March 14 - Matthew 15.1-20, Leviticus 24-25 and Ecclesiastes 1.1-11
March 14 - Matthew 15.1-20, Leviticus 24-25 and Ecclesiastes 1.1-11
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The Teaching of the Ancestors
 3Jesus answered, "And why do you disobey God's command and follow your own teaching?
4For God said, 'Respect your father and your mother,' and 'If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death.'
5But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, 'This belongs to God,'
6they do not need to honor their father. In this way you disregard God's command, in order to follow your own teaching.
7You hypocrites! How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you!
 8'These people, says God, honor me with their words,
 but their heart is really far away from me.
9It is no use for them to worship me,
because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!'"
The Things That Make a Person Unclean
10Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand!
11It is not what goes into your mouth that makes you ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes you unclean."
12Then the disciples came to him and said, "Do you know that the Pharisees had their feelings hurt by what you said?"
13"Every plant which my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up," answered Jesus.
14"Don't worry about them! They are blind leaders of the blind; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch."
15Peter spoke up, "Explain this saying to us."
16Jesus said to them, "You are still no more intelligent than the others.
17Don't you understand? Anything that goes into your mouth goes into your stomach and then on out of your body.
18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make you ritually unclean.
19For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others.
20These are the things that make you unclean. But to eat without washing your hands as they say you should--this doesn't make you unclean."
Taking Care of the Lamps
The Bread Offered to God 5Take twenty-four pounds of flour and bake twelve loaves of bread.
6Put the loaves in two rows, six in each row, on the table covered with pure gold, which is in the LORD's presence.
7Put some pure incense on each row, as a token food offering to the LORD to take the place of the bread.
8Every Sabbath, for all time to come, the bread must be placed in the presence of the LORD. This is Israel's duty forever.
9The bread belongs to Aaron and his descendants, and they shall eat it in a holy place, because this is a very holy part of the food offered to the LORD for the priests.
An Example of Just and Fair Punishment 10-11There was a man whose father was an Egyptian and whose mother was an Israelite named Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri from the tribe of Dan. There in the camp this man quarreled with an Israelite. During the quarrel he cursed the LORD, so they took him to Moses,
12put him under guard, and waited for the LORD to tell them what to do with him.
13The LORD said to Moses,
14"Take that man out of the camp. Everyone who heard him curse shall put his hands on the man's head to testify that he is guilty, and then the whole community shall stone him to death.
15Then tell the people of Israel that anyone who curses God must suffer the consequences
16and be put to death. Any Israelite or any foreigner living in Israel who curses the LORD shall be stoned to death by the whole community.
17"Any who commit murder shall be put to death,
18and any who kill an animal belonging to someone else must replace it. The principle is a life for a life.
19"If any of you injure another person, whatever you have done shall be done to you.
20If you break a bone, one of your bones shall be broken; if you put out an eye, one of your eyes shall be put out; if you knock out a tooth, one of your teeth shall be knocked out. Whatever injury you cause another person shall be done to you in return.
21Whoever kills an animal shall replace it, but whoever kills a human being shall be put to death.
22This law applies to all of you, to Israelites and to foreigners living among you, because I am the LORD your God."
23When Moses had said this to the people of Israel, they took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death. In this way the people of Israel did what the LORD had commanded Moses.
The Seventh Year
The Year of Restoration 8Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years.
9Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land.
10In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families.
11You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards.
12The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.
13In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner.
14So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly.
15The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration.
16If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce.
17Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the LORD your God.
The Problem of the Seventh Year 18Obey all the LORD's laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land.
19The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety.
20But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are planted and no crops gathered.
21The LORD will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years.
22When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.
Restoration of Property 23Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.
24When land is sold, the right of the original owner to buy it back must be recognized.
25If any of you Israelites become poor and are forced to sell your land, your closest relative is to buy it back.
26If you have no relative to buy it back, you may later become prosperous and have enough to buy it back yourself.
27In that case you must pay to the one who bought it a sum that will make up for the years remaining until the next Year of Restoration, when you would in any event recover your land.
28But if you do not have enough money to buy the land back, it remains under the control of the one who bought it until the next Year of Restoration. In that year it will be returned to its original owner.
29If you sell a house in a walled city, you have the right to buy it back during the first full year from the date of sale.
30But if you do not buy it back within the year, you lose the right of repurchase, and the house becomes the permanent property of the purchasers and their descendants; it will not be returned in the Year of Restoration.
31But houses in unwalled villages are to be treated like fields; the original owner has the right to buy them back, and they are to be returned in the Year of Restoration.
32However, Levites have the right to buy back at any time their property in the cities assigned to them.
33If a house in one of these cities is sold by a Levite and is not bought back, it must be returned in the Year of Restoration, because the houses which the Levites own in their cities are their permanent property among the people of Israel.
34But the pasture land around the Levite cities shall never be sold; it is their property forever.
Loans to the Poor 35If any Israelites living near you become poor and cannot support themselves, you must provide for them as you would for a hired worker, so that they can continue to live near you.
36Do not charge Israelites any interest, but obey God and let them live near you.
37Do not make them pay interest on the money you lend them, and do not make a profit on the food you sell them.
38This is the command of the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt in order to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
Release of Slaves 39If any Israelites living near you become so poor that they sell themselves to you as a slave, you shall not make them do the work of a slave.
40They shall stay with you as hired workers and serve you until the next Year of Restoration.
41At that time they and their children shall leave you and return to their family and to the property of their ancestors.
42The people of Israel are the LORD's slaves, and he brought them out of Egypt; they must not be sold into slavery.
43Do not treat them harshly, but obey your God.
44If you need slaves, you may buy them from the nations around you.
45You may also buy the children of the foreigners who are living among you. Such children born in your land may become your property,
46and you may leave them as an inheritance to your children, whom they must serve as long as they live. But you must not treat any Israelites harshly.
47Suppose a foreigner living with you becomes rich, while some Israelites become poor and sell themselves as slaves to that foreigner or to a member of that foreigner's family.
48After they are sold, they still have the right to be bought back. A brother
49or an uncle or a cousin or another close relative may buy them back; or if they themselves earn enough, they may buy their own freedom.
50They must consult the one who bought them, and they must count the years from the time they sold themselves until the next Year of Restoration and must set the price for their release on the basis of the wages paid hired workers.
51-52They must refund a part of the purchase price according to the number of years left,
53as if they had been hired on an annual basis. Their master must not treat them harshly.
54If they are not set free in any of these ways, they and their children must be set free in the next Year of Restoration.
55Israelites cannot be permanent slaves, because the people of Israel are the LORD's slaves. He brought them out of Egypt; he is the LORD their God.
Life Is Useless Ecclesiastes 1 These are the words of the Philosopher, David's son, who was king in Jerusalem.2It is useless, useless, said the Philosopher. Life is useless, all useless.
3You spend your life working, laboring, and what do you have to show for it?
4Generations come and generations go, but the world stays just the same.
5The sun still rises, and it still goes down, going wearily back to where it must start all over again.
6The wind blows south, the wind blows north--round and round and back again.
7Every river flows into the sea, but the sea is not yet full. The water returns to where the rivers began, and starts all over again.
8Everything leads to weariness--a weariness too great for words. Our eyes can never see enough to be satisfied; our ears can never hear enough.
9What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new in the whole world.
10"Look," they say, "here is something new!" But no, it has all happened before, long before we were born.
11No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then.
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This reading is from The Holy
Bible, Today's English Version, Second Edition copyright © American
Bible Society, 1992;
Old Testament copyright © American Bible Society, 1976, 1992; New Testament ©
American Bible Society, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992.
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