Shabbat, 10 Iyar 5784 / May 18, 2024
Day 504 Readings
Event: Julie and Nico's birthday and my Hebrew Birthdate
Torah: Parshat Emor, 7th Portion Vayikra (Leviticus) 24:1-23
Leviticus 24
Complete Jewish Bible
1 (vii) Adonai said to Moshe, 2 “Order the people of Isra’el to bring you pure oil from crushed olives for the light, to keep lamps burning always. 3 Outside the curtain of the testimony in the tent of meeting, Aharon is to arrange for the light to be kept burning always from evening until morning before Adonai ; this is to be a permanent regulation through all your generations. 4 He is always to keep in order the lamps on the pure menorah before Adonai.
5 “You are to take fine flour and use it to bake twelve loaves, one gallon per loaf. 6 Arrange them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure table before Adonai. 7 Put frankincense with each row to be an offering made by fire to Adonai in place of the bread and as a reminder of it. 8 Regularly, every Shabbat, he is to arrange them before Adonai ; they are from the people of Isra’el, as a covenant forever. 9 They will belong to Aharon and his sons; and they are to eat them in a holy place; because for him they are, of the offerings for Adonai made by fire, especially holy. This is a permanent law.”
10 There was a man who was the son of a woman of Isra’el and an Egyptian father. He went out among the people of Isra’el, and this son of a woman of Isra’el had a fight in the camp with a man of Isra’el, 11 in the course of which the son of the woman of Isra’el uttered the Name [Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh] in a curse. So they brought him to Moshe. (His mother’s name was Shlomit the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 They put him under guard until Adonai would tell them what to do. 13 Adonai said to Moshe, 14 “Take the man who cursed outside the camp, have everyone who heard him lay their hands on his head, and have the entire community stone him. 15 Then tell the people of Isra’el, ‘Whoever curses his God will bear the consequences of his sin; 16 and whoever blasphemes the name of Adonai must be put to death; the entire community must stone him. The foreigner as well as the citizen is to be put to death if he blasphemes the Name.
17 “‘Anyone who strikes another person and kills him must be put to death. 18 Anyone who strikes an animal and kills it is to make restitution, life for life. 19 If someone injures his neighbor, what he did is to be done to him — 20 break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth — whatever injury he has caused the other person is to be rendered to him in return. (Maftir) 21 He who kills an animal is to make restitution, but he who kills another person is to be put to death. 22 You are to apply the same standard of judgment to the foreigner as to the citizen, because I am Adonai your God.”
23 So Moshe spoke to the people of Isra’el, and they took the man who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him to death. Thus the people of Isra’el did as Adonai had ordered Moshe.
Haftarah Emor: Yechezk’el (Ezekiel) 44:15–31
Ezekiel 44:15-31
English Standard Version
Rules for Levitical Priests
15 “But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me. And they shall stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the Lord God. 16 They shall enter my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge. 17 When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments. They shall have nothing of wool on them, while they minister at the gates of the inner court, and within. 18 They shall have linen turbans on their heads, and linen undergarments around their waists. They shall not bind themselves with anything that causes sweat. 19 And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers. And they shall put on other garments, lest they transmit holiness to the people with their garments. 20 They shall not shave their heads or let their locks grow long; they shall surely trim the hair of their heads. 21 No priest shall drink wine when he enters the inner court. 22 They shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but only virgins of the offspring of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest. 23 They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. 24 In a dispute, they shall act as judges, and they shall judge it according to my judgments. They shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my appointed feasts, and they shall keep my Sabbaths holy. 25 They shall not defile themselves by going near to a dead person. However, for father or mother, for son or daughter, for brother or unmarried sister they may defile themselves. 26 After he[a] has become clean, they shall count seven days for him. 27 And on the day that he goes into the Holy Place, into the inner court, to minister in the Holy Place, he shall offer his sin offering, declares the Lord God.
28 “This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. 29 They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and every devoted thing in Israel shall be theirs. 30 And the first of all the firstfruits of all kinds, and every offering of all kinds from all your offerings, shall belong to the priests. You shall also give to the priests the first of your dough, that a blessing may rest on your house. 31 The priests shall not eat of anything, whether bird or beast, that has died of itself or is torn by wild animals.
B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah Emor: Mattityahu (Matthew) 5:38–42; Galatians 3:26–29; James 1:1–18
Matthew 5:38-42
English Standard Version
Retaliation
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,[a] let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Galatians 3:26-29
English Standard Version
26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[a] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
James 1:1-18
English Standard Version
Greeting
1 James, a servant[a] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.
Testing of Your Faith
2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass[c] he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.[d] 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
BIBLE Study Together
Micah 2-3
English Standard Version
Woe to the Oppressors
2 Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds!When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.2 They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away;they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.3 Therefore thus says the Lord:behold, against this family I am devising disaster,[a] from which you cannot remove your necks,and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly,and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people;how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.”5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.
6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient?[b] Are these his deeds?Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.[c]9 The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses;from their young children you take away my splendor forever.10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest,because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel;I will set them together like sheep in a fold,like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.13 He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it.Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.
Rulers and Prophets Denounced
3 And I said:Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel!Is it not for you to know justice?—2 you who hate the good and love the evil,who tear the skin from off my people[d] and their flesh from off their bones,3 who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them,and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.
4 Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them;he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.
5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray,who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat,but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination.The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them;7 the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame;they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.8 But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might,to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel,who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight,10 who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money;yet they lean on the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.”12 Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field;Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
Matthew 27:15-26
ESV Readings
Scripture
Psalm 137
English Standard Version
How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song?
1 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows[a] there we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!
9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
Numbers 20
Numbers 21
Isaiah 58
English Standard Version
True and False Fasting
1 “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet;declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways,as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God;they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,[a] and oppress all your workers.4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist.Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself?Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed[b] go free, and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily;your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.
13 “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure[c] on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure,[d] or talking idly;[e]14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;[f]I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
English Standard Version
The Coming of the Lord
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,[a] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
English Standard Version
The Coming of the Lord
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,[a] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
SOAP
S: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Coming of the Lord
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,[a] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
O: Believers should not grieve for the dead just as the others who do not know the TRUTH grieve, without hope because they do not know the TRUTH that the dead are just asleep and that one day KING JESUS will return to Earth making all the dead rise with Him and we who are left alive will be taken up to meet our Creator in the air.
A: After the passing of our Employee who was entrusted to do accounting for all our businesses, I was sad and regretful of the many times I could have done more to make sure she stayed alive today but GOD is comforting me with HIS Truth that I should not grieve as the rest of the World grieves because they do not hold the hope of seeing their loved ones again because of the Promise of GOD by the return of JESUS to earth that on his glorious return, the dead will rise back to life and we who are left alive will rise be taken up to meet the LORD in th clouds with them.
P: Dear AVI,
Thank YOU FATHER for YOU are the ALpha and Omega, First and the Last, and YOU are always there for us until the very day we close our eyes, YOU are here for us always fighting for us, always hearing and loving us. I thank YOU for giving me encouraging words of hope that stir up my heart to think about how it will be in the end. Toda AVI, for YOUR love and faithfulness and don't forget to provide a husband for me and Julie. I pray continually for the salvation of Stephen and Benita too. For YOU desesrve all glory and honor and praise.
In the Name of JESUS, AMen!