoy an all-around good life. Yes, God will start enjoying you again, making things go well for you just as he enjoyed doing it for your ancestors. 10 But only if you listen obediently to God, your God, and keep the commandments and regulations written in this Book of Revelation. Nothing halfhearted here; you must return to God, your God, totally, heart and soul, holding nothing back.
11 This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach. 12 It's not on a high mountain - you don't have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. 13 And it's not across the ocean - you don't have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it. 14 No. The word is right here and now - as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!
15 Look at what I've done for you today: I've placed in front of you Life and Good Death and Evil. 16 And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess. 17 But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, 18 you will most certainly die. You won't last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. 20 And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
311 Moses went on and addressed these words to all Israel. 2 He said, "I'm 120 years old today. I can't get about as I used to. And God told me, 'You're not going to cross this Jordan River.' 3 "God, your God, will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may dispossess them. (And Joshua will cross the river before you, as God said he would.) 4 God will give the nations the same treatment he gave the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and their land; he'll destroy them. 5 God will hand the nations over to you, and you'll treat them exactly as I have commanded you. 6 "Be strong. Take courage. Don't be intimidated. Don't give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you." 7 Then Moses summoned Joshua. He said to him with all Israel watching, "Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people, this land that God promised their ancestors that he'd give them. You will make them the proud possessors of it. 8 God is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you. Don't be intimidated. Don't worry."
9 Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of God, and to all the leaders of Israel. 10 And he gave these orders: "At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths 11 when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening. 12 Gather the people together - men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you - so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation. 13 And do this so that their children, who don't yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess."
14 God spoke to Moses: "You are about to die. So call Joshua. Meet me in the Tent of Meeting so that I can commission him." 15 God appeared in the Tent in a Pillar of Cloud. The Cloud was near the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. 16 God spoke to Moses: "You're about to die and be buried with your ancestors. You'll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and whoring after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon me and violate my Covenant that I've made with them. 17 I'll get angry, oh so angry! I'll walk off and leave them on their own, won't so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless. They'll say, 'Isn't it because our God wasn't here that all this evil has come upon us?' 18 But I'll stay out of their lives, keep looking the other way because of all their evil: they took up with other gods! 19 "But for right now, copy down this song and teach the People of Israel to sing it by heart. They'll have it then as my witness against them. 20 When I bring them into the land that I promised to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they eat and become full and get fat and then begin fooling around with other gods and worshiping them, 21 and then things start falling apart, many terrible things happening, this song will be there with them as a witness to who they are and what went wrong. Their children won't forget this song; they'll be singing it. Don't think I don't know what they are already scheming to do, and they're not even in the land yet, this land I promised them."
22 So Moses wrote down this song that very day and taught it to the People of Israel. 23 Then God commanded Joshua son of Nun saying, "Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the People of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I'll be right there with you."
24 After Moses had finished writing down the words of this Revelation in a book, right down to the last word, 25 he ordered the Levites who were responsible for carrying the Chest of the Covenant of God, saying, 26 "Take this Book of Revelation and place it alongside the Chest of the Covenant of God, your God. Keep it there as a witness. 27 "I know what rebels you are, how stubborn and willful you can be. Even today, while I'm still alive and present with you, you're rebellious against God. How much worse when I've died! 28 So gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with Heaven and Earth as witnesses. 29 I know that after I die you're going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You're determined to do evil in defiance of God - I know you are - deliberately provoking his anger by what you do."
30 So with everyone in Israel gathered and listening, Moses taught them the words of this song, from start to finish.
151 At dawn's first light, the high priests, with the religious leaders and scholars, arranged a conference with the entire Jewish Council. After tying Jesus securely, they took him out and presented him to Pilate. 2 Pilate asked him, "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?" 3 The high priests let loose a barrage of accusations. 4 Pilate asked again, "Aren't you going to answer anything? That's quite a list of accusations." 5 Still, he said nothing. Pilate was impressed, really impressed.
6 It was a custom at the Feast to release a prisoner, anyone the people asked for. 7 There was one prisoner called Barabbas, locked up with the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the uprising against Rome. 8 As the crowd came up and began to present its petition for him to release a prisoner, 9 Pilate anticipated them: "Do you want me to release the King of the Jews to you?" 10 Pilate knew by this time that it was through sheer spite that the high priests had turned Jesus over to him. 11 But the high priests by then had worked up the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas. 12 Pilate came back, "So what do I do with this man you call King of the Jews?" 13 They yelled, "Nail him to a cross!" 14 Pilate objected, "But for what crime?" But they yelled all the louder, "Nail him to a cross!"
15 Pilate gave the crowd what it wanted, set Barabbas free and turned Jesus over for whipping and crucifixion. 16 The soldiers took Jesus into the palace (called Praetorium) and called together the entire brigade. 17 They dressed him up in purple and put a crown plaited from a thorn bush on his head. 18 Then they began their mockery: "Bravo, King of the Jews!" 19 They banged on his head with a club, spit on him, and knelt down in mock worship. 20 After they had had their fun, they took off the purple cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they marched out to nail him to the cross.
21 There was a man walking by, coming from work, Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. They made him carry Jesus' cross.
22 The soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, meaning "Skull Hill." 23 They offered him a mild painkiller (wine mixed with myrrh), but he wouldn't take it. 24 And they nailed him to the cross. They divided up his clothes and threw dice to see who would get them. 25 They nailed him up at nine o'clock in the morning.
(Read Mark 15:1-14)
They bound Christ. It is good for us often to remember the bonds of the Lord Jesus, as bound with him who was bound for us. By delivering up the King, they, in effect, delivered up the kingdom of God, which was, therefore, as by their own consent, taken from them, and given to another nation. Christ gave Pilate a direct answer, but would not answer the witnesses, because the things they alleged were known to be false, even Pilate himself was convinced they were so. Pilate thought that he might appeal from the priests to the people, and that they would deliver Jesus out of the priests' hands. But they were more and more urged by the priests, and cried, Crucify him! Crucify him! Let us judge of persons and things by their merits, and the standard of God's word, and not by common report. The thought that no one ever was so shamefully treated, as the only perfectly wise, holy, and excellent Person that ever appeared on earth, leads the serious mind to strong views of man's wickedness and enmity to God. Let us more and more abhor the evil dispositions which marked the conduct of these persecutors.
(Read Mark 15:15-21)
Christ met death in its greatest terror. It was the death of the vilest malefactors. Thus the cross and the shame are put together. God having been dishonoured by the sin of man, Christ made satisfaction by submitting to the greatest disgrace human nature could be loaded with. It was a cursed death; thus it was branded by the Jewish law, Deuteronomy 21:23. The Roman soldiers mocked our Lord Jesus as a King; thus in the high priest's hall the servants had mocked him as a Prophet and Saviour. Shall a purple or scarlet robe be matter of pride to a Christian, which was matter of reproach and shame to Christ? He wore the crown of thorns which we deserved, that we might wear the crown of glory which he merited. We were by sin liable to everlasting shame and contempt; to deliver us, our Lord Jesus submitted to shame and contempt. He was led forth with the workers of iniquity, though he did no sin. The sufferings of the meek and holy Redeemer, are ever a source of instruction to the believer, of which, in his best hours, he cannot be weary. Did Jesus thus suffer, and shall I, a vile sinner, fret or repine? Shall I indulge anger, or utter reproaches and threats because of troubles and injuries?
(Read Mark 15:22-32)
The place where our Lord Jesus was crucified, was called the place of a scull; it was the common place of execution; for he was in all respects numbered with the transgressors. Whenever we look unto Christ crucified, we must remember what was written over his head; he is a King, and we must give up ourselves to be his subjects, as Israelites indeed. They crucified two thieves with him, and him in the midst; they thereby intended him great dishonour. But it was foretold that he should be numbered with the transgressors, because he was made sin for us. Even those who passed by railed at him. They told him to come down from the cross, and they would believe; but they did not believe, though he gave them a more convincing sign when he came up from the grave. With what earnestness will the man who firmly believes the truth, as made known by the sufferings of Christ, seek for salvation! With what gratitude will he receive the dawning hope of forgiveness and eternal life, as purchased for him by the sufferings and death of the Son of God! and with what godly sorrow will he mourn over the sins which crucified the Lord of glory!
