The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered the Israelite leaders. ²² They said, ‘God, the Lord, is the great God! God, the Lord knows what is true! So all Israel must also know! Punish us today if we have turned against the Lord. We have not refused to obey him. ²³ We did not build our own altar to make burnt offerings or grain offerings or friendship offerings on it. If we have done that, the Lord himself should certainly punish us.

²⁴ No! We had a very different idea. We were afraid that in the future, your descendants might say to our descendants, “You have nothing to do with the Lord, Israel's God. ²⁵ The Lord put the Jordan River as a border between our tribes and your tribes. The tribes of Reuben and Gad cannot worship the Lord!” In that way, your descendants might stop our descendants from serving the Lord.

²⁶ That is why we decided to build this altar. It will not be an altar where we make sacrifices or burnt offerings. ²⁷ But it will help us all, our descendants and your descendants, to remember to obey the Lord. We will go to worship him at his tabernacle. There we will bring to him our burnt offerings, our sacrifices and our friendship offerings. Then, in future years, your descendants will not say to our descendants, “You cannot worship the Lord with us.”

²⁸ If they say that to us, we will reply, “Look at this altar that our ancestors built. It is a copy of the Lord's true altar. It is not for burnt offerings or sacrifices. They built it so that we would remember that we all belong to the Lord.” 

²⁹ We would never decide to turn against the Lord. We want to continue to obey him. We know that the only altar where we must make burnt offerings, sacrifices and friendship offerings is the true altar of the Lord our God. That altar stands in front of his tabernacle.’

³⁰ Phinehas the priest and the Israelite leaders that were with him heard this. They were happy with what the people of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had told them. ³¹ They said to them, ‘Now we know that the Lord is with us! You have not refused to obey the Lord. So we know that he will not punish us Israelites.’

³² Then Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, and the leaders left Gilead and they went back to the land of Canaan. They told the Israelites in Canaan what the people of Reuben and Gad had said. ³³ The Israelites were happy to hear their report. They thanked God. They did not think any more that they might attack the other tribes and destroy their land.

³⁴ The people of Reuben and Gad gave their altar a name, because they wanted to remember that the Lord is their God. So they called the altar ‘Remember’.

Joshua says ‘goodbye’

23 Joshua became very old. The Lord had let the Israelite people live safely for many years. The other nations who lived near them did not attack them. ² One day, Joshua called all the leaders to meet with him. They were the leaders of Israel's tribes and clans, the judges and the officers. He said to them,

‘I am now very old. ³ You yourselves have seen what the Lord has done to these other nations. It was the Lord who fought against them on your behalf. ⁴ Remember how I have given land to each of your tribes. The land is between the Jordan River in the east, and the Mediterranean Sea in the west. It is land that belonged to different nations. Some of those people we have chased away, but some of them still remain in the land. ⁵ The Lord himself will chase those people out of the land, so that you can live there. The Lord your God has promised you all this.

⁶ Be very strong. Be careful that you obey everything that Moses wrote in the Book of the Law. Do not turn away from any of those rules. ⁷ Do not become friends of the nations that live near you. Do not call out to their gods. Do not use the names of their gods to make a promise. You must not serve them or worship them. ⁸ But you must always serve the Lord your God, as you have until now.

⁹ The Lord has chased out in front of you nations that are great and strong. None of them has been strong enough to win against you. ¹⁰ Because the Lord your God fights on your behalf, one of you can chase away 1,000 men! The Lord has promised to do this for you. ¹¹ You must be very careful that you continue to love the Lord your God. ¹² You must not turn away from him to join with the other nations that still live near you. Do not marry any of them. Do not live in the way that they live. ¹³ If you do that, the Lord your God will not chase them out in front of you any more. Instead, those nations will become a danger for you. They will be like a trap that catches you. They will be like sticks that beat your backs, and like sharp thorns in your eyes. They will bring trouble to you until none of you remain in this good land that the Lord your God has given to you.

¹⁴ I will soon die, as all men do. The Lord your God has done everything that he promised you he would do. Deep inside yourselves, you know that is true. He has not failed to do even one thing that he promised. ¹⁵ The Lord has given to you every good thing that he has promised. But if you refuse to obey him, he will also punish you in every way that he has promised. He will destroy you so that you no longer live in this good land that he has given to you. ¹⁶ You must obey the rules that he commanded you to obey in his covenant. You must not serve or worship other gods. If you turn against him, the Lord your God will be very angry with you. Then very soon none of you will remain in this good land that he has given to you.’

The Sadducees ask Jesus a question

²⁷ Then some of the Sadducees came to see Jesus. The Sadducees do not believe that anyone becomes alive again after they die.

²⁸ They wanted to ask Jesus a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said to him, ‘Moses wrote this in the Bible for us: “A man may die and leave a wife but no children. Then that man's brother must marry the woman. Then their children will be called the children of the brother who died.” ²⁹ But once there were seven brothers. The oldest brother married a woman. Then he died before they had any children. ³⁰ So the second brother married this woman. But he also died without children. ³¹ Then the third brother married the woman. The same thing happened to all seven brothers. They all died but they had no children. ³² After all this, the woman also died. ³³ You teach that one day dead people will become alive again. So, on that day, whose wife will the woman be? She had married all seven of those brothers.’

³⁴ Jesus answered them, ‘Men and women who are alive on earth are the ones who get married. ³⁵ But God has chosen some people to live again with him. He will raise them up after they have died. Those people will not marry. They will not have husbands or wives, ³⁶ and they cannot die any more. This is because they will live as the angels live in heaven. They are children of God. He has made them alive again to live with him. ³⁷ It is true that God makes dead people become alive again. Moses showed us this in his report about the bush in the wilderness. He told us that our Lord God is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. And he is the God of Jacob.^{[a] 38} But God is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive. For God, all people continue to be alive.’

³⁹ Some of the teachers of God's Law agreed with Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘that was a very good answer.’ ⁴⁰ After that, they were all afraid to ask Jesus any more questions.

The Messiah is someone that King David calls his Lord

⁴¹ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do people say that the Messiah will be King David's son? ⁴² David himself said this in the book called Psalms:^[b]

⁴⁴ You see here that David calls the Messiah his Lord. So can you really say that the Messiah is David's son?’

Jesus speaks against the teachers of God's Law

⁴⁵ All the people were listening to Jesus. Jesus then said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ ‘Be careful not to do the same as the teachers of God's Law. They want people to think that they are important. So they walk about in beautiful long clothes. They like people to praise them in the market place. They choose to sit in the best seats in the meeting place. They like to sit in the most important places at special meals. ⁴⁷ They take things away from women after their husbands have died, even their houses. Then they pray for a long time so that other people will praise them. Because they do these things, God will punish those men much more than other people.’

God's covenant with David