Exodus 25
OFFERINGS TO BUILD THE TABERNACLE
The Lord spoke to Moses:
2 “Tell the Israelites to take an offering for me. You are to take my offering from everyone who is willing to give. 3 This is the offering you are to receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze; 4 blue, purple, and scarlet yarn; fine linen and goat hair; 5 ram skins dyed red and fine leather; acacia wood; 6 oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; 7 and onyx along with other gemstones for mounting on the ephod and breastpiece.
8 “They are to make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them. 9 You must make it according to all that I show you — the pattern of the tabernacle as well as the pattern of all its furnishings.
THE ARK
10 “They are to make an ark of acacia wood, forty-five inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high. 11 Overlay it with pure gold; overlay it both inside and out. Also make a gold molding all around it. 12 Cast four gold rings for it and place them on its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other side. 13 Make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 14 Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark in order to carry the ark with them. 15 The poles are to remain in the rings of the ark; they must not be removed from it. 16 Put the tablets of the testimony that I will give you into the ark. 17 Make a mercy seat of pure gold, forty-five inches long and twenty-seven inches wide. 18 Make two cherubim of gold; make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end. At its two ends, make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 The cherubim are to have wings spread out above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and are to face one another. The faces of the cherubim should be toward the mercy seat. 21 Set the mercy seat on top of the ark and put the tablets of the testimony that I will give you into the ark. 22 I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony; I will speak with you from there about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.
THE TABLE
23 “You are to construct a table of acacia wood, thirty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high. 24 Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold molding all around it. 25 Make a three-inch frame all around it and make a gold molding for it all around its frame. 26 Make four gold rings for it, and attach the rings to the four corners at its four legs. 27 The rings should be next to the frame as holders for the poles to carry the table. 28 Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, and the table can be carried by them. 29 You are also to make its plates and cups, as well as its pitchers and bowls for pouring drink offerings. Make them out of pure gold. 30 Put the Bread of the Presence on the table before me at all times.
THE LAMPSTAND
31 “You are to make a lampstand out of pure, hammered gold. It is to be made of one piece: its base and shaft, its ornamental cups, and its buds and petals. 32 Six branches are to extend from its sides, three branches of the lampstand from one side and three branches of the lampstand from the other side. 33 There are to be three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with a bud and petals, on one branch, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with a bud and petals, on the next branch. It is to be this way for the six branches that extend from the lampstand. 34 There are to be four cups shaped like almond blossoms on the lampstand shaft along with its buds and petals. 35 For the six branches that extend from the lampstand, a bud must be under the first pair of branches from it, a bud under the second pair of branches from it, and a bud under the third pair of branches from it. 36 Their buds and branches are to be of one piece. All of it is to be a single hammered piece of pure gold.
37 “Make its seven lamps, and set them up so that they illuminate the area in front of it. 38 Its snuffers and firepans must be of pure gold. 39 The lampstand with all these utensils is to be made from seventy-five pounds of pure gold. 40 Be careful to make them according to the pattern you have been shown on the mountain.
John 4
JESUS AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John
2 (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), 3 he left Judea and went again to Galilee. 4 He had to travel through Samaria; 5 so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? ” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
16 “Go call your husband,” he told her,“and come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
THE RIPENED HARVEST
27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want? ” or “Why are you talking with her? ”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? ” 30 They left the town and made their way to him.
31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat? ”
34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”
THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD
39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”
A GALILEAN WELCOME
43 After two days he left there for Galilee. 44 (Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. ) 45 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.
THE SECOND SIGN: HEALING AN OFFICIAL’S SON
46 He went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die.
48 Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
49 “Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my boy dies.”
50 “Go,” Jesus told him,“your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed.
51 While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. 52 He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him,” they answered. 53 The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him,“Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.
54 Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.
Proverbs 1
THE PURPOSE OF PROVERBS
The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 For learning wisdom and discipline;
for understanding insightful sayings;
3 for receiving prudent instruction
in righteousness, justice, and integrity;
4 for teaching shrewdness to the inexperienced,
knowledge and discretion to a young man —
5 let a wise person listen and increase learning,
and let a discerning person obtain guidance —
6 for understanding a proverb or a parable,
the words of the wise, and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and discipline.
AVOID THE PATH OF THE VIOLENT
8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction,
and don’t reject your mother’s teaching,
9 for they will be a garland of favor on your head
and pendants around your neck.
10 My son, if sinners entice you,
don’t be persuaded.
11 If they say — “Come with us!
Let’s set an ambush and kill someone.
Let’s attack some innocent person just for fun!
12 Let’s swallow them alive, like Sheol,
whole, like those who go down to the Pit.
13 We’ll find all kinds of valuable property
and fill our houses with plunder.
14 Throw in your lot with us,
and we’ll all share the loot” —
15 my son, don’t travel that road with them
or set foot on their path,
16 because their feet run toward evil
and they hurry to shed blood.
17 It is useless to spread a net
where any bird can see it,
18 but they set an ambush to kill themselves;
they attack their own lives.
19 Such are the paths of all who make profit dishonestly;
it takes the lives of those who receive it.
WISDOM’S PLEA
20 Wisdom calls out in the street;
she makes her voice heard in the public squares.
21 She cries out above the commotion;
she speaks at the entrance of the city gates:
22 “How long, inexperienced ones, will you love ignorance?
How long will you mockers enjoy mocking
and you fools hate knowledge?
23 If you respond to my warning,
then I will pour out my spirit on you
and teach you my words.
24 Since I called out and you refused,
extended my hand and no one paid attention,
25 since you neglected all my counsel
and did not accept my correction,
26 I, in turn, will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when trouble and stress overcome you.
28 Then they will call me, but I won’t answer;
they will search for me, but won’t find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge,
didn’t choose to fear the Lord,
30 were not interested in my counsel,
and rejected all my correction,
31 they will eat the fruit of their way
and be glutted with their own schemes.
32 For the apostasy of the inexperienced will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
33 But whoever listens to me will live securely
and be undisturbed by the dread of danger.”
2 Corinthians 13
FINAL WARNINGS AND EXHORTATIONS
This is the third time I am coming to you. Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
2 I gave a warning when I was present the second time, and now I give a warning while I am absent to those who sinned before and to all the rest: If I come again, I will not be lenient, 3 since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but powerful among you. 4 For he was crucified in weakness, but he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by God’s power.
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless you fail the test. 6 And I hope you will recognize that we ourselves do not fail the test. 7 But we pray to God that you do nothing wrong — not that we may appear to pass the test, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear to fail. 8 For we can’t do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 We rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray that you become fully mature. 10 This is why I am writing these things while absent, so that when I am there I may not have to deal harshly with you, in keeping with the authority the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.
11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice. Become mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send you greetings.
13 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
— Exodus 25, John 4, Proverbs 1, 2 Corinthians 13 (CSB)