You Cannot Go Where I Am Going

John 8 ²¹Again Jesus said to them, "I will go away; you will look for me, but you will die in your sins. You cannot go where I am going."
²²So the Jewish authorities said, "He says that we cannot go where he is going. Does this mean that he will kill himself ?"
²³Jesus answered, "You belong to this world here below, but I come from above. You are from this world, but I am not from this world. ²⁴That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. And you will die in your sins if you do not believe that 'I Am Who I Am'."
²⁵"Who are you?" they asked him.
Jesus answered, "What I have told you from the very beginning. ²⁶I have much to say about you, much to condemn you for. The one who sent me, however, is truthful, and I tell the world only what I have heard from him."
²⁷They did not understand that Jesus was talking to them about the Father. ²⁸So he said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that 'I Am Who I Am'; then you will know that I do nothing on my own authority, but I say only what the Father has instructed me to say. ²⁹And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him."
³⁰Many who heard Jesus say these things believed in him.

The Truth Will Set You Free

³¹So Jesus said to those who believed in him, "If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples; ³²you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
³³"We are the descendants of Abraham," they answered, "and we have never been anybody's slaves. What do you mean, then, by saying, 'You will be free'?"
³⁴Jesus said to them, "I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin. ³⁵A slave does not belong to a family permanently, but a son belongs there forever. ³⁶If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free. ³⁷I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are trying to kill me, because you will not accept my teaching. ³⁸I talk about what my Father has shown me, but you do what your father has told you."
³⁹They answered him, "Our father is Abraham."
"If you really were Abraham's children," Jesus replied, "you would do the same things that he did. ⁴⁰All I have ever done is to tell you the truth I heard from God, yet you are trying to kill me. Abraham did nothing like this! ⁴¹You are doing what your father did."
"God himself is the only Father we have," they answered, "and we are his true children."
⁴²Jesus said to them, "If God really were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own authority, but he sent me. ⁴³Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to listen to my message. ⁴⁴You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father's desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer and has never been on the side of truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a liar and the father of all lies. ⁴⁵But I tell the truth, and that is why you do not believe me. ⁴⁶Which one of you can prove that I am guilty of sin? If I tell the truth, then why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷He who comes from God listens to God's words. You, however, are not from God, and that is why you will not listen."

Construction of the Temple Begins
(1 Kings 6.1-38)

2 Chronicles 2 ¹⁷King Solomon took a census of all the foreigners living in the land of Israel, similar to the census his father David had taken. There were 153,600 resident foreigners. ¹⁸He assigned 70,000 of them to transport materials and 80,000 to cut stones in the mountains, and appointed 3,600 supervisors to make sure the work was done.
2 Chronicles 3 King David, Solomon's father, had already prepared a place for the Temple. It was in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared to David, at the place which Araunah the Jebusite had used as a threshing place. King Solomon began the construction ²in the second month of the fourth year that he was king. ³The Temple which King Solomon built was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. ⁴The entrance room was the full width of the Temple, 30 feet, and was 180 feet high. The inside of the room was overlaid with pure gold. ⁵The main room was paneled with cedar and overlaid with fine gold, in which were worked designs of palm trees and chain patterns. ⁶The king decorated the Temple with beautiful precious stones and with gold imported from the land of Parvaim. ⁷He used the gold to overlay the Temple walls, the rafters, the entryways, and the doors. On the walls the workers carved designs of winged creatures. ⁸The inner room, called the Most Holy Place, was 30 feet long and 30 feet wide, which was the full width of the Temple. Twenty-five tons of gold were used to cover the walls of the Most Holy Place; ⁹twenty ounces of gold were used for making nails, and the walls of the upper rooms were also covered with gold.
¹⁰The king also had his workers make two winged creatures out of metal, cover them with gold, and place them in the Most Holy Place, ^11-13where they stood side by side facing the entrance. Each had two wings, each wing 7½ feet long, which were spread out so that they touched each other in the center of the room and reached to the wall on either side of the room, stretching across the full width of 30 feet. ¹⁴A curtain for the Most Holy Place was made of linen and of other material, which was dyed blue, purple, and red, with designs of the winged creatures worked into it.

The Two Bronze Columns
(1 Kings 7.15 -22)

¹⁵The king had two columns made, each one 52 feet tall, and placed them in front of the Temple. Each one had a capital 7½ feet tall. ¹⁶The tops of the columns were decorated with a design of interwoven chains and one hundred bronze pomegranates. ¹⁷The columns were set at the sides of the Temple entrance: the one on the south side was named Jachin and the one on the north side was named Boaz.

Equipment for the Temple
(1 Kings 7.23-51)

2 Chronicles 4 King Solomon had a bronze altar made, which was 30 feet square and 15 feet high. ²He also made a round tank of bronze, 7½ feet deep, 15 feet in diameter, and 45 feet in circumference. ³All around the outer edge of the rim of the tank were two rows of decorations, one above the other. The decorations were in the shape of bulls, which had been cast all in one piece with the rest of the tank. ⁴The tank rested on the backs of twelve bronze bulls that faced outward, three facing in each direction. ⁵The sides of the tank were 3 inches thick. Its rim was like the rim of a cup, curving outward like the petals of a flower. The tank held about 15,000 gallons. ⁶They also made ten basins, five to be placed on the south side of the Temple and five on the north side. They were to be used to rinse the parts of the animals that were burned as sacrifices. The water in the large tank was for the priests to use for washing.
^7-8They made ten gold lampstands according to the usual pattern, and ten tables, and placed them in the main room of the Temple, five lampstands and five tables on each side. They also made a hundred gold bowls.
⁹They made an inner courtyard for the priests, and also an outer courtyard. The doors in the gates between the courtyards were covered with bronze. ¹⁰The tank was placed near the southeast corner of the Temple.
^11-16Huram also made pots, shovels, and bowls. He completed all the objects that he had promised King Solomon he would make for the Temple:
The two columns
The two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the columns
The design of interwoven chains on each capital
The 400 bronze pomegranates arranged in two rows around the design of each capital
The ten carts
The ten basins
The tank
The twelve bulls supporting the tank
The pots, shovels, and forks
Huram the master metalworker made all these objects out of polished bronze, as King Solomon had commanded, for use in the Temple of the LORD.
¹⁷The king had them all made in the foundry between Sukkoth and Zeredah in the Jordan Valley. ¹⁸So many objects were made that no one determined the total weight of the bronze used.
¹⁹King Solomon also had gold furnishings made for the Temple: the altar and the tables for the bread offered to God; ²⁰the lampstands and the lamps of fine gold that were to burn in front of the Most Holy Place, according to plan; ²¹the flower decorations, the lamps, and the tongs; ²²the lamp snuffers, the bowls, the dishes for incense, and the pans used for carrying live coals. All these objects were made of pure gold. The outer doors of the Temple and the doors to the Most Holy Place were overlaid with gold.
2 Chronicles 5 When King Solomon finished all the work on the Temple, he placed in the Temple storerooms all the things that his father David had dedicated to the LORD--the silver, gold, and other articles.

The Book of
MALACHI

Malachi 1 This is the message that the LORD gave Malachi to tell the people of Israel.

The LORD's Love for Israel

²The LORD says to his people, "I have always loved you."
But they reply, "How have you shown your love for us?"
The LORD answers, "Esau and Jacob were brothers, but I have loved Jacob and his descendants, ³and have hated Esau and his descendants. I have devastated Esau's hill country and abandoned the land to jackals."
⁴If Esau's descendants, the Edomites, say, "Our towns have been destroyed, but we will rebuild them," then the LORD will reply, "Let them rebuild--I will tear them down again. People will call them 'The evil country' and 'The nation with whom the LORD is angry forever.'"
⁵The people of Israel are going to see this with their own eyes, and they will say, "The LORD is mighty even outside the land of Israel!"

The LORD Reprimands the Priests

⁶The LORD Almighty says to the priests, "Children honor their parents, and servants honor their masters. I am your father--why don't you honor me? I am your master--why don't you respect me? You despise me, and yet you ask, 'How have we despised you?' ⁷This is how--by offering worthless food on my altar. Then you ask, 'How have we failed to respect you?' I will tell you--by showing contempt for my altar. ⁸When you bring a blind or sick or lame animal to sacrifice to me, do you think there's nothing wrong with that? Try giving an animal like that to the governor! Would he be pleased with you or grant you any favors?"
⁹Now, you priests, try asking God to be good to us. He will not answer your prayer, and it will be your fault. ¹⁰The LORD Almighty says, "I wish one of you would close the Temple doors so as to prevent you from lighting useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you; I will not accept the offerings you bring me. ¹¹People from one end of the world to the other honor me. Everywhere they burn incense to me and offer acceptable sacrifices. All of them honor me! ¹²But you dishonor me when you say that my altar is worthless and when you offer on it food that you despise. ¹³You say, 'How tired we are of all this!' and you turn up your nose at me. As your offering to me you bring a stolen animal or one that is lame or sick. Do you think I will accept that from you? ¹⁴A curse on the cheater who sacrifices a worthless animal to me, when he has in his flock a good animal that he promised to give me! For I am a great king, and people of all nations fear me."
Malachi 2 The LORD Almighty says to the priests, "This command is for you: ²You must honor me by what you do. If you will not listen to what I say, then I will bring a curse on you. I will put a curse on the things you receive for your support. In fact, I have already put a curse on them, because you do not take my command seriously. ³I will punish your children and rub your faces in the dung of the animals you sacrifice--and you will be taken out to the dung heap. ⁴Then you will know that I have given you this command, so that my covenant with the priests, the descendants of Levi, will not be broken.
⁵"In my covenant I promised them life and well-being, and this is what I gave them, so that they might respect me. In those days they did respect and fear me. ⁶They taught what was right, not what was wrong. They lived in harmony with me; they not only did what was right themselves, but they also helped many others to stop doing evil. ⁷It is the duty of priests to teach the true knowledge of God. People should go to them to learn my will, because they are the messengers of the LORD Almighty.
⁸"But now you priests have turned away from the right path. Your teaching has led many to do wrong. You have broken the covenant I made with you. ⁹So I, in turn, will make the people of Israel despise you because you do not obey my will, and when you teach my people, you do not treat everyone alike."