That night the Lord said to him, “Take the bull from your father’s herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. ¹  Pull down your father’s Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole.

¹ This will be your confirmation that I have spoken the truth: ²  This year you will eat what grows wild, ³  and next year ⁴  what grows on its own from that. But in the third year you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. ⁵ 

Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet ¹  high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet ²  high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.

Just like their relatives, the descendants of Aaron, they also cast lots before King David, Zadok, Ahimelech, the leaders of families, the priests, and the Levites. The families of the oldest son cast lots along with the those of the youngest. ¹ 

They reserved the burnt offerings and the cattle for the family divisions of the people to present to the Lord, as prescribed in the scroll of Moses. ¹ 

At that time Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues came to them and asked, “Who gave you authority ¹  to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?” ² 

Everyone will suffer – the priest as well as the people, ¹  the master as well as the servant, ²  the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, ³  the seller as well as the buyer, ⁴  the borrower as well as the lender, ⁵  the creditor as well as the debtor. ⁶ 

¹ “This will be your reminder that I have spoken the truth: ²  This year you will eat what grows wild, ³  and next year ⁴  what grows on its own. But the year after that ⁵  you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. ⁶ 

“But if a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and practices wrongdoing according to all the abominable practices the wicked carry out, will he live? All his righteous acts will not be remembered; because of the unfaithful acts he has done and the sin he has committed, he will die. ¹ 

On that same occasion ¹  Jesus ²  rejoiced ³  in the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise ⁴  you, Father, Lord ⁵  of heaven and earth, because ⁶  you have hidden these things from the wise ⁷  and intelligent, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will. ⁸ 

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month – on that day all the fountains of the great deep ¹  burst open and the floodgates of the heavens ²  were opened.

That day the Lord made a covenant ¹  with Abram: “To your descendants I give ²  this land, from the river of Egypt ³  to the great river, the Euphrates River –

¹ “You are to make a lampstand ²  of pure gold. The lampstand is to be made of hammered metal; its base and its shaft, its cups, ³  its buds, and its blossoms are to be from the same piece. ⁴ 

Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, and three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on the next ¹  branch, and the same ²  for the six branches extending from the lampstand.

You are to make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and in the same way you are to make loops ¹  in the outer edge of the end curtain in the second set.

Likewise ¹  for its length on the north side, there are to be ²  hangings for one hundred fifty feet, with twenty posts and their twenty bronze bases, with silver hooks and bands ³  on the posts.

“You are to make a breastpiece for use in making decisions, ¹  the work of an artistic designer; you are to make it in the same fashion as the ephod; you are to make it of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen.

Its length is to be a foot and a half ¹  and its width a foot and a half; it will be square. Its height is to be three feet, ²  with its horns of one piece with it. ³ 

It must not be applied ¹  to people’s bodies, and you must not make any like it with the same recipe. It is holy, and it must be holy to you.

Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms were on the first branch, and three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms were on the next ¹  branch, and the same ²  for the six branches that were extending from the lampstand.