I have come, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:32

Numbers 36-Deuteronomy 1

Numbers 36

Zelophehad’s Daughters Marry

¹ The heads of each household in the Gilead family (the descendants of Machir, who were the descendants of Manasseh, who were the descendants of Joseph), went to speak to Moses and the leaders, the heads of household among each Israelite family.

² They said, “The Lord commanded my master to give the inheritance of land by lot to the Israelites. My master was commanded by the Lord to give our brother Zelophehad’s grant of land to his daughters. ³ If the women are married to any of the descendants of other Israelite tribes, then their tracts of land will be taken away from the land of our patriarchs, and will be added to the land of the tribe to which they married into. So it will be taken away from our inheritance of land. ⁴ When the jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they married into. So their inheritance will be taken from the land grant of our ancestral tribe.”

An Addendum for the Daughters

⁵ Moses pronounced to the Israelites according to the Lord’s command, “The tribe of Joseph is right in what they are saying. ⁶ This is what the Lord commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, ‘Let them be married to whom they think best, the only exception being that they must marry into the family of their ancestral tribe. ⁷ Therefore, no tract of land of the Israelites will move from tribe to tribe, for the Israelites shall each keep the inheritance of land of their ancestral tribe. ⁸ Every woman who possesses a tract of land in any Israelite tribe must marry into her own ancestral tribe so that the Israelites may each retain their inheritance of land. ⁹ Therefore, tracts of land will not transfer from one tribe to another tribe. The tribes of the Israelites shall each retain their own inheritance.’ ”

¹⁰ The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses: ¹¹ for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to cousins. ¹² They were married into the Manasseh family, descendants of Joseph. Their inheritance remained with their ancestral tribe.

¹³ These are the commandments and the ordinances which the Lord commanded through Moses to the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

Deuteronomy 1

The Commands to Leave Sinai

¹ These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel while they were still in the wilderness, before they crossed the Jordan River, in the plain, opposite the Red Sea ^a between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ² It is an eleven day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea, by way of Mount Seir. ³ In the 40^th year, on the first day of the fifth month, Moses spoke to the Israelites, concerning all that the Lord had commanded him to tell them. ⁴ This was after he had defeated Sihon, King of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon, and Og, King of Bashan who lived in Ashtaroth, at Edrei.

⁵ On the east side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to declare this law, saying, ⁶ “The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. ⁷ Turn, and take your journey into the hill country of the Amorites and everywhere near there, including the Arabah, the hill country, the lowland, the land to the South, by the seashore, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon–as far as the great river, Euphrates. ⁸ Hear this, I have set this land before you. Go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob—to give to them and to their offspring after them.’ ”

Moses Appoints Leaders

⁹ I spoke to you at that time, telling you, “I cannot bear the responsibility for all of you alone. ¹⁰ The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as vast as the stars in the sky. ¹¹ The Lord, the God of your fathers, multiplied you a thousand times and blessed you, as he has promised you! ¹² How can I myself alone bear your problems, burdens, and disputes? ¹³ Take wise men of understanding who are respected among your tribes, and I will establish leaders over you.”

¹⁴ You answered me, and said, “What you have described is good. Your plan is sound.” ¹⁵ So I chose leaders from your tribes, wise and respected men and made them commanders  over you, officials for 1,000’s, 100’s, 50’s, and 10’s; officers according to your tribes. ¹⁶ I commanded your judges at that time and said, “Hear cases between your brothers and judge righteously, whether it is between a man and his Israelite brother or between a man and the foreigner who is living among you. ¹⁷ Do not discriminate. Hear the small and the great alike. Do not be afraid of anyone’s reaction, for the judgements are from God. Bring the difficult cases to me, and I will hear them.” ¹⁸ I have given you previous instructions on everything you should do.

Twelve Sent to Survey the Land

¹⁹ As the Lord our God commanded us, we traveled from Horeb and went through all of that vast and frightful wilderness which you saw along the way to the hill country of the Amorites. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰ I said to you, “You have arrived at the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving to us. ²¹ Look at this! The Lord your God has set this land before you. Go up and take possession of it, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”

²² You came to me, everyone of you and said, “Let’s send men ahead of us, so that they can explore the land for us, and bring back information on the route we should take to the cities we are coming up to.”

²³ This idea seemed very good to me. I took twelve of your men, one man for every tribe. ²⁴ They turned and went up into the hill country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and explored it. ²⁵ They took some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us with the report, “It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving to us.”

Israel’s Rebellion

²⁶ Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ You whined in your tents, saying “Because the Lord hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸ Where can we go? We lost heart when our brothers reported, ‘The people are taller and mightier than we are. The cities are great and fortified up to the sky. Moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim ^b there!’ ”

²⁹ Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified. Do not be afraid of them. ³⁰ The Lord your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you! Remember all that he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, like a man carries his son, everywhere you went, until you came to this place.”

³² Yet even after all of this you did not believe the Lord your God, ³³ who went before you along the way, to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents, leading you by fire at night and by cloud in the day to show you what way you should go.

Israel’s Penalty

³⁴ The Lord heard you voicing your complaints, and he was angry and swore, saying, ³⁵ “Surely not one of these men from this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, ³⁶ except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it. I will give him the land on which he has trod, to him and to his children, because he has wholly followed the Lord.”

³⁷ The Lord was also angry with me on your account, saying, “You shall not enter it either. ³⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. ³⁹ Furthermore, your little ones, whom you said would be captured or killed, your children, who on that day, had no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter as well. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. ⁴⁰ But as for you, turn, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”

The Defeat at Hormah

⁴¹ Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, according to all that the Lord our God commanded us.” Every one of you put on his weapons of war, presuming it would be easy to go up into the hill country.

⁴² The Lord said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.’ ”

⁴³ So I spoke to you, and you did not listen, but you rebelled against the Lord’s command, and presumptuously advanced into the hill country. ⁴⁴ The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵ You returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not pay attention to your cries, nor did he turn his ear to you. ⁴⁶ So you stayed in Kadesh a long time, as you know.

^{a Lit.Suph which might be the proper name of a location rather than the Red Sea as it is commonly known. b Lit. neck denoting a thick-necked, strong and powerful race.}

Luke 5:27-6:11

Jesus Calls Levi

²⁷ After that Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office and said to him, “Follow me!”

²⁸ He left everything and rose up and followed him.

²⁹ Levi made a great feast for him in his house and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining with them. ³⁰ The scribes and the Pharisees complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ Jesus answered them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.”

Jesus Questioned about Fasting

³² “I have come, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” ³³ They said to him, “Why do John’s disciples often fast and pray, and also the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?” ³⁴ He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵ But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.”

The Patches and Wineskins

³⁶ He also told a parable to them. “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not match the old. ³⁷ No one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸ But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved. ³⁹ No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Luke 6

The Lord of the Sabbath

¹ One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields. His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate, rubbing them in their hands. ² But some of the Pharisees said to them, “Why do you do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day?”

³ Jesus, answering them, said, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, ⁴ how he entered into the house of God and took and ate the show bread and gave also to those who were with him, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests alone?” ⁵ He said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

⁶ It also happened on another Sabbath that he entered into the synagogue and taught. There was a man there, and his right hand was withered. ⁷ The scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against him. ⁸ But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Rise up, and stand here in the midst of everyone.” He arose and stood. ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I have a question: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?” ¹⁰ He looked around at all of them, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did, and his hand was restored as sound as the other. ¹¹ But they were filled with rage and talked with one another about what they might do to Jesus.

Psalm 66

Make a Joyful Noise

For the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.

¹ Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth!
² Sing to the glory of his name!
Offer glory and praise!
³ Tell God, “How awesome are your deeds!
Through the greatness of your power,
your enemies submit themselves to you.
⁴ All the earth will worship you,
and will sing to you.
They will sing to your name.”

Selah.

⁵ Come, and see the works of God—
awesome work on behalf of mankind.
⁶ He turned the sea into dry land.
They went through the river on foot.
There, we rejoiced in him.
⁷ He rules by his might forever.
His eyes watch the nations.
Do not let the rebellious rise up against him.

Selah.

⁸ Praise our God, you peoples!
Make the sound of his praise heard,
⁹ who preserves our life among the living,
and does not allow our feet to be moved.
¹⁰ For you, God, have tested us.
You have refined us, as silver is refined.
¹¹ You brought us into prison.
You laid a burden on our backs.
¹² You allowed men to ride over our heads.
We went through fire and through water,
but you brought us to the place of abundance.
¹³ I will come into your temple with burnt offerings.
I will pay my vows to you,
¹⁴ which my lips promised,
and my mouth spoke, when I was in distress.
¹⁵ I will offer to you burnt offerings of fat animals,
with the offering of rams,
I will offer bulls with goats.

Selah.

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who fear God.
I will declare what he has done for my soul.
¹⁷ I cried to him with my mouth.
He was extolled with my tongue.
¹⁸ If I cherished sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
¹⁹ But most certainly, God has listened.
He has heard the voice of my prayer.
²⁰ Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer,
nor his loving kindness from me.

Proverbs 11:24-26

²⁴ There is one who gives generously, and increases yet more.
There is one who withholds more than is appropriate, but gains poverty.

²⁵ The generous soul shall prosper.
He who refreshes shall be refreshed also himself.

²⁶ People curse someone who withholds grain,
but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.

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