Provision for Priests and Levites

¹“The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord's food offerings1 as their2 inheritance. ²They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. ³And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. ⁴The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. ⁵For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time.

⁶“And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires3—to the place that the Lord will choose, ⁷and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, ⁸then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.4

Abominable Practices

⁹“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,5 anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer ¹¹or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, ¹²for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. ¹³You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, ¹⁴for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

A New Prophet like Moses

¹⁵“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—¹⁶just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. ²⁰But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or6 who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—²²when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Tell of All His Wonderful Works

¹Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;

make known his deeds among the peoples!

²Sing to him, sing praises to him;

tell of all his wondrous works!

³Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

⁴Seek the Lord and his strength;

seek his presence continually!

⁵Remember the wondrous works that he has done,

his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,

⁶O offspring of Abraham, his servant,

children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

⁷He is the Lord our God;

his judgments are in all the earth.

⁸He remembers his covenant forever,

the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,

⁹the covenant that he made with Abraham,

his sworn promise to Isaac,

¹⁰which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,

to Israel as an everlasting covenant,

¹¹saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan

as your portion for an inheritance.”

¹²When they were few in number,

of little account, and sojourners in it,

¹³wandering from nation to nation,

from one kingdom to another people,

¹⁴he allowed no one to oppress them;

he rebuked kings on their account,

¹⁵saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,

do my prophets no harm!”

¹⁶When he summoned a famine on the land

and broke all supply1 of bread,

¹⁷he had sent a man ahead of them,

Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

¹⁸His feet were hurt with fetters;

his neck was put in a collar of iron;

¹⁹until what he had said came to pass,

the word of the Lord tested him.

²⁰The king sent and released him;

the ruler of the peoples set him free;

²¹he made him lord of his house

and ruler of all his possessions,

²²to bind2 his princes at his pleasure

and to teach his elders wisdom.

²³Then Israel came to Egypt;

Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

²⁴And the Lord made his people very fruitful

and made them stronger than their foes.

²⁵He turned their hearts to hate his people,

to deal craftily with his servants.

²⁶He sent Moses, his servant,

and Aaron, whom he had chosen.

²⁷They performed his signs among them

and miracles in the land of Ham.

²⁸He sent darkness, and made the land dark;

they did not rebel3 against his words.

²⁹He turned their waters into blood

and caused their fish to die.

³⁰Their land swarmed with frogs,

even in the chambers of their kings.

³¹He spoke, and there came swarms of flies,

and gnats throughout their country.

³²He gave them hail for rain,

and fiery lightning bolts through their land.

³³He struck down their vines and fig trees,

and shattered the trees of their country.

³⁴He spoke, and the locusts came,

young locusts without number,

³⁵which devoured all the vegetation in their land

and ate up the fruit of their ground.

³⁶He struck down all the firstborn in their land,

the firstfruits of all their strength.

³⁷Then he brought out Israel with silver and gold,

and there was none among his tribes who stumbled.

³⁸Egypt was glad when they departed,

for dread of them had fallen upon it.

³⁹He spread a cloud for a covering,

and fire to give light by night.

⁴⁰They asked, and he brought quail,

and gave them bread from heaven in abundance.

⁴¹He opened the rock, and water gushed out;

it flowed through the desert like a river.

⁴²For he remembered his holy promise,

and Abraham, his servant.

⁴³So he brought his people out with joy,

his chosen ones with singing.

⁴⁴And he gave them the lands of the nations,

and they took possession of the fruit of the peoples' toil,

⁴⁵that they might keep his statutes

and observe his laws.

Praise the Lord!

Cyrus, God's Instrument

¹Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,

whose right hand I have grasped,

to subdue nations before him

and to loose the belts of kings,

to open doors before him

that gates may not be closed:

²“I will go before you

and level the exalted places,1

I will break in pieces the doors of bronze

and cut through the bars of iron,

³I will give you the treasures of darkness

and the hoards in secret places,

that you may know that it is I, the Lord,

the God of Israel, who call you by your name.

⁴For the sake of my servant Jacob,

and Israel my chosen,

I call you by your name,

I name you, though you do not know me.

⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other,

besides me there is no God;

I equip you, though you do not know me,

⁶that people may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

⁷I form light and create darkness,

I make well-being and create calamity,

I am the Lord, who does all these things.

⁸“Shower, O heavens, from above,

and let the clouds rain down righteousness;

let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit;

let the earth cause them both to sprout;

I the Lord have created it.

⁹“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,

a pot among earthen pots!

Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’

or ‘Your work has no handles’?

¹⁰Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’

or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”

¹¹Thus says the Lord,

the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:

“Ask me of things to come;

will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?2

¹²I made the earth

and created man on it;

it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,

and I commanded all their host.

¹³I have stirred him up in righteousness,

and I will make all his ways level;

he shall build my city

and set my exiles free,

not for price or reward,”

says the Lord of hosts.

The Lord, the Only Savior

¹⁴Thus says the Lord:

“The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush,

and the Sabeans, men of stature,

shall come over to you and be yours;

they shall follow you;

they shall come over in chains and bow down to you.

They will plead with you, saying:

‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other,

no god besides him.’”

¹⁵Truly, you are a God who hides himself,

O God of Israel, the Savior.

¹⁶All of them are put to shame and confounded;

the makers of idols go in confusion together.

¹⁷But Israel is saved by the Lord

with everlasting salvation;

you shall not be put to shame or confounded

to all eternity.

¹⁸For thus says the Lord,

who created the heavens

(he is God!),

who formed the earth and made it

(he established it;

he did not create it empty,

he formed it to be inhabited!):

“I am the Lord, and there is no other.

¹⁹I did not speak in secret,

in a land of darkness;

I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,

‘Seek me in vain.’3

I the Lord speak the truth;

I declare what is right.

²⁰“Assemble yourselves and come;

draw near together,

you survivors of the nations!

They have no knowledge

who carry about their wooden idols,

and keep on praying to a god

that cannot save.

²¹Declare and present your case;

let them take counsel together!

Who told this long ago?

Who declared it of old?

Was it not I, the Lord?

And there is no other god besides me,

a righteous God and a Savior;

there is none besides me.

²²“Turn to me and be saved,

all the ends of the earth!

For I am God, and there is no other.

²³By myself I have sworn;

from my mouth has gone out in righteousness

a word that shall not return:

‘To me every knee shall bow,

every tongue shall swear allegiance.’4

²⁴“Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me,

are righteousness and strength;

to him shall come and be ashamed

all who were incensed against him.

²⁵In the Lord all the offspring of Israel

shall be justified and shall glory.”

The Seven Angels with Seven Plagues

¹Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.

²And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. ³And they sing the song of Moses, the servant1 of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

“Great and amazing are your deeds,

O Lord God the Almighty!

Just and true are your ways,

O King of the nations!2

⁴Who will not fear, O Lord,

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

and worship you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

⁵After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent3 of witness in heaven was opened, ⁶and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests. ⁷And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever, ⁸and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.