The Daily Audio Bible
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47 A person from another country may become rich. Then he might buy an Israelite who became poor. But the poor man can buy himself back at any time. 48 A person from the family of the poor man can buy him back. 49 A brother or a cousin of the poor man can buy him back. If the poor man becomes rich, he can pay to make himself free. 50 The man and the person who bought him must count the time until the Jubilee year. The man must pay the right amount of money to be free. 51 The Jubilee year may be many years away. If it is, the man must pay a lot of money to be free. 52 There may be a few years until the Jubilee year. If there are, he has to pay only a small amount of money to be free. 53 The person who has bought the man must pay him each year. You must cause the rich man to be kind to the man.
54 Perhaps nobody will pay any money for the man. But the man who bought him must make him free in the Jubilee year. 55 Israel's people belong to me. I brought them out of Egypt. They are my servants. I am the Lord.
26 You must not make idols from stones and worship them. You must not draw things on stones and bend down in front of them. I am the Lord your God.
2 You must rest on Sabbath days and you must keep them holy. You must respect God's house. I am the Lord.
3 The people must carefully obey the rules. 4 If they do, I will send rain at the proper time. Plants for food will grow in the ground. Fruit will grow on your trees. 5 The people will harvest grain until the grapes are ready to eat. They will harvest the grapes until it is the time to plant seeds. They will have all the food to eat that they need. I will keep them safe in their land.
6 I will stop war in Israel. When the people sleep, they will not be afraid. I will take the wild animals away. Other people will not hurt my people. 7 Israel's enemies will run away from them. They will kill their enemies. 8 Five of you will run after 100 of them. And 100 of you will run after 1,000 enemies. You will kill all your enemies.
9 I will do good things for your people and I will give many children to them. Their number will grow. I will do everything that I have promised to do for them. 10 They will have so much food that some will remain after the next harvest. 11 I will have my home among you, my people. I will never turn away from them. 12 I will walk among the people. They will belong to me. 13 I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt. You will not be the slaves of people in Egypt. I saved you so that you need not be ashamed.
People who do not obey the rules will not give any pleasure to the Lord
14 God will be angry if the people do not listen to him. He will be angry if they do not obey his rules. 15 The people may not respect or obey God's rules. So they will not be doing what they promised to him. 16 So God will send diseases to the people. They will be afraid. The people will have diseases in their eyes. They will get thin and they will die. They will plant their seed and their enemies will eat the fruit. 17 God will fight against you. Your enemies will win the war. They will become your rulers. Your soldiers will run away even when nobody is running after them.
18 The people may not obey God even after this. If they do not, God will punish them seven times more strongly. 19 He will make them ashamed. He will not send any rain and the land will be hard and dry. 20 Even if they do a lot of work, no grain will grow. No fruit will grow on the trees.
21 The people may still not listen to God. If they do not, he will be seven times more angry. If they do not obey him, he will cause their lives to be seven times more difficult. 22 He will send wild animals to kill their children and their animals. The land will be almost empty.
23 The people may still not listen to God. If they do not, he will be angry. 24 He will become their enemy. If they do not obey him, he will punish them seven times more strongly. 25 He will send enemy soldiers to kill the people. They have not done what they promised to do. So he will punish them for that. If they go back to their cities, he will send them diseases. The enemy will win the war. 26 The people will not have any food. A woman will bake one loaf for ten families. They will weigh it to give one part to each family. When a person eats his piece of bread, he will still be hungry.
27 If the people still turn away from God, he will be even more angry. They will not turn away from their sin. 28 So he will turn away from them. He will punish them seven times more again. 29 They will be so hungry that they will eat their own children. 30 The Lord will destroy the places where they worship false gods. He will destroy their very bad incense altars. He will put their dead bodies round their idols. He will hate them. 31 He will destroy the cities. He will destroy the places for wrong worship. Nobody will burn incense to give the Lord pleasure. 32 God will destroy the land. He will cause the enemies who live in your land to hate it. 33 God will push you out. He will send your people away to other countries. He will destroy your cities. And he will make your land a desert. 34 The land will have a Sabbath rest while there are no people in it. 35 All the time that it is empty, the land will have rest. It will have the Sabbath rest that it did not have. It did not have it when you lived in it.
36 Some of Israel's people will remain in other countries. They will be frightened. A leaf that is blowing in the wind will cause them to run away. It will be like when an enemy is running after them. They will fall even if no enemy is running after them. 37 They will fall over each other when nobody is running after them. They will not be strong enough to fight their enemies. 38 They will die in the countries where they are living. Those countries will cause their deaths. 39 Those who remain here will die because of their sins. They will die because their ancestors did not obey God.
40 Your sons and your grandsons must tell me, the Lord, that they are sorry. They must be sorry because they did not obey my rules. They must be sorry that they turned away from me. 41 They must remember that they made me angry. They caused me to turn away from them. I am the Lord, and I sent them into their enemies' country. They will be sorry until I have punished them enough. 42 Then I will remember my covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will remember that I gave their land to them. 43 Before this, the land will be empty and it will have a rest. My people will pay for the bad things that they did. 44 But I, the Lord, will not kill all of them. The people will be living in their enemies' country. Then I will remember them. I will not leave them alone. I will remember my covenant with them. I am the Lord, their God. 45 I will remember my covenant with their ancestors that I brought out of Egypt. The people of other nations saw me do this. I am the Lord.’
46 These are the rules that the Lord gave to Moses on Sinai mountain. They are his covenant with Israel's people.[a]
Rules about gifts to the Lord
27 The Lord said to Moses, 2 ‘Speak to Israel's people. Tell them this. A person might give another person to the Lord for a special promise. 3 They can make that person free. But they must give the right amount of money to God. For a man between 20 years and 60 years old, they must give 50 pieces of silver. 4 For a woman, they must give 30 pieces of silver. 5 For a male between five years and 20 years old, they must give to God 20 pieces of silver. For a female, they must give ten pieces of silver. 6 For a boy between one month and five years old, they must give five pieces of silver. For a girl of the same age, God must have three pieces of silver. 7 If a man is older than 60 years, they must give 15 pieces of silver. For a woman, they must give ten pieces of silver. 8 A person might say this special promise to God. But he might be too poor to pay the money. He must bring the person to the priest. The priest will tell the person how much money to pay. The priest will know how much money the man can give.
9 If the promise is to give an animal to God the animal becomes holy to the Lord. 10 The person must not change a good animal for a bad animal. He must not change a bad animal for a good animal. If the person does change one animal for another, both the animals become holy. 11 The animal might be an animal that you must not eat. And you can not give it to the Lord. If it is, the person must bring it to the priest. 12 The priest will decide if the animal is good or bad. 13 The person might want to buy the animal back. He must pay the price of the animal and one fifth more.
Jesus talks again about his death
32 Jesus and his disciples were walking along the road towards Jerusalem. Jesus was walking in front of them all. The disciples were very upset. Other people who were following behind them were afraid. Jesus again took his 12 apostles away from the other people. He began to tell them what would happen to him soon. 33 ‘Listen!’ he said to them. ‘We are going to Jerusalem. There, someone will give the Son of Man to the leaders of the priests and to the teachers of God's Law. These Jewish leaders will decide that he must die. Then they will put him under the power of people who are not Jews. 34 Those people will laugh at him. They will spit at him. They will hit him with whips. Then they will kill him. But after three days, he will become alive again.’
James and John ask Jesus to do something for them
35 James and John, who were Zebedee's sons, came to Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want to ask you for something. Please do it for us.’
36 ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked them.
37 They said to him, ‘When you are king, we want to rule with you. One of us will sit at your right side and the other one at your left side.’
38 Jesus said to them, ‘You do not understand what you are asking for. I will have much pain and trouble. Are you ready to have the same pain? Are you ready to die in the way that I will die?’
39 James and John replied, ‘Yes, we can do all that.’
Jesus said to them, ‘Yes, that is true. You will have pain like mine. And people will want to kill you like me. 40 But I cannot promise that you will sit at my right side or at my left side. God has chosen the people who will sit there. He has prepared the places for those people.’
41 When the other ten disciples heard about this, they were angry with James and John. 42 But Jesus told the disciples to come to him. He said to them, ‘You know the things that rulers of other countries do. They show that they have much power over their people. The leaders of those countries use great authority over their people. 43 But you should not be like that. Instead, the person who wants to be great among you must become like your servant. 44 Anyone who wants to be the most important person among you must work hard for you all. 45 Even the Son of Man came to earth to be a servant to other people. He did not come here to have servants who must work for him. No, he came to die so that many people can be free.’
Jesus causes a blind man to see
46 Then Jesus and his disciples arrived in Jericho. When they were leaving the city again, a large crowd of people followed them. A blind man was sitting by the side of the road. He was asking people to give him money.[a] His name was Bartimaeus and he was the son of Timaeus.
47 Somebody told Bartimaeus that Jesus from Nazareth was walking past him. So he began to shout. He said, ‘Jesus, Son of David! Please be kind to me and help me!’
48 Many people were angry with Bartimaeus. They told him that he should be quiet. But he shouted even louder than before, ‘Son of David![b] Please help me!’
49 Jesus stopped. He said to the people, ‘Tell the man to come here.’ So the people said to the blind man, ‘Be brave! Stand up. Jesus is asking you to go to him.’ 50 So Bartimaeus threw away his coat. He jumped up and he came to Jesus.
51 Then Jesus said to Bartimaeus, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
The blind man said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I want to see again.’
52 ‘Go,’ Jesus said to him. ‘You are well now, because you believed in me.’ Immediately, Bartimaeus could see again. He followed Jesus along the road.
This is a special song that the sons of Korah wrote for the music leader. Sing it to the music that they call ‘Lilies.’
A love song[a]
45 This beautiful song makes my heart very happy.
I will sing this special poem to the king.
My voice is ready to sing it very well,
as well as a clever writer can write with a pen.
2 You are the most handsome man that there is.
You speak kind words in a beautiful way.
And so God will continue to bless you for ever.
3 Brave soldier, wear your sword at your side!
Show what a great king you are!
4 Wear your royal clothes
and ride out to win against your enemies!
Win the war on behalf of truth and justice!
Then your strong right hand will do powerful things!
5 Your sharp arrows will cut into the heart of your enemies.
Nations will fall down under your feet.
6 God, you will continue to rule as king
always and for ever.
Your authority as king will bring justice to your people.
7 You love people to do what is right,
and you hate anything that is evil.
So God, your God, has chosen you
to be greater than all your people.
He has put special olive oil on you,
to make you happy.
8 All your clothes have the beautiful smell
of myrrh, aloes and cassia.
You hear the music of stringed instruments
that comes from beautiful palaces.
That makes you happy.
9 The daughters of kings are among your visitors.
Your royal bride stands at your right hand.
She is wearing gold from Ophir.
10 Royal daughter, listen to me.
Listen carefully to what I am saying.
Forget your people and your family.
11 You are very beautiful
and the king will want to be with you.
He is your master, so respect him.
12 Rich people will come from Tyre to give gifts to you.
They will want you to help them.
13 The king's bride is in the palace,
and she looks beautiful!
Her dress has gold threads in it.[b]
14 Now they lead her to the king in her beautiful clothes.
Her young friends follow after her
to bring her to the king.
15 They are very happy as they walk together
and they go into the king's palace.
16 You will have sons to become kings,
as your ancestors were kings before you.
You will make them princes
to rule over all the land.
17 In future years I will cause people to remember
that you are a great king!
Then people will praise you always and for ever.
22 If the Lord blesses you, you are really rich.
Hard work will not make you any richer.
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