Hello, this is Father Paul and I'm glad we're taking this journey together to read the Bible
in a year.
Yesterday we heard about how the Israelites when they felt that Moses was taking too long,
they turned to idolatry and how Moses interceded for them so God would have mercy on them.
Today we're going to hear about their repentance and how they begin to gather the material
required for the building of the tabernacle.
Alright, let's begin.
Today's reading is from Exodus chapters 34, 35 and 36.
Chapter 34
And the LORD said to Moses, Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write
on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself
to me there on the top of the mountain.
And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain.
Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain.
So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones.
Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him,
and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of
the LORD.
And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.
So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped.
Then he said, If now I have found grace in your sight, O LORD, let my LORD, I pray, go
among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin,
and take us as your inheritance.
And he said, Behold, I make a covenant, before all your people I will do marvels, such as
have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation, and all the people among whom
you are shall see the work of the LORD.
For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
Observe what I command you this day.
Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite
and the Perizzite and the Heavite and the Jebusite.
Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you
are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.
But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden
images.
For you shall worship no other God, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a Jealous
God.
Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with
their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you, and you eat of
his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the
harlot with their gods, and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.
You shall make no molded gods for yourselves.
The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep.
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you, in the appointed time
of the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
All that open the womb are mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether
ox or sheep.
But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you will not redeem him,
then you shall break his neck.
All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear before me empty-handed.
Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.
In plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest.
Then you shall observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and
the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
Three times in a year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel.
For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders.
Neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God
three times in a year.
You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the
feast of the Passover be left until morning.
The first of the first fruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your
God.
You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words
I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights.
He neither ate bread nor drank water.
And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and the two tablets of the testimony
were in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that
the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone,
and they were afraid to come near him.
Then Moses called to them and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to
him and Moses talked with them.
Afterward all the children of Israel came near and he gave them as commandments all
that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil
off until he came out.
And he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded.
And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face
shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with
him.
Chapter 35
Then Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together and said to
them, These are the words which the Lord has commanded you to do.
Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath
of rest to the Lord.
Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.
And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel saying, This is the
thing which the Lord commanded, saying, Take from among you an offering to the Lord.
Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord, gold, silver
and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, ram skins dyed
red, badger skins and acacia wood, oil for the light and spices for the anointing oil
and for the sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded,
the tabernacle, its tents, its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars
and its sockets, the ark and its poles, with the mercy seed and the veil of the covering,
the table and its poles, all its utensils and the showbread.
Also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps and the oil for the light, the incense
altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense and the screen for the door at the
entrance of the tabernacle, the altar of burnt offering with its bronze grating, its poles,
all its utensils and the laver and its base, the hangings of the court, its pillars, their
sockets and the screen for the gate of the court, the pegs of the tabernacle, the pegs
of the court and their cords, the garments of ministry for ministering in the holy place,
the holy garments for air in the priest and the garments of his sons to minister as priests.
And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses.
When everyone came whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing, and
they brought the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all
its service and for the holy garments.
They came both men and women, as many as had a willing heart and brought earrings and nose
rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold, that is every man who made an offering
of gold to the Lord.
And every man with whom was found blue, purple and scarlet thread, fine linen and goats'
hair, red skins of rams and badger skins, brought them.
Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought the Lord's offering, and
everyone with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the service brought it.
All the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands, and brought what they
had spun of blue, purple and scarlet and fine linen, and all the women whose hearts stirred
with wisdom spun yarn of goats' hair.
The rulers brought onyx stones and the stones to be set in the afad and in the breastplate,
and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.
The children of Israel brought a freewill offering to the Lord.
All the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work which
the Lord by the hand of Moses had commanded to be done.
And Moses said to the children of Israel, See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel,
the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled them with the
Spirit of God in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship,
to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting jewels for
setting, in carving wood and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.
And he has put in his heart the ability to teach, in him and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamak,
of the tribe of Dan.
He has filled them with skill to do all manner of work of the engraver and the designer and
the tapestry maker, in blue, purple and scarlet thread, and fine linen and of the weaver,
those who do every work and those who design artistic works.
Chapter 36 And Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted
artisan, in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding, to know how to do all manner
of work for the service of the sanctuary, shall do according to all that the Lord has
commanded.
Then Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan, in whose heart the Lord
has put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work.
And they received from Moses all the offering which the children of Israel had brought for
the work of the service of making the sanctuary.
So they continued bringing to him free will offerings every morning.
Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from
the work he was doing.
Then they spoke to Moses saying, the people bring much more than enough for the service
of the work which the Lord commanded us to do.
So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying,
let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.
And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for
all the work to be done, indeed too much.
Then all the gifted artisans among them, who worked on the tabernacle, made ten curtains
woven of fine linen and of blue-purple and scarlet thread.
With artistic designs of Cherubim they made them.
The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four
cubits.
The curtains were all the same size.
And he coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to
one another.
He made loops of blue yarn on the edge of the curtain, on the selvage of one set, likewise
he did on the outer edge of the other curtain of the second set.
Fifty loops he made on one curtain, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain on
the end of the second set.
The loops held one curtain to another.
And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps,
that it might be one tabernacle.
He made curtains of gold's hair for the tent over the tabernacle.
He made eleven curtains.
The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits.
The eleven curtains were the same size.
He coupled five curtains by themselves and six curtains by themselves.
And he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outer most in one set, and
fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain of the second set.
He also made fifty bronze clasps to couple the tent together, that it might be one.
Then he made a covering for the tent of ram skins dyed red, and a covering of badger skins
above that.
For the tabernacle he made boards of acacia wood, standing upright.
The length of each board was ten cubits, and the width of each board a cubit and a half.
Each board had two tenons for binding one to another.
Thus he made for all the boards of the tabernacle.
And he made boards for the tabernacle twenty boards for the south side.
Forty sockets of silver he made to go under the twenty boards.
Two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons.
And for the other side of the tabernacle, the north side, he made twenty boards.
And there forty sockets of silver.
Two sockets under each of the boards.
For the west side of the tabernacle he made six boards.
He also made two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle.
And they were coupled at the bottom, and coupled together at the top by one ring.
Thus he made both of them for the two corners.
So there were eight boards and their sockets.
Sixteen sockets of silver.
Two sockets under each of the boards.
And he made bars of acacia wood.
Five for the boards on one side of the tabernacle.
Five bars for the boards on the other side of the tabernacle.
And five bars for the boards of the tabernacle on the far side westward.
And he made the middle bar to pass through the boards from one end to the other.
He overlaid the boards with gold, made the rings of gold to be holders for the bars,
and overlaid the bars with gold.
And he made a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen.
It was worked with an artistic design of sherabim.
He made for it four pillars of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold.
With their hooks of gold and he cast four sockets of silver for them.
He also made a screen for the tabernacle door of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine
woven linen, made by a weaver, and its five pillars with their hooks.
And he overlaid their capitals and the rings with gold.
But their five sockets were bronze.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.