1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘When you mount the lamps, the seven lamps will provide light in the front of the lampstand.’” 3 Therefore Aaron did so; he mounted its lamps at the front of the lampstand, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. 4 Now this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold; from its base to its flower ornamentation it was hammered work; according to the pattern which the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.
5 Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Take the Levites from among the sons of Israel and cleanse them. 7 This is what you shall do to them, for their cleansing: sprinkle purifying water on them, and have them use a razor over their whole body, and they shall wash their clothes and cleanse themselves. 8 Then have them take a bull with its grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil; and you shall take a second bull as a sin offering. 9 So you shall present the Levites in front of the tent of meeting. You shall also assemble the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, 10 and present the Levites before the Lord; and the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. 11 Aaron then shall present the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering from the sons of Israel, so that they may qualify to perform the service of the Lord. 12 Now the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the bulls; then you are to offer the one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to the Lord, to make atonement for the Levites. 13 And you shall have the Levites stand before Aaron and his sons so as to present them as a wave offering to the Lord.
14 “So you shall single out the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and the Levites shall be Mine. 15 Then after that the Levites may go in to serve the tent of meeting. But you shall cleanse them and present them as a wave offering; 16 for they are exclusively given to Me from among the sons of Israel. I have taken them for Myself instead of the firstborn of every womb, the firstborn of all the sons of Israel. 17 For every firstborn among the sons of Israel is Mine, among the people and among the animals; on the day that I fatally struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for Myself. 18 But I have taken the Levites instead of every firstborn among the sons of Israel. 19 And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the sons of Israel, to perform the service of the sons of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement on behalf of the sons of Israel, so that there will be no affliction among the sons of Israel due to their approaching the sanctuary.”
20 So this is what Moses, Aaron, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel did to the Levites; according to everything that the Lord had commanded Moses regarding the Levites, so the sons of Israel did to them. 21 The Levites, too, purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes; and Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the Lord. Aaron also made atonement for them to cleanse them. 22 Then after that the Levites went in to perform their service in the tent of meeting before Aaron and his sons; just as the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them.
23 Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “This is what applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall enter to perform service in the work of the tent of meeting. 25 But at the age of fifty years they shall retire from service in the work and not work anymore. 26 They may, however, assist their brothers in the tent of meeting, to fulfill an obligation, but they themselves shall do no work. In this way you shall deal with the Levites in their obligations.”
1 God, we have heard with our ears,
Our fathers have told us
The work that You did in their days,
In the days of old.
2 You with Your own hand drove out the nations;
Then You planted them;
You afflicted the peoples,
Then You let them go free.
3 For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.
4 You are my King, God;
Command victories for Jacob.
5 Through You we will push back our adversaries;
Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow,
Nor will my sword save me.
7 But You have saved us from our adversaries,
And You have put to shame those who hate us.
8 In God we have boasted all day long,
And we will give thanks to Your name forever. Selah
9 Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor,
And do not go out with our armies.
10 You cause us to turn back from the enemy;
And those who hate us have taken spoils for themselves.
11 You turn us over to be eaten like sheep,
And have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sell Your people cheaply,
And have not profited by their sale.
13 You make us an object of reproach to our neighbors,
Of scoffing and ridicule to those around us.
14 You make us a proverb among the nations,
A laughingstock among the peoples.
15 All day long my dishonor is before me
And I am covered with my humiliation,
16 Because of the voice of one who taunts and reviles,
Because of the presence of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You,
And we have not dealt falsely with Your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
And our steps have not deviated from Your way,
19 Yet You have crushed us in a place of jackals
And covered us with deep darkness.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
Or extended our hands to a strange god,
21 Would God not find this out?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
22 But for Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Wake Yourself up, why do You sleep, Lord?
Awake, do not reject us forever.
24 Why do You hide Your face
And forget our affliction and oppression?
25 For our souls have sunk down into the dust;
Our bodies cling to the earth.
26 Rise up, be our help,
And redeem us because of Your mercy.
1 “Where has your beloved gone,
O most beautiful among women?
Where has your beloved turned,
That we may seek him with you?”
2 “My beloved has gone down to his garden,
To the beds of balsam,
To pasture his flock in the gardens
And gather lilies.
3 I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,
He who pastures his flock among the lilies.”
4 “You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling,
As lovely as Jerusalem,
As awesome as an army with banners.
5 Turn your eyes away from me,
For they have confused me;
Your hair is like a flock of goats
That have descended from Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
That have come up from their watering place,
All of which bear twins,
And not one among them has lost her young.
7 Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate
Behind your veil.
8 There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,
And young women without number;
9 But my dove, my perfect one, is unique:
She is her mother’s only daughter;
She is the pure child of the one who gave birth to her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed,
The queens and the concubines also, and they praised her, saying,
10 ‘Who is this who looks down like the dawn,
As beautiful as the full moon,
As pure as the sun,
As awesome as an army with banners?’
11 I went down to the orchard of nut trees
To see the plants of the valley,
To see whether the vine had grown
Or the pomegranates had bloomed.
12 Before I was aware, my soul set me
Over the chariots of my noble people.”
13 “Come back, come back, O Shulammite;
Come back, come back, so that we may look at you!”
“Why should you look at the Shulammite,
As at the dance of the two armies?
1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits. 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. 7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and produces vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things regarding you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we are speaking in this way. 10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, by having served and by still serving the saints. 11 And we desire that each one of you demonstrate the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and endurance inherit the promises.
13 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear an oath by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “indeed I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply you.” 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For people swear an oath by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath serving as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same way God, desiring even more to demonstrate to the heirs of the promise the fact that His purpose is unchangeable, confirmed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold firmly to the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and reliable and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
