Daily Bible GNT March 18 Scroll

Who Is the Greatest?
(Mark 9.33-37; Luke 9.46-48)

Matthew 18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, asking, "Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?"

²So Jesus called a child to come and stand in front of them, ³and said, "I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. ⁴The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child. ⁵And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me.

Temptations to Sin
(Mark 9.42-48; Luke 17.1, 2)

⁶"If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea. ⁷How terrible for the world that there are things that make people lose their faith! Such things will always happen--but how terrible for the one who causes them!

⁸"If your hand or your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life without a hand or a foot than to keep both hands and both feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹And if your eye makes you lose your faith, take it out and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep
(Luke 15.3-7)

¹⁰"See that you don't despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of my Father in heaven.

¹²"What do you think a man does who has one hundred sheep and one of them gets lost? He will leave the other ninety-nine grazing on the hillside and go and look for the lost sheep. ¹³When he finds it, I tell you, he feels far happier over this one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. ¹⁴In just the same way your Father in heaven does not want any of these little ones to be lost.

When Someone Sins

¹⁵"If your brother sins against you, go to him and show him his fault. But do it privately, just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have won your brother back. ¹⁶But if he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you, so that 'every accusation may be upheld by the testimony of two or more witnesses,' as the scripture says. ¹⁷And if he will not listen to them, then tell the whole thing to the church. Finally, if he will not listen to the church, treat him as though he were a pagan or a tax collector.

Unclean People

Numbers 5 The LORD said to Moses, ²"Command the people of Israel to expel from the camp everyone with a dreaded skin disease or a bodily discharge and everyone who is unclean by contact with a corpse. ³Send all these ritually unclean people out, so that they will not defile the camp, where I live among my people." ⁴The Israelites obeyed and expelled them all from the camp.

Repayment for Wrongs Done

⁵The LORD gave Moses ⁶the following instructions for the people of Israel. When any of you are unfaithful to the LORD and commit a wrong against someone, ⁷you must confess your sin and make full repayment, plus an additional 20 percent, to the person you have wronged. ⁸But if that person has died and has no near relative to whom payment can be made, it shall be given to the LORD for the priest. This payment is in addition to the ram used to perform the ritual of purification for the guilty person. ⁹Also every special contribution which the Israelites offer to the LORD belongs to the priest to whom they present it. ¹⁰Each priest shall keep the offerings presented to him.

Cases of Wives with Suspicious Husbands

¹¹The LORD commanded Moses ^12-14to give the Israelites the following instructions. It may happen that a man becomes suspicious that his wife is unfaithful to him and has defiled herself by having intercourse with another man. But the husband may not be certain, for his wife may have kept it secret--there was no witness, and she was not caught in the act. Or it may happen that a husband becomes suspicious of his wife, even though she has not been unfaithful. ¹⁵In either case the man shall take his wife to the priest. He shall also take the required offering of two pounds of barley flour, but he shall not pour any olive oil on it or put any incense on it, because it is an offering from a suspicious husband, made to bring the truth to light.

¹⁶The priest shall bring the woman forward and have her stand in front of the altar. ¹⁷He shall pour some holy water into a clay bowl and take some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tent of the LORD's presence and put it in the water to make it bitter. ¹⁸Then he shall loosen the woman's hair and put the offering of flour in her hands. In his hands the priest shall hold the bowl containing the bitter water that brings a curse. ¹⁹Then the priest shall make the woman agree to this oath spoken by the priest: "If you have not committed adultery, you will not be harmed by the curse that this water brings. ²⁰But if you have committed adultery, ²¹may the LORD make your name a curse among your people. May he cause your genital organs to shrink and your stomach to swell up. ²²May this water enter your stomach and cause it to swell up and your genital organs to shrink."

The woman shall respond, "I agree; may the LORD do so."

²³Then the priest shall write this curse down and wash the writing off into the bowl of bitter water. ²⁴Before he makes the woman drink the water, which may then cause her bitter pain, ²⁵the priest shall take the offering of flour out of the woman's hands, hold it out in dedication to the LORD, and present it on the altar. ²⁶Then he shall take a handful of it as a token offering and burn it on the altar. Finally, he shall make the woman drink the water. ²⁷If she has committed adultery, the water will cause bitter pain; her stomach will swell up and her genital organs will shrink. Her name will become a curse among her people. ²⁸But if she is innocent, she will not be harmed and will be able to bear children.

^29-30This is the law in cases where a man is jealous and becomes suspicious that his wife has committed adultery. The woman shall be made to stand in front of the altar, and the priest shall perform this ritual. ³¹The husband shall be free of guilt, but the woman, if guilty, must suffer the consequences.

Rules for Nazirites

Numbers 6 The LORD commanded Moses ²to give the following instructions to the people of Israel. Any of you, male or female, who make a special vow to become a nazirite and dedicate yourself to the LORD ³shall abstain from wine and beer. You shall not drink any kind of drink made from grapes or eat any grapes or raisins. ⁴As long as you are a nazirite, you shall not eat anything that comes from a grapevine, not even the seeds or skins of grapes.

⁵As long as you are under the nazirite vow, you must not cut your hair or shave. You are bound by the vow for the full time that you are dedicated to the LORD, and you shall let your hair grow. ^6-7Your hair is the sign of your dedication to God, and so you must not defile yourself by going near a corpse, not even that of your father, mother, brother, or sister. ⁸As long as you are a nazirite, you are consecrated to the LORD.

⁹If your consecrated hair is defiled because you are right beside someone who suddenly dies, you must wait seven days and then shave your head; and so you become ritually clean. ¹⁰On the eighth day you shall bring two doves or two pigeons to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of the LORD's presence. ¹¹The priest shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, to perform the ritual of purification for you because of your contact with a corpse. On the same day you shall reconsecrate your hair ¹²and rededicate to the LORD your time as a nazirite. The previous period of time doesn't count, because your consecrated hair was defiled. As a repayment offering you shall bring a one-year-old lamb.

¹³When you complete your nazirite vow, you shall perform this ritual. You shall go to the entrance of the Tent ¹⁴and present to the LORD three animals without any defects: a one-year-old male lamb for a burnt offering, a one-year-old ewe lamb for a sin offering, and a ram for a fellowship offering. ¹⁵You shall also offer a basket of bread made without yeast: thick loaves made of flour mixed with olive oil and thin cakes brushed with olive oil, and in addition the required offerings of grain and wine.

¹⁶The priest shall present all these to the LORD and offer the sin offering and the burnt offering. ¹⁷He shall sacrifice the ram to the LORD as a fellowship offering, and offer it with the basket of bread; he shall also present the offerings of grain and wine. ¹⁸At the entrance of the Tent you nazirites shall shave off your hair and put it on the fire on which the fellowship offering is being burned.

¹⁹Then, when the shoulder of the ram is boiled, the priest shall take it and put it, together with one thick loaf of bread and one thin cake from the basket, into the hands of the nazirite. ²⁰Next, the priest shall present them as a special gift to the LORD; they are a sacred offering for the priest, in addition to the breast and the leg of the ram which by law belong to the priest. After that, the nazirite may drink wine.

²¹These are the regulations for you nazirites; but if you promise an offering beyond what your vow requires you to give, you must fulfill exactly the promise you made.

The Priestly Blessing

²²The LORD commanded Moses ²³to tell Aaron and his sons to use the following words in blessing the people of Israel:

²⁴May the LORD bless you and take care of you;

²⁵May the LORD be kind and gracious to you;

²⁶May the LORD look on you with favor and give you peace.

²⁷And the LORD said, "If they pronounce my name as a blessing upon the people of Israel, I will bless them."

Don't Make Rash Promises

Ecclesiastes 5 Be careful about going to the Temple. It is better to go there to learn than to offer sacrifices like foolish people who don't know right from wrong. ²Think before you speak, and don't make any rash promises to God. He is in heaven and you are on earth, so don't say any more than you have to. ³The more you worry, the more likely you are to have bad dreams, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish. ⁴So when you make a promise to God, keep it as quickly as possible. He has no use for a fool. Do what you promise to do. ⁵Better not to promise at all than to make a promise and not keep it. ⁶Don't let your own words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean it. Why make God angry with you? Why let him destroy what you have worked for? ⁷No matter how much you dream, how much useless work you do, or how much you talk, you must still stand in awe of God.

Life Is Useless

⁸Don't be surprised when you see that the government oppresses the poor and denies them justice and their rights. Every official is protected by someone higher, and both are protected by still higher officials.

⁹Even a king depends on the harvest.

¹⁰If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless. ¹¹The richer you are, the more mouths you have to feed. All you gain is the knowledge that you are rich. ¹²Workers may or may not have enough to eat, but at least they can get a good night's sleep. The rich, however, have so much that they stay awake worrying.

¹³Here is a terrible thing that I have seen in this world: people save up their money for a time when they may need it, ¹⁴and then lose it all in some bad deal and end up with nothing left to pass on to their children. ¹⁵We leave this world just as we entered it--with nothing. In spite of all our work there is nothing we can take with us. ¹⁶It isn't right! We go just as we came. We labor, trying to catch the wind, and what do we get? ¹⁷We get to live our lives in darkness and grief, worried, angry, and sick.

¹⁸Here is what I have found out: the best thing we can do is eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for during the short life that God has given us; this is our fate. ¹⁹If God gives us wealth and property and lets us enjoy them, we should be grateful and enjoy what we have worked for. It is a gift from God. ²⁰Since God has allowed us to be happy, we will not worry too much about how short life is.

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.

These daily Bible readings from the Good News Translation (GNT), formerly the Today's English Version (TEV), are published by BibleNetUSA. The web site and BibleCard® designs are by iCreative. All BibleCard® images are copyrighted by iCreative. All rights reserved.