The One Year Bible TLB (28 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
For there are six things the Lord hates—no, seven: haughtiness, lying, murdering, plotting evil, eagerness to do wrong, a false witness, sowing discord among brothers.
February 219
The horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his chariots
Tried to follow through the sea;
But the Lord let down the walls of water on them
While the people of Israel walked through on dry land.
20
Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine and led the women in dances.
21
And Miriam sang this song:
Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.
The horse and rider have been drowned in the sea.
22
Then Moses led the people of Israel on from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the wilderness of Shur and were there three days without water.
23
Arriving at Marah, they couldn’t drink the water because it was bitter (that is why the place was called Marah, meaning “bitter”).
24
Then the people turned against Moses. “Must we die of thirst?” they demanded.
25
Moses pleaded with the Lord to help them, and the Lord showed him a tree to throw into the water, and the water became sweet.
It was there at Marah that the Lord laid before them the following conditions, to test their commitment to him:
26
“If you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and obey it, and do what is right, then I will not make you suffer the diseases I sent on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.”
27
And they came to Elim where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees; and they camped there beside the springs.
16:
1
Now they left Elim and journeyed on into the Sihn Desert, between Elim and Mount Sinai, arriving there on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving Egypt.
2
There, too, the people spoke bitterly against Moses and Aaron.
3
“Oh, that we were back in Egypt,” they moaned, “and that the Lord had killed us there! For there we had plenty to eat. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to kill us with starvation.”
4
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for them. Everyone can go out each day and gather as much food as he needs. And I will test them in this, to see whether they will follow my instructions or not.
5
Tell them to gather twice as much as usual on the sixth day of each week.”
6
Then Moses and Aaron called a meeting of all the people of Israel and told them, “This evening you will realize that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
7-9
In the morning you will see more of his glory; for he has heard your complaints against him (for you aren’t really complaining against
us—
who are
we?
). The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening, and bread in the morning. Come now before Jehovah and hear his reply to your complaints.”
10
So Aaron called them together and suddenly, out toward the wilderness, from within the guiding cloud, there appeared the awesome glory of Jehovah.
11-12
And Jehovah said to Moses, “I have heard their complaints. Tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat and in the morning you will be stuffed with bread, and you shall know that I am Jehovah your God.’”
13
That evening vast numbers of quail arrived and covered the camp, and in the morning the desert all around the camp was wet with dew;
14
and when the dew disappeared later in the morning it left thin white flakes that covered the ground like frost.
15
When the people of Israel saw it they asked each other, “What is it?”
And Moses told them, “It is the food Jehovah has given you.
16
Jehovah has said for everyone to gather as much as is needed for his household—about two quarts
*
for each person.”
17
So the people of Israel went out and gathered it—some getting more and some less before it melted on the ground,
18
and there was just enough for everyone. Those who gathered more had nothing left over and those who gathered little had no lack! Each home had just enough.
19
And Moses told them, “Don’t leave it overnight.”
20
But of course some of them wouldn’t listen, and left it until morning; and when they looked, it was full of maggots and had a terrible odor; and Moses was very angry with them.
21
So they gathered the food morning by morning, each home according to its need; and when the sun became hot upon the ground, the food melted and disappeared.
22
On the sixth day there was twice as much as usual on the ground—four quarts instead of two; the leaders of the people came and asked Moses why this had happened.
23
And he told them, “Because the Lord has appointed tomorrow as a day of seriousness and rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord when we must refrain from doing our daily tasks. So cook as much as you want to today, and keep what is left for tomorrow.”
24
And the next morning the food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor.
25
Moses said, “This is your food for today, for today is the Sabbath to Jehovah and there will be no food on the ground today.
26
Gather the food for six days, but the seventh is a Sabbath, and there will be none there for you on that day.”
27
But some of the people went out anyway to gather food, even though it was the Sabbath, but there wasn’t any.
28-29
“How long will these people refuse to obey?” the Lord asked Moses. “Don’t they realize that I am giving them twice as much on the sixth day, so that there will be enough for two days? For the Lord has given you the seventh day as a day of Sabbath rest; stay in your tents and don’t go out to pick up food from the ground that day.”
30
So the people rested on the seventh day.
31
And the food became known as “manna” (meaning “What is it?”); it was white, like coriander seed, and flat, and tasted like honey bread.
32
Then Moses gave them this further instruction from the Lord: they were to take two quarts of it to be kept as a museum specimen forever, so that later generations could see the bread the Lord had fed them in the wilderness, when he brought them from Egypt.
33
Moses told Aaron to get a container and put two quarts of manna in it and to keep it in a sacred place from generation to generation.
34
Aaron did this, just as the Lord had instructed Moses, and eventually it was kept in the Ark in the Tabernacle.
35
So the people of Israel ate the manna forty years until they arrived in the land of Canaan, where there were crops to eat.
36
The omer—the container used to measure the manna—held about two quarts; it is approximately a tenth of a bushel.
17:
1
Now, at God’s command, the people of Israel left the Sihn Desert, going by easy stages to Rephidim. But upon arrival, there was no water!
2
So once more the people growled and complained to Moses. “Give us water!” they wailed.
“Quiet!” Moses commanded. “Are you trying to test God’s patience with you?”
3
But, tormented by thirst, they cried out, “Why did you ever take us out of Egypt? Why did you bring us here to die, with our children and cattle too?”
4
Then Moses pleaded with Jehovah. “What shall I do? For they are almost ready to stone me.”
5-6
Then Jehovah said to Moses, “Take the elders of Israel with you and lead the people out to Mount Horeb. I will meet you there at the rock. Strike it with your rod
*
—the same one you struck the Nile with—and water will come pouring out, enough for everyone!” Moses did as he was told, and the water gushed out!
7
Moses named the place Massah (meaning “tempting Jehovah to slay us”), and sometimes they referred to it as Meribah (meaning “argument” and “strife!”)—for it was there that the people of Israel argued against God and tempted him to slay them
*
by saying, “Is Jehovah going to take care of us or not?”
Jesus told several other stories to show what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
“For instance,”
he said,
“it can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding dinner for his son.
3
Many guests were invited, and when the banquet was ready, he sent messengers to notify everyone that it was time to come. But all refused!
4
So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘Everything is ready and the roast is in the oven. Hurry!’
5
“But the guests he had invited merely laughed and went on about their business, one to his farm, another to his store;
6
others beat up his messengers and treated them shamefully, even killing some of them.
7
“Then the angry king sent out his army and destroyed the murderers and burned their city.
8
And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor.
9
Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’
10
“So the servants did, and brought in all they could find, good and bad alike; and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
11
But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the wedding robe provided for him.
*
12
“‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how does it happen that you are here without a wedding robe?’ And the man had no reply.
13
“Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14
For many are called, but few are chosen.”
15
Then the Pharisees met together to try to think of some way to trap Jesus into saying something for which they could arrest him.
16
They decided to send some of their men along with the Herodians
*
to ask him this question: “Sir, we know you are very honest and teach the truth regardless of the consequences, without fear or favor.
17
Now tell us, is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?”
18
But Jesus saw what they were after.
“You hypocrites!”
he exclaimed.
“Who are you trying to fool with your trick questions?
19
Here, show me a coin.”
And they handed him a penny.
20
“Whose picture is stamped on it?”
he asked them.
“And whose name is this beneath the picture?”
21
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
“Well, then,” he said, “give it to Caesar if it is his, and give God everything that belongs to God.”
22
His reply surprised and baffled them, and they went away.
23
But that same day some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection after death, came to him and asked,
24
“Sir, Moses said that if a man died without children, his brother should marry the widow and their children would get all the dead man’s property.
25
Well, we had among us a family of seven brothers. The first of these men married and then died, without children, so his widow became the second brother’s wife.
26
This brother also died without children, and the wife was passed to the next brother, and so on until she had been the wife of each of them.
27
And then she also died.
28
So whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For she was the wife of all seven of them!”
29
But Jesus said,
“Your error is caused by your ignorance of the Scriptures and of God’s power!
30
For in the resurrection there is no marriage; everyone is as the angels in heaven.
31
But now, as to whether there is a resurrection of the dead—don’t you ever read the Scriptures? Don’t you realize that God was speaking directly to you when he said,
32
‘I
am
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’? So God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living.”
*