Bible Readings for June 9, 2015

Today our passages are 1 Kings 5:1–6:38; Acts 7:1-29; Psalm 127:1-5; and Proverbs 16:28-30. The readings are the Contemporary English Version. 

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1 Kings 5-6:38 (Contemporary English Version)

1 Kings 5

Solomon Asks Hiram To Help Build the Temple

(2 Chronicles 2.1-16)

 ¹King Hiram of Tyre ^[a] had always been friends with Solomon's father David. When Hiram learned that Solomon was king, he sent some of his officials to meet with Solomon. ²Solomon sent a message back to Hiram:     ³Remember how my father David wanted to build a temple where the LORD his God could be worshiped? But enemies kept attacking my father's kingdom, and he never had the chance. ⁴Now, thanks to the LORD God, there is peace in my kingdom and no trouble or threat of war anywhere.
    ⁵The LORD God promised my father that when his son became king, he would build a temple for worshiping the LORD. So I've decided to do that.
    ⁶I'd like you to have your workers cut down cedar trees in Lebanon for me. I will pay them whatever you say and will even have my workers help them. We both know that your workers are more experienced than anyone else at cutting lumber.
    ⁷Hiram was so happy when he heard Solomon's request that he said, "I am grateful that the LORD gave David such a wise son to be king of that great nation!" ⁸Then he sent back his answer:
   I received your message and will give you all the cedar and pine logs you need. ⁹My workers will carry them down from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea. They will tie the logs together and float them along the coast to wherever you want them. Then they will untie the logs, and your workers can take them from there.
   To pay for the logs, you can provide the grain I need for my household.
    ¹⁰Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar and pine logs he needed. ¹¹In return, Solomon gave Hiram about one hundred twenty-five thousand bushels of wheat and about one thousand one hundred gallons of pure olive oil each year.
    ¹²The LORD kept his promise and made Solomon wise. Hiram and Solomon signed a treaty and never went to war against each other.
    

Solomon's Workers

 ¹³Solomon ordered thirty thousand people from all over Israel to cut logs for the temple, ¹⁴and he put Adoniram in charge of these workers. Solomon divided them into three groups of ten thousand. Each group worked one month in Lebanon and had two months off at home.     ¹⁵He also had eighty thousand workers to cut stone in the hill country of Israel, seventy thousand workers to carry the stones, ¹⁶and over three thousand assistants to keep track of the work and to supervise the workers. ¹⁷He ordered the workers to cut and shape large blocks of good stone for the foundation of the temple.
    ¹⁸Solomon's and Hiram's men worked with men from the city of Gebal, ^[b] and together they got the stones and logs ready for the temple. 

1 Kings 6

The Outside of the Temple Is Completed

 ¹Solomon's workers started building the temple during Ziv, ^[c] the second month of the year. It had been four years since Solomon became king of Israel, and four hundred eighty years since the people of Israel left Egypt. ²The inside of the LORD's temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ³A fifteen-foot porch went all the way across the front of the temple. ⁴The windows were narrow on the outside but wide on the inside.     ^5-6Along the sides and back of the temple, there were three levels of storage rooms. The rooms on the bottom level were seven and a half feet wide, the rooms on the middle level were nine feet wide, and those on the top level were ten and a half feet wide. There were ledges on the outside of the temple that supported the beams of the storage rooms, so that nothing was built into the temple walls.
    ⁷Solomon did not want the noise of hammers and axes to be heard at the place where the temple was being built. So he had the workers shape the blocks of stone at the quarry.
    ⁸The entrance to the bottom storage rooms was on the south side of the building, and stairs to the other rooms were also there. ⁹The roof of the temple was made out of beams and cedar boards.
   The workers finished building the outside of the temple. ¹⁰Storage rooms seven and a half feet high were all around the temple, and they were attached to the temple by cedar beams.
    ¹¹The LORD told Solomon:
    ^12-13If you obey my commands and do what I say, I will keep the promise I made to your father David. I will live among my people Israel in this temple you are building, and I will not desert them.
    ¹⁴So Solomon's workers finished building the temple.
    

The Inside of the Temple Is Furnished

(2 Chronicles 3.8-14)

 ¹⁵The floor of the temple was made out of pine, and the walls were lined with cedar from floor to ceiling. ^[d] 16The most holy place was in the back of the temple, and it was thirty feet square. Cedar boards standing from floor to ceiling ^[e] separated it from the rest of the temple. ¹⁷The temple's main room was sixty feet long, and it was in front of the most holy place. ¹⁸The inside walls were lined with cedar to hide the stones, and the cedar was decorated with carvings of gourds and flowers.     ¹⁹The sacred chest was kept in the most holy place. ^20-22This room was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high, and it was lined with pure gold. There were also gold chains across the front of the most holy place. The inside of the temple, as well as the cedar altar in the most holy place, was covered with gold.
    ²³Solomon had two statues of winged creatures ^[f] made from olive wood to put in the most holy place. Each creature was fifteen feet tall ^24-26and fifteen feet across. They had two wings, and the wings were seven and a half feet long. ²⁷Solomon put them next to each other in the most holy place. Their wings were spread out and reached across the room. ²⁸The creatures were also covered with gold. ²⁹The walls of the two rooms were decorated with carvings of palm trees, flowers, and winged creatures. ³⁰Even the floor was covered with gold.
    ^31-32The two doors to the most holy place were made out of olive wood and were decorated with carvings of palm trees, flowers, and winged creatures. The doors and the carvings were covered with gold. The door frame came to a point at the top.
    ^33-34The two doors to the main room of the temple were made out of pine, and each one had two sections ^[g] so they could fold open. The door frame was shaped like a rectangle and was made out of olive wood. ³⁵The doors were covered with gold and were decorated with carvings of palm trees, flowers, and winged creatures. ³⁶The inner courtyard of the temple had walls made out of three layers of cut stones with one layer of cedar beams.
    ³⁷Work began on the temple during Ziv, ^[h] the second month of the year, four years after Solomon became king of Israel. ³⁸Seven years later the workers finished building it during Bul, ^[i] the eighth month of the year. It was built exactly as it had been planned. 

Footnotes:

1. 1 Kings 5:1 Tyre: The most important city in Phoenicia. It was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea north of Israel, in what is today southern Lebanon.
2. 1 Kings 5:18 Gebal: Later known as Byblos.
3. 1 Kings 6:1 Ziv: The second month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-April to mid-May.
4. 1 Kings 6:15 from floor to ceiling: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
5. 1 Kings 6:16 standing. . . ceiling: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
6. 1 Kings 6:23 statues of winged creatures: These were symbols of the LORD's throne on earth (see Exodus 25.18-22).
7. 1 Kings 6:33 two sections: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
8. 1 Kings 6:37 Ziv: See the note at 6.1.
9. 1 Kings 6:38 Bul: The eighth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-October to mid-November.

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Acts 7:1-29 (Contemporary English Version)

Acts 7

Stephen's Speech

 ¹The high priest asked Stephen, "Are they telling the truth about you?"     ²Stephen answered:
   Friends, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he had moved to Haran.³God told him, "Leave your country and your relatives and go to a land that I will show you." ⁴Then Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.
   After his father died, Abraham came and settled in this land where you now live. ⁵God didn't give him any part of it, not even a square foot. But God did promise to give it to him and his family forever, even though Abraham didn't have any children. ⁶God said that Abraham's descendants would live for a while in a foreign land. There they would be slaves and would be mistreated four hundred years. ⁷But he also said, "I will punish the nation that makes them slaves. Then later they will come and worship me in this place."
    ⁸God said to Abraham, "Every son in each family must be circumcised to show that you have kept your agreement with me." So when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him. Later, Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons. ⁹These men were our ancestors.
   Joseph was also one of our famous ancestors. His brothers were jealous of him and sold him as a slave to be taken to Egypt. But God was with him ¹⁰and rescued him from all his troubles. God made him so wise that the Egyptian king Pharaoh ^[a] thought highly of him. The king even made Joseph governor over Egypt and put him in charge of everything he owned. ¹¹Everywhere in Egypt and Canaan the grain crops failed. There was terrible suffering, and our ancestors could not find enough to eat. ¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there for the first time. ¹³It was on their second trip that Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.
    ¹⁴Joseph sent for his father and his relatives. In all, there were seventy-five of them. ¹⁵His father went to Egypt and died there, just as our ancestors did. ¹⁶Later their bodies were taken back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor.
    ¹⁷Finally, the time came for God to do what he had promised Abraham. By then the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased.¹⁸Another king was ruling Egypt, and he didn't know anything about Joseph. ¹⁹He tricked our ancestors and was cruel to them. He even made them leave their babies outside, so they would die.
    ²⁰During this time Moses was born. He was a very beautiful child, and for three months his parents took care of him in their home. ²¹Then when they were forced to leave him outside, the king's daughter found him and raised him as her own son. ²²Moses was given the best education in Egypt. He was a strong man and a powerful speaker.
    ²³When Moses was forty years old, he wanted to help the Israelites because they were his own people. ²⁴One day he saw an Egyptian mistreating one of them. So he rescued the man and killed the Egyptian. ²⁵Moses thought the rest of his people would realize that God was going to use him to set them free. But they didn't understand.
    ²⁶The next day Moses saw two of his own people fighting, and he tried to make them stop. He said, "Men, you are both Israelites. Why are you so cruel to each other?"
    ²⁷But the man who had started the fight pushed Moses aside and asked, "Who made you our ruler and judge? ²⁸Are you going to kill me, just as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?" ²⁹When Moses heard this, he ran away to live in the country of Midian. His two sons were born there.
    

Footnotes:

1. Acts 7:10 Pharaoh: A Hebrew word sometimes used for the title of the King of Egypt.

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Psalm 127:1-5 (Contemporary English Version)

Psalm 127

(A song by Solomon for worship.)

Only the LORD Can Bless a Home

 ¹Without the help of the LORD    it is useless to build a home
   or to guard a city.
    ²It is useless to get up early
   and stay up late
   in order to earn a living.
   God takes care of his own,
   even while they sleep. ^[a] 3Children are a blessing
   and a gift from the LORD.
    ⁴Having a lot of children
   to take care of you
   in your old age
   is like a warrior
   with a lot of arrows.
    ⁵The more you have,
   the better off you will be,
   because they will protect you
   when your enemies attack
   with arguments.
    

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 127:2 God. . . sleep: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.

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Proverbs 16:28-30 (Contemporary English Version)

²⁸Gossip is no good!
   It causes hard feelings
   and comes between friends.
    ²⁹Don't trust violent people.
   They will mislead you
   to do the wrong thing.
    ³⁰When someone winks
   or grins behind your back,
   trouble is on the way.

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Verse of the Day

“[The Narrow Gate][(Luke 13.24)]Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate. But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it.” -Matthew 7:13-14 

Today's passage is from the Contemporary English Version.

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Thought for the Day

 

American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism, Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”