Numbers 15

• 1. The LORD told Moses to give these instructions to the people of Israel:
• 2. "When you finally settle in the land I am going to give you,
• 3. and you want to please the LORD with a burnt offering or any other offering given by fire, the sacrifice must be an animal from your flocks of sheep and goats or from your herds of cattle. When it is an ordinary burnt offering, a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, a freewill offering, or a special sacrifice at any of the annual festivals,
• 4. whoever brings it must also give to the LORD a grain offering of two quarts of choice flour mixed with one quart of olive oil.
• 5. For each lamb offered as a whole burnt offering, you must also present one quart of wine for a drink offering.
• 6. "If the sacrifice is a ram, give three quarts of choice flour mixed with two and a half pints of olive oil,
• 7. and give two and a half pints of wine for a drink offering. This sacrifice will be very pleasing to the LORD.
• 8. "When you present a young bull as a burnt offering or a sacrifice in fulfillment of a special vow or as a peace offering to the LORD,
• 9. then the grain offering accompanying it must include five quarts of choice flour mixed with two quarts of olive oil,
• 10. plus two quarts of wine for the drink offering. This will be an offering made by fire, very pleasing to the LORD.
• 11. "These are the instructions for what is to accompany each sacrificial bull, ram, lamb, or young goat.
• 12. Each of you must do this with each offering you present.
• 13. If you native Israelites want to present an offering by fire that is pleasing to the LORD, you must follow all these instructions.
• 14. And if any foreigners living among you want to present an offering by fire, pleasing to the LORD, they must follow the same procedures.
• 15. Native Israelites and foreigners are the same before the LORD and are subject to the same laws. This is a permanent law for you.
• 16. The same instructions and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigners living among you."
• 17. The LORD also said to Moses at this time,
• 18. "Give the people of Israel the following instructions: When you arrive in the land where I am taking you,
• 19. you will eat from the crops that grow there. But you must set some aside as a gift to the LORD.
• 20. Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind and set it aside as a gift, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor.
• 21. Throughout the generations to come, you are to present this offering to the LORD each year from the first of your ground flour.
• 22. "But suppose some of you unintentionally fail to carry out all these commands that the LORD has given you through Moses.
• 23. And suppose some of your descendants in the future fail to do everything the LORD has commanded through Moses.
• 24. If the mistake was done unintentionally, and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering. It will be pleasing to the LORD, and it must be offered along with the prescribed grain offering and drink offering and with one male goat for a sin offering.
• 25. With it the priest will make atonement for the whole community of Israel, and they will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin, and they have corrected it with their offering given to the LORD by fire and by their sin offering.
• 26. The whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you, for the entire population was involved in the sin.
• 27. "If the unintentional sin is committed by an individual, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering.
• 28. The priest will make atonement for the guilty person before the LORD, and that person will be forgiven.
• 29. This same law applies both to native Israelites and the foreigners living among you.
• 30. "But those who brazenly violate the LORD's will, whether native Israelites or foreigners, blaspheme the LORD, and they must be cut off from the community.
• 31. Since they have treated the LORD's word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his commands, they must be completely cut off and suffer the consequences of their guilt."
• 32. One day while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they caught a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.
• 33. He was apprehended and taken before Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the community.
• 34. They held him in custody because they did not know what to do with him.
• 35. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must be put to death! The whole community must stone him outside the camp."
• 36. So the whole community took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
• 37. And the LORD said to Moses,
• 38. "Say to the people of Israel: `Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach the tassels at each corner with a blue cord.
• 39. The tassels will remind you of the commands of the LORD, and that you are to obey his commands instead of following your own desires and going your own ways, as you are prone to do.
• 40. The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God.
• 41. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the LORD your God!'"

Psalms 51

• 1. Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.
• 2. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.
• 3. For I recognize my shameful deeds--they haunt me day and night.
• 4. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.
• 5. For I was born a sinner--yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
• 6. But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.
• 7. Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
• 8. Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me--now let me rejoice.
• 9. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt.
• 10. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
• 11. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me.
• 12. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
• 13. Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you.
• 14. Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.
• 15. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that I may praise you.
• 16. You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them. If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
• 17. The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise.
• 18. Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
• 19. Then you will be pleased with worthy sacrifices and with our whole burnt offerings; and bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.

Isaiah 5

• 1. Now I will sing a song for the one I love about his vineyard: My beloved has a vineyard on a rich and fertile hill.
• 2. He plowed the land, cleared its stones, and planted it with choice vines. In the middle he built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks. Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour.
• 3. "Now, you people of Jerusalem and Judah, you have heard the case; you be the judges.
• 4. What more could I have done to cultivate a rich harvest? Why did my vineyard give me wild grapes when I expected sweet ones?
• 5. Now this is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will tear down its fences and let it be destroyed. I will break down its walls and let the animals trample it.
• 6. I will make it a wild place. I will not prune the vines or hoe the ground. I will let it be overgrown with briers and thorns. I will command the clouds to drop no more rain on it."
• 7. This is the story of the LORD's people. They are the vineyard of the LORD Almighty. Israel and Judah are his pleasant garden. He expected them to yield a crop of justice, but instead he found bloodshed. He expected to find righteousness, but instead he heard cries of oppression.
• 8. Destruction is certain for you who buy up property so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the land.
• 9. But the LORD Almighty has sealed your awful fate. With my own ears I heard him say, "Many beautiful homes will stand deserted, the owners dead or gone.
• 10. Ten acres of vineyard will not produce even six gallons of wine. Ten measures of seed will yield only one measure of grain."
• 11. Destruction is certain for you who get up early to begin long drinking bouts that last late into the night.
• 12. You furnish lovely music and wine at your grand parties; the harps, lyres, tambourines, and flutes are superb! But you never think about the LORD or notice what he is doing.
• 13. So I will send my people into exile far away because they do not know me. The great and honored among them will starve, and the common people will die of thirst.
• 14. The grave is licking its chops in anticipation of Jerusalem, this delicious morsel. Her great and lowly will be swallowed up, with all her drunken crowds.
• 15. In that day the arrogant will be brought down to the dust; the proud will be humbled.
• 16. But the LORD Almighty is exalted by his justice. The holiness of God is displayed by his righteousness.
• 17. In those days flocks will feed among the ruins; lambs and kids will pasture there.
• 18. Destruction is certain for those who drag their sins behind them, tied with cords of falsehood.
• 19. They even mock the Holy One of Israel and say, "Hurry up and do something! Quick, show us what you can do. We want to see what you have planned."
• 20. Destruction is certain for those who say that evil is good and good is evil; that dark is light and light is dark; that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.
• 21. Destruction is certain for those who think they are wise and consider themselves to be clever.
• 22. Destruction is certain for those who are heroes when it comes to drinking, who boast about all the liquor they can hold.
• 23. They take bribes to pervert justice. They let the wicked go free while punishing the innocent.
• 24. Therefore, they will all disappear like burning straw. Their roots will rot and their flowers wither, for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty. They have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
• 25. That is why the anger of the LORD burns against his people. That is why he has raised his fist to crush them. The hills tremble, and the rotting bodies of his people are thrown as garbage into the streets. But even then the LORD's anger will not be satisfied. His fist is still poised to strike!
• 26. He will send a signal to the nations far away. He will whistle to those at the ends of the earth, and they will come racing toward Jerusalem.
• 27. They will not get tired or stumble. They will run without stopping for rest or sleep. Not a belt will be loose, not a sandal thong broken.
• 28. Their arrows will be sharp and their bows ready for battle. Sparks will fly from their horses' hooves as the wheels of their chariots spin like the wind.
• 29. Roaring like lions, they will pounce on their prey. They will seize my people and carry them off into captivity, and no one will be there to rescue them.
• 30. The enemy nations will growl over their victims like the roaring of the sea. A cloud of darkness and sorrow will hover over Israel. The clouds will blot out the light.

New Living Translation: 127 of 365 days.