He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.” Luke 9:20

Deuteronomy 16-17

Deuteronomy 16

The Feast of the Passover

¹ Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. ² You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to cause his name to dwell. ³ You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it for seven days; the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste) that you may remember for the rest of your life, the day that you came out of the land of Egypt. ⁴ For seven days, no yeast shall be seen with you in all your borders, and none of the meat, which you sacrifice the first day at evening shall remain all night until the morning.

⁵ You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you, ⁶ but at the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at sunset, at the same time that you came out of Egypt. ⁷ You shall roast and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents.

⁸ Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. The seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work.

The Feast of Weeks

⁹ You shall count for yourselves seven weeks. From the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks. ¹⁰ You shall keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a free will offering of your hand, which you shall give according to how the Lord your God blesses you.

¹¹ You shall rejoice before the Lord your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell. ¹² You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. You shall observe and do these statutes.

The Feast of Tabernacles

¹³ You shall keep the feast of booths for seven days, after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and from your wine press. ¹⁴ You shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates. ¹⁵ You shall keep a feast to the Lord your God for seven days in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your increase and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful.

¹⁶ Three times a year all of your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty handed. ¹⁷ Every man shall give as he is able, according to the Lord your God’s blessing which he has given you.

Judges and Justice

¹⁸ You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹ You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. ²⁰ You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Forbidden Forms of Worship

²¹ You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the alter of the Lord your God, which you shall make for yourselves. ²² Nor shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which the Lord your God hates.

Deuteronomy 17

Detestable Sacrifices

¹ You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep which has a defect or flaw, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

Purge the Idolater

² If there is found among you, within any of your gates which the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, ³ and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded, ⁴ and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently. If it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel, ⁵ then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing, to your gates, that same man or woman, and you shall stone them to death with rocks.

⁶ At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

Courts of Law

⁸ If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

⁹ You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which the Lord chooses. You shall be careful to do according to all that they shall teach you. ¹¹ According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left.

¹² The man who acts presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or to the judge; that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel. ¹³ All the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.

Election and Duties of Kings

¹⁴ When you have come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it and say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” ¹⁵ you shall surely set him whom the Lord your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

¹⁶ Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses, because the Lord has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.” ¹⁷ He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

¹⁸ It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests. ¹⁹ It shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them, ²⁰ that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn away from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the middle of Israel.

Luke 9:7-27

Herod Desires to See Jesus

⁷ Now Herod the tetrarch heard of everything that was being done by Jesus, and he was very perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, ⁸ and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. ⁹ Herod said, “I beheaded John, but who is this about whom I am hearing such things?” And he wanted to see him.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

¹⁰ When the apostles had returned, they told Jesus the things they had done. He took them and withdrew apart to a desert region of a city called Bethsaida. ¹¹ But when the crowds learned of it they followed him. He welcomed them, spoke to them of the Kingdom of God, and he cured those who needed healing.

¹² It was beginning to get late, and the twelve disciples came and said to him, “Send the crowds away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and farms and get food and a place to stay for the night, for we are here in a deserted place.”

¹³ But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.”

They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.” ¹⁴ For they were about 5,000 men.

He said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about 50 each.” ¹⁵ They did so, and had all of them sit down.

¹⁶ He took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to the heavens, he blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. ¹⁷ They ate and were all filled. They gathered up twelve baskets of broken pieces that were left over.

Peter’s Confession of Christ

¹⁸ As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

¹⁹ They answered, “ ‘John the Baptist,’ but others say, ‘Elijah,’ and others, that one of the old prophets has risen again.”

²⁰ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”

Jesus Predicts His Death

²¹ But he warned them and commanded them to tell this to no one, ²² saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.”

Take Up Your Cross

²³ He said to all, “If anyone desires to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, will save it. ²⁵ For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his own soul?

²⁶ For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed, when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But I tell you the truth: There are some of those who stand here who will in no way taste of death until they see the Kingdom of God.”

Psalm 72

Give the King Your Justice

By Solomon.

¹ God, give your justice to the king,
and your righteousness to the royal son.
² He will judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.

³ Let the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
and the hills, the fruit of righteousness.
⁴ He will judge the poor among the people.
He will save the children of the needy
and will break the oppressor in pieces.
⁵ They shall fear you while the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
⁶ He will come down like rain on the mowed grass,
as showers that water the earth.
⁷ In his days, the righteous shall flourish,
and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.

⁸ He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,
from the River to the ends of the earth.
⁹ Those who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him.
His enemies shall lick the dust.
¹⁰ The kings of Tarshish and of the islands will bring tribute.
The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
¹¹ Yes, all kings shall fall down before him.
All nations shall serve him.

¹² For he will deliver the needy when he cries,
the poor, who has no helper.
¹³ He will have pity on the poor and needy.
He will save the lives of the needy.
¹⁴ He will redeem them from oppression and violence.
Their blood will be precious in his sight.

¹⁵ They shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba.
Men shall pray for him continually.
They shall bless him all day long.
¹⁶ Abundance of grain shall be throughout the land.
Its fruit sways like Lebanon.
Let it flourish, thriving like the grass of the field.
¹⁷ His name endures forever.
His name continues as long as the sun.
Men shall be blessed by him.
All nations will call him blessed.

¹⁸ Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
¹⁹ Blessed be his glorious name forever!
Let the whole earth be filled with his glory!

Amen and amen.

²⁰ This ends the prayers by David, the son of Jesse.

Proverbs 12:8-9

⁸ A man shall be commended according to his wisdom,
but he who has a warped mind shall be despised.
⁹ Better is he who is little known, and has a servant,
than he who honors himself, and lacks bread.

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