Leviticus 26; Leviticus 27; Mark 2

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Leviticus 26

1 The Lord said, "Do not make idols or set up statues, stone pillars, or carved stones to worship. I am the Lord your God.
2 Keep the religious festivals and honor the place where I am worshiped. I am the Lord.
3 "If you live according to my laws and obey my commands,
4 I will send you rain at the right time, so that the land will produce crops and the trees will bear fruit.
5 Your crops will be so plentiful that you will still be harvesting grain when it is time to pick grapes, and you will still be picking grapes when it is time to plant grain. You will have all that you want to eat, and you can live in safety in your land.
6 "I will give you peace in your land, and you can sleep without being afraid of anyone. I will get rid of the dangerous animals in the land, and there will be no more war there.
7 You will be victorious over your enemies;
8 five of you will be able to defeat a hundred, and a hundred will be able to defeat ten thousand.
9 I will bless you and give you many children; I will keep my part of the covenant that I made with you.
10 Your harvests will be so plentiful that they will last for a year, and even then you will have to throw away what is left of the old harvest to make room for the new.
11 I will live among you in my sacred Tent, and I will never turn away from you.
12 I will be with you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.
13 I, the Lord your God, brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the power that held you down and I let you walk with your head held high."
14 The Lord said, "If you will not obey my commands, you will be punished.
15 If you refuse to obey my laws and commands and break the covenant I have made with you,
16 I will punish you. I will bring disaster on you - incurable diseases and fevers that will make you blind and cause your life to waste away. You will plant your crops, but it will do you no good, because your enemies will conquer you and eat what you have grown.
17 I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated, and those who hate you will rule over you; you will be so terrified that you will run when no one is chasing you.
18 "If even after all of this you still do not obey me, I will increase your punishment seven times.
19 I will break your stubborn pride; there will be no rain, and your land will be dry and as hard as iron.
20 All your hard work will do you no good, because your land will not produce crops and the trees will not bear fruit.
21 "If you still continue to resist me and refuse to obey me, I will again increase your punishment seven times.
22 I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.
23 "If after all of this punishment you still do not listen to me, but continue to defy me,
24 then I will turn on you and punish you seven times harder than before.
25 I will bring war on you to punish you for breaking our covenant, and if you gather in your cities for safety, I will send incurable diseases among you, and you will be forced to surrender to your enemies.
26 I will cut off your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake all the bread they have. They will ration it out, and when you have eaten it all, you will still be hungry.
27 "If after all of this you still continue to defy me and refuse to obey me,
28 then in my anger I will turn on you and again make your punishment seven times worse than before.
29 Your hunger will be so great that you will eat your own children.
30 I will destroy your places of worship on the hills, tear down your incense altars, and throw your dead bodies on your fallen idols. In utter disgust
31 I will turn your cities into ruins, destroy your places of worship, and refuse to accept your sacrifices.
32 I will destroy your land so completely that the enemies who occupy it will be shocked at the destruction.
33 I will bring war on you and scatter you in foreign lands. Your land will be deserted, and your cities left in ruins.
34 Then the land will enjoy the years of complete rest that you would not give it; it will lie abandoned and get its rest while you are in exile in the land of your enemies.
36 "I will make those of you who are in exile so terrified that the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind will make you run. You will run as if you were being pursued in battle, and you will fall when there is no enemy near you.
37 You will stumble over one another when no one is chasing you, and you will be unable to fight against any enemy.
38 You will die in exile, swallowed up by the land of your enemies.
39 The few of you who survive in the land of your enemies will waste away because of your own sin and the sin of your ancestors.
40 "But your descendants will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, who resisted me and rebelled against me,
41 and caused me to turn against them and send them into exile in the land of their enemies. At last, when your descendants are humbled and they have paid the penalty for their sin and rebellion,
42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will renew my promise to give my people the land.
43 First, however, the land must be rid of its people, so that it can enjoy its complete rest, and they must pay the full penalty for having rejected my laws and my commands.
44 But even then, when they are still in the land of their enemies, I will not completely abandon them or destroy them. That would put an end to my covenant with them, and I am the Lord their God.
45 I will renew the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I showed all the nations my power by bringing my people out of Egypt, in order that I, the Lord, might be their God."
46 All these are the laws and commands that the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Leviticus 27

1 The Lord gave Moses
2 the following regulations for the people of Israel. When any of you have been given to the Lord in fulfillment of a special vow, you may be set free by the payment of the following sums of money,
3 according to the official standard: -adult male, twenty to sixty years old: 50 pieces of silver -adult female: 30 pieces of silver -young male, five to twenty years old: 20 pieces of silver -young female: 10 pieces of silver -infant male under five: 5 pieces of silver -infant female: 3 pieces of silver -male above sixty years of age: 15 pieces of silver -female above sixty: 10 pieces of silver
8 If any of you make a vow and are too poor to pay the standard price, you shall bring the person to the priest, and the priest will set a lower price, according to your ability to pay.
9 If your vow concerns an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the Lord, then every gift made to the Lord is sacred,
10 and you may not substitute another animal for it. If you do, both animals belong to the Lord.
11 But if your vow concerns a ritually unclean animal, which is not acceptable as an offering to the Lord, you shall take the animal to the priest.
12 The priest shall set a price for it, according to its good or bad qualities, and the price will be final.
13 If you wish to buy it back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
14 When any of you dedicate your house to the Lord, the priest shall set the price according to its good or bad points, and the price will be final.
15 If you wish to buy your house back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
16 If any of you dedicate part of your land to the Lord, the price shall be set according to the amount of seed it takes to sow it, at the rate of ten pieces of silver per bushel of barley.
17 If you dedicate the land immediately after a Year of Restoration, the full price applies.
18 If you dedicate it any time later, the priest shall estimate the cash value according to the number of years left until the next Year of Restoration, and set a reduced price.
19 If you wish to buy your field back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
20 If you sell the field to someone else without first buying it back from the Lord, you lose the right to buy it back.
21 At the next Year of Restoration the field will become the Lord's permanent property; it shall belong to the priests.
22 If you dedicate to the Lord a field that you have bought,
23 the priest shall estimate its value according to the number of years until the next Year of Restoration, and you must pay the price that very day; the money belongs to the Lord.
24 At the Year of Restoration the field shall be returned to the original owner or to the descendants.
25 All prices shall be set according to the official standard.
26 The first-born of an animal already belongs to the Lord, so no one may dedicate it to him as a freewill offering. A calf, a lamb, or a kid belongs to the Lord,
27 but the first-born of an unclean animal may be bought back at the standard price plus an additional 20 percent. If it is not bought back, it may be sold to someone else at the standard price.
28 None of you may sell or buy back what you have unconditionally dedicated to the Lord, whether it is a human being, an animal, or land. It belongs permanently to the Lord.
29 Not even human beings who have been unconditionally dedicated may be bought back; they must be put to death.
30 One tenth of all the produce of the land, whether grain or fruit, belongs to the Lord.
31 If you wish to buy any of it back, you must pay the standard price plus an additional 20 percent.
32 One of every ten domestic animals belongs to the Lord. When the animals are counted, every tenth one belongs to the Lord.
33 You may not arrange the animals so that the poor animals are chosen, and you may not make any substitutions. If you do substitute one animal for another, then both animals will belong to the Lord and may not be bought back.
34 These are the commands that the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Mark 2

1 A few days later Jesus went back to Capernaum, and the news spread that he was at home.
2 So many people came together that there was no room left, not even out in front of the door. Jesus was preaching the message to them
3 when four men arrived, carrying a paralyzed man to Jesus.
4 Because of the crowd, however, they could not get the man to him. So they made a hole in the roof right above the place where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they let the man down, lying on his mat.
5 Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven."
6 Some teachers of the Law who were sitting there thought to themselves,
7 "How does he dare talk like this? This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!"
8 At once Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, "Why do you think such things?
9 Is it easier to say to this paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, "Get up, pick up your mat, and walk'?
10 I will prove to you, then, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." So he said to the paralyzed man,
11 "I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!"
12 While they all watched, the man got up, picked up his mat, and hurried away. They were all completely amazed and praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
13 Jesus went back again to the shore of Lake Galilee. A crowd came to him, and he started teaching them.
14 As he walked along, he saw a tax collector, Levi son of Alphaeus, sitting in his office. Jesus said to him, "Follow me." Levi got up and followed him.
15 Later on Jesus was having a meal in Levi's house. A large number of tax collectors and other outcasts was following Jesus, and many of them joined him and his disciples at the table.
16 Some teachers of the Law, who were Pharisees, saw that Jesus was eating with these outcasts and tax collectors, so they asked his disciples, "Why does he eat with such people?"
17 Jesus heard them and answered, "People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts."
18 On one occasion the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and asked him, "Why is it that the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but yours do not?"
19 Jesus answered, "Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to go without food? Of course not! As long as the bridegroom is with them, they will not do that.
20 But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
21 "No one uses a piece of new cloth to patch up an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear off some of the old cloth, making an even bigger hole.
22 Nor does anyone pour new wine into used wineskins, because the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins."
23 Jesus was walking through some wheat fields on a Sabbath. As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the heads of wheat.
24 So the Pharisees said to Jesus, "Look, it is against our Law for your disciples to do that on the Sabbath!"
25 Jesus answered, "Have you never read what David did that time when he needed something to eat? He and his men were hungry,
26 so he went into the house of God and ate the bread offered to God. This happened when Abiathar was the High Priest. According to our Law only the priests may eat this bread - but David ate it and even gave it to his men."
27 And Jesus concluded, "The Sabbath was made for the good of human beings; they were not made for the Sabbath.
28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.