The Daily Audio Bible

6 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘A person may take something that is not his. Or he may find it and keep it. He may tell his friend that he has not taken it. He might not give him the correct price for something. But then he is not obeying the Lord. ³ A person may speak words that are not true. That is a sin. A person may keep something that belongs to another person. He does not give it back. That is a wrong thing to do. He might find something and then he might say that it is his. If it is not his, he is not obeying God. ⁴ He has done something that is wrong. So he must show that he is sorry. He must give back anything that is not his. He must give back anything that he has found. He must give back anything that he has kept. He must give it to the person to whom it belongs. ⁵ He must give back everything and one fifth more. He must also, on the same day, give a gift to the Lord. ⁶ He must bring a sheep to the priest. The sheep must be a perfect male animal. The sheep must be worth the right amount of money. ⁷ The priest will give the sheep to the Lord. It is an atonement for the wrong things that the person has done. Then the Lord will forgive the person.’

Rules for the priests

⁸ The Lord said to Moses, ⁹ ‘Tell Aaron and his sons my rules. They must burn these gifts on the altar. The fire must burn all night. ¹⁰ When the morning comes, the priest must dress himself in his linen clothes. The linen must be next to his skin. He must take the ashes from the fire and he must put them at the side of the altar. ¹¹ Then he must dress himself in other clothes. He must carry the ashes outside the camp and he must put them in a special place. ¹² The fire that is on the altar must never stop burning. Every morning the priest must put wood on it. He must also put on it the gifts and the fat of the friendship offerings. ¹³ The fire must always burn. It must not go out.

¹⁴ These are the rules for the gift of grain. Aaron's sons must bring it in front of the altar to give to the Lord. ¹⁵ A priest must take some of the flour and oil. He must mix this special part with incense and he must burn all of it on the altar. The smell of them while they are burning will give the Lord pleasure. ¹⁶ The priests will make into bread the flour that he did not burn. They must not use yeast to make the bread. They must eat the bread in a holy place, in the yard outside the Tent of Meeting. ¹⁷ The bread is for the priests because it is a holy part of a gift. It is holy, like the offerings for sin. And it is like the gifts when somebody does anything wrong. ¹⁸ Any son, grandson or male of Aaron's family can eat the bread. It is his usual part of the burnt offerings to the Lord. A person who touches the bread will become holy.’

¹⁹ The Lord said to Moses, ²⁰ ‘When Aaron is anointed, Aaron and his sons must give an offering to the Lord. It must be a tenth of an ephah (about two litres) of best flour. They must bring half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening. ²¹ They must mix it with oil and they must cook it on a flat plate. Then they must break it into pieces and they must offer it to the Lord. The smell of it will give the Lord pleasure. ²² The son whom they will anoint to take Aaron's place must prepare the offering. ²³ All of the gifts that the priests give to God must be burnt completely. Nobody should eat them.’

The sin offering

²⁴ The Lord said to Moses, ²⁵ ‘Tell Aaron and his sons this rule. When a person does wrong things he must give an animal to the Lord. The animal will be holy. The person must kill the animal at the north side of the altar. That is where they kill the offerings for sin. ²⁶ The priest who offered it will eat his part of the gift in a holy place. That is the yard outside the Tent of Meeting. ²⁷ If anyone or anything touches the meat they will become holy. If the blood touches the clothes of a person, he must wash them in a holy place. ²⁸ If a person cooks the meat in a clay pot, he must break the pot. He must break it when he has cooked the meat. If a person cooks the meat in a metal pot, he must wash the pot. He must wash it well when he has cooked the meat. And he must wash it again with clean water. ²⁹ The meat is holy.^[a] Only the priests' sons can eat it. ³⁰ They must take the blood of a sin offering into the Tent of Meeting. It is a sacrifice to atone for sin. Nobody should eat any of that offering. The priest must burn it.

7 These are the rules for a most holy offering. A person may be sorry for the wrong things that he has done. That person must obey these rules. ² The priest must kill an animal at the north side of the altar. He must throw the blood onto the sides of the altar. ³ The priest will bring all the fat from the tail and the inside parts to the altar. ⁴ He will bring the kidneys and the best piece of the liver. ⁵ Then he will burn the pieces on the altar. They are a gift to the Lord to make a person clean from sin. ⁶ Aaron's sons can eat the meat that is not burnt. They must eat it in a holy place because it is most holy.

⁷ The rules are the same for sacrifices for sin and for a person who is sorry for his sins. The gifts of meat are for the priest who brings them to the altar. ⁸ The skin of the animal is for the priest. ⁹ People may give gifts of grain that they cooked in an oven or on a flat plate. They should give them all to the priest. ¹⁰ Grain that is dry is also a gift. And grain that a man mixes with oil is also a gift. They should give them to Aaron's sons.

The Friendship offering

¹¹ These rules are for friendship offerings to the Lord. ¹² If a man wants to thank God, he must give an animal and flat loaves of bread. He must mix the flour for the bread with oil. He must not mix the flour with yeast. ¹³ He must also give other loaves of bread to God. He must make these with flour, oil and yeast. ¹⁴ A man must offer one of each kind of loaf to the Lord. These belong to the priest who throws the blood on the altar. ¹⁵ The person must not keep the meat from the animal until the next day. He must eat it on the day that he offers it.

¹⁶ The gift to God may be for a promise. The gift may be because the person loves God. That person will not have to eat it all on the same day. He can eat some of it on the next day. ¹⁷ On the third day, there may still be some meat that he has not eaten. If there is, he must burn it. ¹⁸ If the person eats the meat on the third day, God will not accept the gift. The meat is not good. The person who eats it will not give God pleasure.

¹⁹ Some meat may touch something that is not clean. Nobody should eat that meat. People must burn it. Only a clean person can eat the meat that is a gift to God. ²⁰ A person who is not clean might eat the friendship offering to the Lord. If he does, they must send him away from Israel's people. ²¹ A person might touch something that is not clean. He must not eat the meat of the offering to the Lord. That person must not eat it if he has touched an unclean animal or an unclean person. If he does eat it, they must send him away. They must send him away from Israel's people.’

Israel's people must not eat blood or fat

²² The Lord said to Moses, ²³ ‘Tell Israel's people this. They must not eat the fat from sheep, cows or goats. ²⁴ A person can use the fat of a dead animal that he has found, but he must not eat it. ²⁵ They must not eat the fat of an animal that they have burnt as a gift on the Lord's altar. They must send away from God's people anyone who does eat it. ²⁶ You must not eat the blood of an animal or of a bird even if you are living in another country. ²⁷ You must send away from Israel's people any person who eats blood.’

Crowds follow Jesus

⁷ Jesus left that place and he went away to Lake Galilee with his disciples. A large crowd of people from Galilee followed them. ⁸ Many people also came to him from Judea, from Jerusalem and from a region of Israel called Idumea. They also came from places on the other side of the Jordan River, and from the towns called Tyre and Sidon. Many people had heard about the things that Jesus was doing. That is why all these people came to him. ⁹ The crowd was very large. So Jesus asked his disciples to prepare a small boat for him. They did this so that the people would not push against him. ¹⁰ Sick people were pushing to the front, because they were trying to touch him. They knew that he had made many people well. ¹¹ Often, a person with a bad spirit saw Jesus. Then, the spirit caused the person to fall down on the ground in front of Jesus. The spirit caused that person to shout out, ‘You are the Son of God.’ ¹² Jesus often had to say to the bad spirits, ‘You must not tell anyone who I am.’

Jesus chooses 12 apostles

¹³ Jesus went up a mountain. He chose some men and he asked them to go there with him. So they met together with him there. ¹⁴ He chose a group of 12 men. He called them his apostles.^[a] He wanted them to be with him. And he would send them to teach people about God. ¹⁵ He gave these men authority to cause bad spirits to leave people. ¹⁶ These are the names of the 12 apostles:

Jesus talks about Satan

²⁰ Then Jesus went into a house. A crowd of people came together there again. There were so many people that Jesus and his disciples were not even able to eat. ²¹ People told his family what was happening. So they went to take him away with them. They thought that Jesus was crazy.^[d]

²² Some teachers of God's Law came from Jerusalem. They said, ‘Jesus has a bad spirit called Beelzebul in him. That is Satan, the one who rules all the bad spirits. This man can send bad spirits out of people because Satan gives him authority.’^[e]

²³ So Jesus spoke to the teachers of God's Law. He said, ‘Come here and listen to me.’ He used stories to explain to them, ‘Satan would not fight against himself! ²⁴ If armies in the same country start to fight each other, then they will destroy their own country. ²⁵ And if the people in one family start to fight against each other, they will destroy their own family. ²⁶ So Satan would not attack himself. If he did that, he would destroy his own power. That would be the end of him. ²⁷ Nobody can easily go into the house of a strong man to rob him. To do that, he must first tie up the strong man. Then he can take away all that man's valuable things. ²⁸ I tell you this: God can forgive all the wrong things that people do. He can also forgive people who say bad things against him. ²⁹ But God will never forgive people who say bad things against the Holy Spirit. Those people will always be guilty of a terrible sin.’

³⁰ Jesus said that to the teachers of God's Law, because they had said, ‘Jesus has a bad spirit in him.’

David wrote this song.

Trust the Lord^[a]