341 God spoke to Moses: "Cut out two tablets of stone just like the originals and engrave on them the words that were on the original tablets you smashed. 2 Be ready in the morning to climb Mount Sinai and get set to meet me on top of the mountain. 3 Not a soul is to go with you; the whole mountain must be clear of people, even animals - not even sheep or oxen can be grazing in front of the mountain." 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone just like the originals. He got up early in the morning and climbed Mount Sinai as God had commanded him, carrying the two tablets of stone.
5 God descended in the cloud and took up his position there beside him and called out the name, God. 6 God passed in front of him and called out, "God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient - so much love, so deeply true - 7 loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Still, he doesn't ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father's sins to the third and even fourth generation." 8 At once, Moses fell to the ground and worshiped, 9 saying, "Please, O Master, if you see anything good in me, please Master, travel with us, hard-headed as these people are. Forgive our iniquity and sin. Own us, possess us."
10 And God said, "As of right now, I'm making a covenant with you: In full sight of your people I will work wonders that have never been created in all the Earth, in any nation. Then all the people with whom you're living will see how tremendous God's work is, the work I'll do for you.
11 Take careful note of all I command you today. I'm clearing your way by driving out Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 12 Stay vigilant. Don't let down your guard lest you make covenant with the people who live in the land that you are entering and they trip you up. 13 "Tear down their altars, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their fertility poles. 14 Don't worship any other god. God - his name is The-Jealous-One - is a jealous God. 15 Be careful that you don't make a covenant with the people who live in the land and take up with their sex-and-religion life, join them in meals at their altars, 16 marry your sons to their women, women who take up with any convenient god or goddess and will get your sons to do the same thing. 17 "Don't make molten gods for yourselves.
18 "Keep the Feast of Unraised Bread. Eat only unraised bread for seven days in the month of Abib - it was in the month of Abib that you came out of Egypt. 19 "Every firstborn from the womb is mine, all the males of your herds, your firstborn oxen and sheep. 20 "Redeem your firstborn donkey with a lamb. If you don't redeem it you must break its neck. "Redeem each of your firstborn sons. "No one is to show up in my presence empty-handed. 21 "Work six days and rest the seventh. Stop working even during plowing and harvesting. 22 "Keep the Feast of Weeks with the first cutting of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 "All your men are to appear before the Master, the God of Israel, three times a year. 24 You won't have to worry about your land when you appear before your God three times each year, for I will drive out the nations before you and give you plenty of land. Nobody's going to be hanging around plotting ways to get it from you. 25 "Don't mix the blood of my sacrifices with anything fermented. "Don't leave leftovers from the Passover Feast until morning. 26 "Bring the finest of the firstfruits of your produce to the house of your God. "Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk."
27 God said to Moses: "Now write down these words, for by these words I've made a covenant with you and Israel."
28 Moses was there with God forty days and forty nights. He didn't eat any food; he didn't drink any water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words. 29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets of The Testimony, he didn't know that the skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with God. 30 Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, saw his radiant face, and held back, afraid to get close to him. 31 Moses called out to them. Aaron and the leaders in the community came back and Moses talked with them. 32 Later all the Israelites came up to him and he passed on the commands, everything that God had told him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face, 34 but when he went into the presence of God to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. When he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they would see Moses' face, its skin glowing, and then he would again put the veil on his face until he went back in to speak with God.
351 Moses spoke to the entire congregation of Israel, saying, "These are the things that God has commanded you to do: 2 "Work six days, but the seventh day will be a holy rest day, God's holy rest day. Anyone who works on this day must be put to death. 3 Don't light any fires in your homes on the Sabbath day." The Offerings
4 Moses spoke to the entire congregation of Israel, saying, "This is what God has commanded: 5 "Gather from among you an offering for God. Receive on God's behalf what everyone is willing to give as an offering: gold, silver, bronze; 6 blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats' hair; 7 tanned rams' skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood; 8 lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense; 9 onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece.
10 "Come - all of you who have skills - come and make everything that God has commanded: 11 The Dwelling with its tent and cover, its hooks, frames, crossbars, posts, and bases; 12 the Chest with its poles, the Atonement-Cover and veiling curtain; 13 the Table with its poles and implements and the Bread of the Presence; 14 the Lampstand for giving light with its furnishings and lamps and the oil for lighting; 15 the Altar of Incense with its poles, the anointing oil, the fragrant incense; the screen for the door at the entrance to The Dwelling; 16 the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering with its bronze grate and poles and all its implements; the Washbasin with its base; 17 the tapestry hangings for the Courtyard with the posts and bases, the screen for the Courtyard gate; 18 the pegs for The Dwelling, the pegs for the Courtyard with their cords; 19 the official vestments for ministering in the Holy Place, the sacred vestments for Aaron the priest and for his sons serving as priests."
20 So everyone in the community of Israel left the presence of Moses. 21 Then they came back, every one whose heart was roused, whose spirit was freely responsive, bringing offerings to God for building the Tent of Meeting, furnishing it for worship and making the holy vestments. 22 They came, both men and women, all the willing spirits among them, offering brooches, earrings, rings, necklaces - anything made of gold - offering up their gold jewelry to God. 23 And anyone who had blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics; fine linen; goats' hair; tanned leather; and dolphin skins brought them. 24 Everyone who wanted to offer up silver or bronze as a gift to God brought it. Everyone who had acacia wood that could be used in the work, brought it. 25 All the women skilled at weaving brought their weavings of blue and purple and scarlet fabrics and their fine linens. 26 And all the women who were gifted in spinning, spun the goats' hair. 27 The leaders brought onyx and other precious stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece. 28 They also brought spices and olive oil for lamp oil, anointing oil, and incense. 29 Every man and woman in Israel whose heart moved them freely to bring something for the work that God through Moses had commanded them to make, brought it, a voluntary offering for God. Bezalel and Oholiab
30 Moses told the Israelites, "See, God has selected Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 31 He's filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and know-how for making all sorts of things, 32 to design and work in gold, silver, and bronze; 33 to carve stones and set them; to carve wood, working in every kind of skilled craft. 34 And he's also made him a teacher, he and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. 35 He's gifted them with the know-how needed for carving, designing, weaving, and embroidering in blue, purple, and scarlet fabrics, and in fine linen. They can make anything and design anything.
23 That same day, Sadducees approached him. This is the party that denies any possibility of resurrection. 24 They asked, "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies childless, his brother is obligated to marry his widow and get her with child. 25 Here's a case where there were seven brothers. The first brother married and died, leaving no child, and his wife passed to his brother. 26 The second brother also left her childless, then the third - and on and on, all seven. 27 Eventually the wife died. 28 Now here's our question: At the resurrection, whose wife is she? She was a wife to each of them." 29 Jesus answered, "You're off base on two counts: You don't know your Bibles, and you don't know how God works. 30 At the resurrection we're beyond marriage. As with the angels, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. 31 And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don't you read your Bibles? The grammar is clear: God says, 32 'I am - not was - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.' The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living." 33 Hearing this exchange the crowd was much impressed.
34 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. 35 One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: 36 "Teacher, which command in God's Law is the most important?" 37 Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' 38 This is the most important, the first on any list. 39 But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' 40 These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."
41 As the Pharisees were regrouping, Jesus caught them off balance with his own test question: 42 "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said, "David's son." 43 Jesus replied, "Well, if the Christ is David's son, how do you explain that David, under inspiration, named Christ his 'Master'? 44 God said to my Master, "Sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." 45 "Now if David calls him 'Master,' how can he at the same time be his son?" 46 That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good.
(Read Matthew 22:23-33)
The doctrines of Christ displeased the infidel Sadducees, as well as the Pharisees and Herodians. He carried the great truths of the resurrection and a future state, further than they had yet been reveled. There is no arguing from the state of things in this world, as to what will take place hereafter. Let truth be set in a clear light, and it appears in full strength. Having thus silenced them, our Lord proceeded to show the truth of the doctrine of the resurrection from the books of Moses. God declared to Moses that he was the God of the patriarchs, who had died long before; this shows that they were then in a state of being, capable of enjoying his favour, and proves that the doctrine of the resurrection is clearly taught in the Old Testament as well as in the New. But this doctrine was kept for a more full revelation, after the resurrection of Christ, who was the first-fruits of them that slept. All errors arise from not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God. In this world death takes away one after another, and so ends all earthly hopes, joys, sorrows, and connexions. How wretched are those who look for nothing better beyond the grave!
(Read Matthew 22:34-40)
An interpreter of the law asked our Lord a question, to try, not so much his knowledge, as his judgment. The love of God is the first and great commandment, and the sum of all the commands of the first table. Our love of God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. All our love is too little to bestow upon him, therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. To love our neighbour as ourselves, is the second great commandment. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a self-love which is the rule of the greatest duty: we must have a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves; in many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of others. By these two commandments let our hearts be formed as by a mould.
(Read Matthew 22:41-46)
When Christ baffled his enemies, he asked what thoughts they had of the promised Messiah? How he could be the Son of David and yet his Lord? He quotes Psalm 110:1. If the Christ was to be a mere man, who would not exist till many ages after David's death, how could his forefather call him Lord? The Pharisees could not answer it. Nor can any solve the difficulty except he allows the Messiah to be the Son of God, and David's Lord equally with the Father. He took upon him human nature, and so became God manifested in the flesh; in this sense he is the Son of man and the Son of David. It behoves us above all things seriously to inquire, "What think we of Christ?" Is he altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to him, and more devoted to his service.
