291 This is what you are to do to make them holy, to do the work of priests to me: Take one young ox and two male sheep, without any mark on them, 2 And unleavened bread, and unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and thin unleavened cakes on which oil has been put, made of the best bread-meal; 3 Put these in a basket and take them, with the ox and the two sheep. 4 And let Aaron and his sons come to the door of the Tent of meeting, and there let them be washed with water. 5 Take the robes, and put the coat and the dress and the ephod and the priest's bag on Aaron; put the band of needlework round him, 6 And let the head-dress be placed on his head and the holy crown on the head-dress. 7 Then take the oil and put it on his head. 8 And take his sons and put their robes on them; 9 And put the linen bands round Aaron and his sons, and the head-dresses on them, to make them priests by my order for ever: so you are to make Aaron and his sons holy to me. 10 Then let the ox be taken in front of the Tent of meeting: and let Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head. 11 And you are to put the ox to death before the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting. 12 Then take some of the blood of the ox, and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, draining out all the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. 13 And take all the fat covering the inside of the ox, and the fat joining the liver and the two kidneys with the fat round them, and let them be burned on the altar; 14 But the flesh of the ox and its skin and its waste parts are to be burned outside the circle of the tents, for it is a sin-offering. 15 Then take one of the sheep, and let Aaron and his sons put their hands on its head. 16 Then let it be put to death, so that the sides of the altar are marked with its blood. 17 Then the sheep is to be cut up into its parts, and after washing its legs and its inside parts, you are to put them with the parts and the head, 18 And let them all be burned on the altar as a burned offering to the Lord: a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord. 19 Then take the other sheep; and after Aaron and his sons have put their hands on its head, 20 You are to put the sheep to death, and take some of its blood and put it on the point of Aaron's right ear, and of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and the great toes of their right feet, dropping the rest of the blood on the sides of the altar. 21 Then take some of the blood on the altar, and the oil, and put it on Aaron and his robes and on his sons and on their robes, so that he and his robes and his sons and their robes may be made holy. 22 Then take the fat of the sheep, the fat tail, the fat covering the insides, and the fat joining the liver and the two kidneys with the fat round them, and the right leg; for by the offering of this sheep they are to be marked out as priests: 23 And take one bit of bread and one cake of oiled bread and one thin cake out of the basket of unleavened bread which is before the Lord: 24 And put them all on the hands of Aaron and of his sons, to be waved for a wave offering before the Lord. 25 Then take them from their hands, and let them be burned on the burned offering on the altar, a sweet smell before the Lord, an offering made by fire to the Lord. 26 Then take the breast of Aaron's sheep, waving it before the Lord; and it is to be your part of the offering. 27 So you are to make holy the breast of the sheep which is waved and the leg which is lifted up on high, that is, of the sheep which is offered for Aaron and his sons; 28 And it will be their part as a right for ever from the children of Israel, it is a special offering from the children of Israel, made from their peace-offerings, a special offering lifted up to the Lord. 29 And Aaron's holy robes will be used by his sons after him; they will put them on when they are made priests. 30 For seven days the son who becomes priest in his place will put them on when he comes into the Tent of meeting to do the work of the holy place. 31 Then take the sheep of the wave offering and let its flesh be cooked in water in a holy place. 32 And let Aaron and his sons make a meal of it, with the bread in the basket, at the door of the Tent of meeting. 33 All those things which were used as offerings to take away sin, and to make them holy to be priests, they may have for food: but no one who is not a priest may have them, for they are holy food. 34 And if any of the flesh of the offering or of the bread is over till the morning, let it be burned with fire; it is not to be used for food, for it is holy. 35 All these things you are to do to Aaron and his sons as I have given you orders: for seven days the work of making them priests is to go on. 36 Every day an ox is to be offered as a sin-offering, to take away sins: and by this offering on it, you will make the altar clean from sin; and you are to put oil on it and make it holy. 37 For seven days you are to make offerings for the altar and make it holy, so that it may become completely holy, and anything touching it will become holy.
38 Now this is the offering which you are to make on the altar: two lambs in their first year, every day regularly. 39 One lamb is to be offered in the morning and the other in the evening: 40 And with the one lamb, a tenth part of an ephah of the best meal, mixed with a fourth part of a hin of clear oil; and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering. 41 And the other lamb is to be offered in the evening, and with it the same meal offering and drink offering, for a sweet smell, an offering made by fire to the Lord. 42 This is to be a regular burned offering made from generation to generation, at the door of the Tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will come face to face with you and have talk with you. 43 There I will come face to face with the children of Israel, and the Tent will be made holy by my glory 44 I will make holy the Tent of meeting and the altar: and Aaron and his sons I will make holy, to be my priests 45 Among the children of Israel I will make my living-place, and I will be their God. 46 And they will see that I am the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt, so that I might be ever with them: I am the Lord their God.
301 And you are to make an altar for the burning of perfume; of hard wood let it be made. 2 The altar is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high, and its horns are to be made of the same. 3 It is to be plated with the best gold, the top of it and the sides and the horns, with an edging of gold all round it. 4 Under the edge on the two opposite sides, you are to make two gold rings, to take the rods for lifting it. 5 And make these rods of the same wood, plating them with gold. 6 And let it be placed in front of the veil before the ark of the law, before the cover which is over the law, where I will come face to face with you. 7 And on this altar sweet spices are to be burned by Aaron every morning when he sees to the lights. 8 And every evening, when he puts the lights up in their places, the spices are to be burned, a sweet-smelling smoke going up before the Lord from generation to generation for ever. 9 No strange perfume, no burned offering or meal offering, and no drink offering is to be offered on it. 10 And once every year Aaron is to make its horns clean: with the blood of the sin-offering he is to make it clean once every year from generation to generation: it is most holy to the Lord.
11 And the Lord said to Moses, 12 When you are taking the number of the children of Israel, let every man who is numbered give to the Lord a price for his life, so that no disease may come on them when they are numbered. 13 And this is what they are to give; let every man who is numbered give half a shekel, by the scale of the holy place: (the shekel being valued at twenty gerahs:) this money is an offering to the Lord. 14 Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, is to give an offering to the Lord. 15 The man of wealth is to give no more and the poor man no less than the half-shekel of silver, when the offering is made to the Lord as the price for your lives. 16 And you are to take this money from the children of Israel to be used for the work of the Tent of meeting, to keep the memory of the children of Israel before the Lord and to be the price of your lives.
17 And the Lord said to Moses, 18 You are to make a brass washing-vessel, with a brass base; and put it between the Tent of meeting and the altar, with water in it; 19 That it may be used by Aaron and his sons for washing their hands and feet; 20 Whenever they go into the Tent of meeting they are to be washed with water, to keep them from death; and whenever they come near to do the work of the altar, or to make an offering by fire to the Lord, 21 Their hands and feet are to be washed. so that they may be safe from death: this is an order to them for ever; to him and his seed from generation to generation.
22 And the Lord said to Moses, 23 Take the best spices, five hundred shekels' weight of liquid myrrh, and of sweet cinnamon half as much, that is, two hundred and fifty shekels, and two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet calamus, 24 And of cassia, five hundred shekels' weight measured by the scale of the holy place, and of olive oil a hin: 25 And make these into a holy oil, a perfume made by the art of the perfume-maker; it is to be a holy oil. 26 This oil is to be put on the Tent of meeting, and on the ark of the law, 27 And on the table and all its vessels, and on the support for the lights, with its vessels, and on the altar for burning spices, 28 And on the altar of burned offerings with its vessels, and on the washing-vessel and its base. 29 And you are to make them most holy; anything touching them will become holy. 30 And put the oil on Aaron and his sons, making them holy to do the work of priests to me. 31 And say to the children of Israel, This is to be the Lord's holy oil, from generation to generation. 32 It is not to be used for man's flesh, and no other is to be made like it: holy it is, and you are to keep it holy. 33 Whoever makes any like it, or puts it on one who is not a priest, will be cut off from his people. 34 And the Lord said to Moses, Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, with the best frankincense, in equal weights; 35 And make from them a perfume, such as is made by the art of the perfume-maker, mixed with salt, and clean and holy. 36 And put some of it, crushed very small, in front of the ark in the Tent of meeting, where I will come face to face with you; it is to be most holy. 37 You are not to make any perfume like it for yourselves: it is to be kept holy to the Lord. 38 Whoever makes any like it, for its sweet smell, will be cut off from his people.
23 And when he had come into the Temple, the chief priests and those in authority over the people came to him while he was teaching, and said, By what authority do you do these things? and who gave you this authority? 24 And Jesus said to them in answer, I will put one question to you, and if you give me the answer, I will say by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John, where did it come from? from heaven or from men? And they were reasoning among themselves, saying, If we say, From heaven; he will say to us, Why then did you not have faith in him? 26 But if we say, From men; we are in fear of the people, because all take John to be a prophet. 27 And they made answer and said, We have no idea. Then he said to them, And I will not say to you by what authority I do these things.
28 But how does it seem to you? A man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go and do work today in the vine-garden. 29 And he said in answer, I will not: but later, changing his decision, he went. 30 And he came to the second and said the same. And he made answer and said, I go, sir: and went not. 31 Which of the two did his father's pleasure? They say, The first. Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, that tax-farmers and loose women are going into the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you had no faith in him, but the tax-farmers and the loose women had faith in him: and you, when you saw it, did not even have regret for your sins, so as to have faith in him.
33 Give ear to another story. A master of a house made a vine garden, and put a wall round it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and made a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country. 34 And when the time for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the workmen, to get the fruit. 35 And the workmen made an attack on his servants, giving blows to one, putting another to death, and stoning another. 36 Again, he sent other servants more in number than the first: and they did the same to them. 37 But after that he sent his son to them, saying, They will have respect for my son. 38 But when the workmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property; come, let us put him to death and take his heritage. 39 And they took him and, driving him out of the vine-garden, put him to death. 40 When, then, the lord of the vine-garden comes, what will he do to those workmen? 41 They say to him, He will put those cruel men to a cruel death, and will let out the vine-garden to other workmen, who will give him the fruit when it is ready. 42 Jesus says to them, Did you never see in the Writings, The stone which the builders put on one side, the same has been made the chief stone of the building: this was the Lord's doing, and it is a wonder in our eyes? 43 For this reason I say to you, The kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing the fruits of it. 44 Any man falling on this stone will be broken, but he on whom it comes down will be crushed to dust. 45 And when his stories came to the ears of the chief priests and the Pharisees, they saw that he was talking of them. 46 And though they had a desire to take him, they were in fear of the people, because in their eyes he was a prophet.
(Read Matthew 21:23-27)
As our Lord now openly appeared as the Messiah, the chief priests and scribes were much offended, especially because he exposed and removed the abuses they encouraged. Our Lord asked what they thought of John's ministry and baptism. Many are more afraid of the shame of lying than of the sin, and therefore scruple not to speak what they know to be false, as to their own thoughts, affections, and intentions, or their remembering and forgetting. Our Lord refused to answer their inquiry. It is best to shun needless disputes with wicked opposers.
(Read Matthew 21:28-32)
Parables which give reproof, speak plainly to the offenders, and judge them out of their own mouths. The parable of the two sons sent to work in the vineyard, is to show that those who knew not John's baptism to be of God, were shamed by those who knew it, and owned it. The whole human race are like children whom the Lord has brought up, but they have rebelled against him, only some are more plausible in their disobedience than others. And it often happens, that the daring rebel is brought to repentance and becomes the Lord's servant, while the formalist grows hardened in pride and enmity.
(Read Matthew 21:33-46)
This parable plainly sets forth the sin and ruin of the Jewish nation; and what is spoken to convict them, is spoken to caution all that enjoy the privileges of the outward church. As men treat God's people, they would treat Christ himself, if he were with them. How can we, if faithful to his cause, expect a favourable reception from a wicked world, or from ungodly professors of Christianity! And let us ask ourselves, whether we who have the vineyard and all its advantages, render fruits in due season, as a people, as a family, or as separate persons. Our Saviour, in his question, declares that the Lord of the vineyard will come, and when he comes he will surely destroy the wicked. The chief priests and the elders were the builders, and they would not admit his doctrine or laws; they threw him aside as a despised stone. But he who was rejected by the Jews, was embraced by the Gentiles. Christ knows who will bring forth gospel fruits in the use of gospel means. The unbelief of sinners will be their ruin. But God has many ways of restraining the remainders of wrath, as he has of making that which breaks out redound to his praise. May Christ become more and more precious to our souls, as the firm Foundation and Cornerstone of his church. May we be willing to follow him, though despised and hated for his sake.
