The Daily Audio Bible

Rules about the temple

44 Then the man brought me back to the outside gate on the east side of the temple yard. But the gate was shut.

² The Lord said to me, ‘This gate must stay shut. Nobody may go through it. Nobody may open it again. The Lord, Israel's God, has gone through it. So it must stay shut. ³ Only Israel's ruler is allowed to sit in the gate's entrance. He may sit there to eat a holy meal in front of the Lord. He may only go in and out through the entrance room of that gate.’

⁴ Then the man took me through the north gate of the temple yard. We went to the front of the temple building. As I watched, I saw that the Lord's glory filled his temple. I bent down low with my face on the ground.

⁵ The Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, listen to what I tell you. Think carefully about it. These are the rules and laws about the Lord's temple. Understand about its entrances and the people who are allowed to go in and out of the temple. ⁶ Israel's people refuse to obey me. Say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: Israel's people, you have done too many disgusting things! ⁷ You brought foreigners into my temple. They were not circumcised and they did not want to belong to me. In that way, you made my own temple unclean. You did that when you offered food, fat and blood to me there. You did not obey my covenant with you, when you did all these disgusting things. ⁸ You did not take care of my holy things yourselves. Instead you chose foreigners to take care of my holy place on your behalf. ⁹ This is what the Almighty Lord God says: No foreigner may go into my holy place if he is not circumcised and he does not want to obey me. Even if that foreigner lives among my people, the Israelites, he must not go in there.

¹⁰ As well as other Israelites, some Levite men turned away from me to worship idols. I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. ¹¹ But they may continue to serve me in the work of the temple. They can be guards at the temple gates. They can kill the animals that people bring for burnt offerings and other sacrifices. They can help the people who come to worship me. ¹² But I promise that I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. That is because they helped the people to worship their idols. In that way, they caused Israel's people to do bad things. I, the Almighty Lord, promise that I will punish them. ¹³ They must not come near to me to serve me as the priests do. They must not touch any of my holy things or the most holy offerings. Instead, they must be ashamed of the disgusting things that they have done. ¹⁴ But I will allow them to take care of the temple and all the ordinary work that is done there.

¹⁵ Only the priests who are descendants of Zadok, the Levite, may come near to me and serve me.^[a] When Israel's people turned away from me, only the priests of Zadok's family faithfully served me in my temple. So now Zadok's descendants may offer to me the fat and the blood of sacrifices. That is what the Almighty Lord says. ¹⁶ Only they can come into my holy place and serve me at the altar. They will do what I tell them to do.

¹⁷ When they come through the gates into the inside yard, they must wear linen clothes. The clothes that they wear while they serve me must not have any wool in them. They must wear linen clothes when they work at the gates of the inside yard or in the temple. ¹⁸ They must wear linen cloths around their heads. The trousers that they wear next to their skin must also be made of linen. They must not tie anything around their body that makes them sweat.^{[b] 19} Before they go out to the outside yard to meet the ordinary people, they must take off their special clothes. They must leave the clothes that they wore when they were serving me in one of the rooms in the holy place. They must put on other clothes before they go out. Then their special clothes will not touch the people and make them holy.

²⁰ The priests must not cut all the hair off their heads. They must not let it grow long either. They must keep their hair short. ²¹ When a priest goes into the inside yard of the temple, he must not drink anywine. ²² Priests must not marry a widow, or a woman whose husband has sent her away. They may only marry Israelite women who have never had sex. Or they may marry a widow whose husband had been a priest. ²³ They must teach my people that holy things are different from ordinary things. They must also show them how to know if something is clean or unclean.

²⁴ If people have an argument, the priests must be their judges. They must use my laws to decide who is right. They must obey the rules about my special festivals. They must respect Sabbath days as holy.

²⁵ A priest must not go near to a dead person. It would make him unclean. But if the dead person is his father, his mother, his son, his daughter, his brother or his sister who has not married, he may go near them. It makes him unclean but he may do that. ²⁶ After this, he must make himself clean. Then he must wait seven days. ²⁷ Then he can go into the inside yard of the temple to serve me there. On the day that he goes back there, he must make a sin offering for himself. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

²⁸ Do not give the priests their own land in Israel to keep for their descendants. I myself will be the gift that they receive. I will take care of them and their families. ²⁹ They will receive the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings. They are allowed to eat some of those offerings that the people bring. All the special things that people give to the Lord will belong to the priests. ³⁰ The best of all the first crops from people's land and all their special gifts will belong to the priests. You must also give to the priests the first flour that you make from your grain. Then I will bless the people who live in your house. ³¹ The priests must not eat any bird or any animal that people find dead. They must not eat anything that a wild animal has killed.” ’

Special land for the Lord

45 ‘You must divide the land into different parts to belong to each tribe. When you do this, you must give one part to the Lord. It will belong to the Lord as a holy piece of land. It will be 12½ kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. All of this land will be holy. ² Part of this land will be for the temple. It will be 250 metres long and 250 metres wide. Keep an empty space 25 metres wide all around this piece of land. ³ Inside the holy piece of land, measure a part that is 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide. This part will contain the temple, the most holy place. ⁴ The priests will have this holy part of the land. They are the men who work in the temple and come near to the Lord to serve him. The priests' houses will be there, as well as the temple. ⁵ The other half of the holy piece of land will be for the Levites, who work in the temple. They will have towns there to live in. Their land will be 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide.

⁶ There will also be a piece of land for the city, 12½ kilometres long and 2½ kilometres wide. It will be beside the holy piece of land. Any of Israel's people may live there.

⁷ There will be two pieces of land for the ruler. One piece will be on the east side of the holy piece of land and the land for the city. The other piece will be on the west side. The piece on the west side will go as far as the sea. The piece on the east side will go as far as the border of the land. So his land will be as long as a part of the land that belongs to each tribe. ⁸ This will be the part of Israel's land that belongs to the ruler. Because my rulers will have their own land, they will no longer need to make my people suffer. They will give to each tribe a part of the land that will belong to them.

⁹ The Almighty Lord says this: Rulers of Israel, stop cheating my people and making them suffer! You have done enough bad things! Instead, do things that are right and fair. Stop chasing my people off their land. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

¹⁰ You must use correct measures for size and for weight. ¹¹ The ephah that you use to measure dry things must be the same measure that you use for wet things. Ten ephahs will be equal to one homer. ¹² 20 gerahs will be equal to one shekel. 60 shekels will be equal to one mina.^[c]

God has given us a new life because of Christ

1 This letter is from me, Peter. I am an apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to you, God's own people that he has chosen. You are now living in many different places, in the regions called Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.^[a] You are living in these foreign places as strangers. ² God, the Father, already decided that you should be his people. God's Spirit has made you special people who would obey Jesus Christ. God chose you so that Jesus Christ's blood would make you really clean.^[b]

I pray that God will help you and give you peace in your minds more and more.

³ We praise God, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is very kind to us, so that he has given us new life. This is possible because God raised Jesus Christ to new life after his death. Now, as we live, we are sure that we will receive good things from God. ⁴ We wait to receive all the good things that he has prepared for us. Nobody can ever destroy those things. Nothing can spoil them. They will never become old or less beautiful. God is keeping those things in heaven for you. ⁵ God is using his great power to keep you safe, because you trust him. He will continue to keep you safe until the last day, when Christ will return. Then you will know that God has saved you completely from sin and from death.

⁶ All this causes you to be very happy, even when you have troubles. For a short time now, different kinds of troubles may make you sad. ⁷ The purpose of these troubles is to show whether you really trust God. When you believe in Jesus, that is more valuable even than gold. People put gold into a hot fire to see if it is really good. And even gold will come to an end one day. But if you continue to trust God in your troubles, he will be very happy. On the day when Jesus Christ returns and appears to everyone, God will praise you. He will say that you have done well. That will be great!

⁸ You have never seen Jesus, but still you love him. You do not see him now, but you believe in him. As a result, you are very happy. There are no words to describe how happy you are. ⁹ You are happy now because God is saving you from sin. You believe in Jesus, and you know that God saves you because of that.^[c]

¹⁰ A long time ago, God's prophets spoke about this. They said that God would be very kind to you, his people. They studied carefully to learn how God would save people. ¹¹ They wanted to know when God's special Messiah would come and who he would be. Christ's Spirit showed those prophets that the Messiah would receive much trouble and pain. After that, God would show how great the Messiah is. ¹² God showed his prophets that his messages about these things were not really to help them. Instead, God sent his message to the prophets to help you. That message is the good news about Jesus Christ which you have now heard. God sent his Holy Spirit from heaven to help people to tell the good news to you. Even the angels would like to understand more about these things.

GIMEL

DALETH