The One Year Bible TLB (154 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Discipline your son in his early years while there is hope. If you don’t, you will ruin his life.
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A short-tempered man must bear his own penalty; you can’t do much to help him. If you try once, you must try a dozen times!
July 20King David’s son Solomon was now the undisputed ruler of Israel, for the Lord his God had made him a powerful monarch.
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He summoned all the army officers and judges to Gibeon
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as well as all the political and religious leaders of Israel. He led them up the hill to the old Tabernacle constructed by Moses, the Lord’s assistant, while he was in the wilderness.
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(There was a later Tabernacle in Jerusalem, built by King David for the Ark of God when he removed it from Kiriath-jearim.)
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The bronze altar made by Bezalel (son of Uri, son of Hur) still stood in front of the old Tabernacle, and now Solomon and those he had invited assembled themselves before it, as he sacrificed upon it 1,000 burnt offerings to the Lord.
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That night God appeared to Solomon and told him, “Ask me for anything, and I will give it to you!”
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Solomon replied, “O God, you have been so kind and good to my father David, and now you have given me the kingdom—
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this is all I want! For you have fulfilled your promise to David my father and have made me king over a nation as full of people as the earth is full of dust!
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Now give me wisdom and knowledge to rule them properly, for who is able to govern by himself such a great nation as this one of yours?”
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God replied, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you haven’t asked for personal wealth and honor, and you haven’t asked me to curse your enemies, and you haven’t asked for a long life, but for wisdom and knowledge to properly guide my people—
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yes, I am giving you the wisdom and knowledge you asked for! And I am also giving you riches, wealth, and honor such as no other king has ever had before you! And there will never again be so great a king in all the world!”
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Solomon then left the Tabernacle, returned down the hill, and went back to Jerusalem to rule Israel.
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He built up a huge force of 1,400 chariots and recruited 12,000 cavalry to guard the cities where the chariots were garaged, though some, of course, were stationed at Jerusalem near the king.
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During Solomon’s reign, silver and gold were as plentiful in Jerusalem as rocks on the road! And expensive cedar lumber was used like common sycamore!
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Solomon sent horse traders to Egypt to purchase entire herds at wholesale prices.
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At that time Egyptian chariots sold for $400 each and horses for $100, delivered at Jerusalem. Many of these were then resold to the kings of the Hittites and Syria.
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Solomon now decided that the time had come to build a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself.
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This required a force of 70,000 laborers, 80,000 stonecutters in the hills, and 3,600 foremen.
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Solomon sent an ambassador to King Hiram at Tyre, requesting shipments of cedar lumber such as Hiram had supplied to David when he was building his palace.
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“I am about to build a temple for the Lord my God,” Solomon told Hiram. “It will be a place where I can burn incense and sweet spices before God, and display the special sacrificial bread, and sacrifice burnt offerings each morning and evening, and on the Sabbaths, and at the new moon celebration and other regular festivals of the Lord our God. For God wants Israel always to celebrate these special occasions.
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It is going to be a wonderful temple because he is a great God, greater than any other.
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But who can ever build him a worthy home? Not even the highest heaven would be beautiful enough! And who am I to be allowed to build a temple for God? But it will be a place to worship him.
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“So send me skilled craftsmen—goldsmiths and silversmiths, brass and iron workers; and send me weavers to make purple, crimson, and blue cloth; and skilled engravers to work beside the craftsmen of Judah and Jerusalem who were selected by my father David.
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Also send me cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees from the forests of Lebanon, for your men are without equal as lumbermen, and I will send my men to help them.
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An immense amount of lumber will be needed, for the temple I am going to build will be large and incredibly beautiful.
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As to the financial arrangements, I will pay your men 20,000 sacks of crushed wheat, 20,000 barrels of barley, 20,000 barrels of wine, and 20,000 barrels of olive oil.”
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King Hiram replied to King Solomon: “It is because the Lord loves his people that he has made you their king!
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Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who made the heavens and the earth and who has given to David such a wise, intelligent, and understanding son to build God’s Temple and a royal palace for himself.
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“I am sending you a master craftsman—my famous Huramabi! He is a brilliant man,
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the son of a Jewish woman from Dan in Israel; his father is from here in Tyre. He is a skillful goldsmith and silversmith, and also does exquisite work with brass and iron and knows all about stonework, carpentry, and weaving; and he is an expert in the dyeing of purple and blue linen and crimson cloth. He is an engraver besides, and an inventor! He will work with your craftsmen and those appointed by my lord David, your father.
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So send along the wheat, barley, olive oil, and wine you mentioned,
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and we will begin cutting wood from the Lebanon mountains, as much as you need, and bring it to you in log floats across the sea to Joppa, and from there you can take them inland to Jerusalem.”
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Solomon now took a census of all foreigners in the country (just as his father David had done) and found that there were 153,600 of them.
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He indentured 70,000 as common laborers, 80,000 as loggers, and 3,600 as foremen.
3:
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Finally the actual construction of the Temple began. Its location was in Jerusalem at the top of Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to Solomon’s father, King David, and where the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite had been. David had selected it as the site for the Temple.
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The actual construction began on the seventeenth day of April in the fourth year of King Solomon’s reign.
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The foundation was ninety feet long and thirty feet wide.
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A covered porch ran along the entire thirty-foot width of the Temple, with the inner walls and ceiling overlaid with pure gold! The roof was 180 feet high.
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The main part of the Temple was paneled with cypress wood, plated with pure gold, and engraved with palm trees and chains.
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Beautiful jewels were inlaid into the walls to add to the beauty; the gold, by the way, was of the best, from Parvaim.
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All the walls, beams, doors, and thresholds throughout the Temple were plated with gold, with Guardian Angels engraved on the walls.
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Within the Temple, at one end, was the most sacred room—the Holy of Holies—thirty feet square. This too was overlaid with the finest gold, valued at millions of dollars.
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Twenty-six-ounce gold nails were used. The upper rooms were also plated with pure gold.
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Within the innermost room, the Holy of Holies, Solomon placed two sculptured statues of Guardian Angels and plated them with gold.
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They stood on the floor facing the outer room, with wings stretched wing tip to wing tip across the room, from wall to wall.
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Across the entrance to this room he placed a veil of blue and crimson finespun linen, decorated with Guardian Angels.
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At the front of the Temple were two pillars 52
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feet high, topped by a 7
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-foot capital flaring out to the roof.
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He made chains
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and placed them on top of the pillars, with 100 pomegranates attached to the chains.
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Then he set up the pillars at the front of the Temple, one on the right and the other on the left. And he gave them names: Jachin (the one on the right), and Boaz (the one on the left).
Well then, shall we keep on sinning so that God can keep on showing us more and more kindness and forgiveness?
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Of course not! Should we keep on sinning when we don’t have to? For sin’s power over us was broken when we became Christians and were baptized to become a part of Jesus Christ; through his death the power of your sinful nature was shattered.
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Your old sin-loving nature was buried with him by baptism when he died; and when God the Father, with glorious power, brought him back to life again, you were given his wonderful new life to enjoy.
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For you have become a part of him, and so you died with him, so to speak, when he died;
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and now you share his new life and shall rise as he did.
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Your old evil desires were nailed to the cross with him; that part of you that loves to sin was crushed and fatally wounded, so that your sin-loving body is no longer under sin’s control, no longer needs to be a slave to sin;
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for when you are deadened to sin you are freed from all its allure and its power over you.
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And since your old sin-loving nature “died” with Christ, we know that you will share his new life.
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Christ rose from the dead and will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.
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He died once for all to end sin’s power, but now he lives forever in unbroken fellowship with God.
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So look upon your old sin nature as dead and unresponsive to sin, and instead be alive to God, alert to him, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Do not let sin control your puny body any longer; do not give in to its sinful desires.
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Do not let any part of your bodies become tools of wickedness, to be used for sinning; but give yourselves completely to God—every part of you—for you are back from death and you want to be tools in the hands of God, to be used for his good purposes.
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Sin need never again be your master,
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for now you are no longer tied to the law where sin enslaves you, but you are free under God’s favor and mercy.
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Does this mean that now we can go ahead and sin and not worry about it? (For our salvation does not depend on keeping the law but on receiving God’s grace!) Of course not!
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Don’t you realize that you can choose your own master? You can choose sin (with death) or else obedience (with acquittal). The one to whom you offer yourself—he will take you and be your master, and you will be his slave.
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Thank God that though you once chose to be slaves of sin, now you have obeyed with all your heart the teaching to which God has committed you.
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And now you are free from your old master, sin; and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness.
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I speak this way, using the illustration of slaves and masters, because it is easy to understand: just as you used to be slaves to all kinds of sin, so now you must let yourselves be slaves to all that is right and holy.
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In those days when you were slaves of sin you didn’t bother much with goodness.
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And what was the result? Evidently not good, since you are ashamed now even to think about those things you used to do, for all of them end in eternal doom.
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But now you are free from the power of sin and are slaves of God, and his benefits to you include holiness and everlasting life.
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For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Save me, O God, because I have come to you for refuge.
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I said to him, “You are my Lord; I have no other help but yours.”
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I want the company of the godly men and women in the land; they are the true nobility.
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Those choosing other gods shall all be filled with sorrow; I will not offer the sacrifices they do or even speak the names of their gods.
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The Lord himself is my inheritance, my prize. He is my food and drink, my highest joy! He guards all that is mine.
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He sees that I am given pleasant brooks and meadows as my share!
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What a wonderful inheritance!
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I will bless the Lord who counsels me; he gives me wisdom in the night. He tells me what to do.
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I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall.
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Heart, body, and soul are filled with joy.
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For you will not leave me among the dead; you will not allow your beloved one to rot in the grave.
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You have let me experience the joys of life and the exquisite pleasures of your own eternal presence.