The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday February 6, 2018 (NIV)

The Three Great Festivals^(A)

¹⁴ “Celebrate three festivals a year to honor me. ^15 (B)In the month of Abib, the month in which you left Egypt, celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the way that I commanded you. Do not eat any bread made with yeast during the seven days of this festival. Never come to worship me without bringing an offering.

^16 (C)“Celebrate the Harvest Festival when you begin to harvest your crops.

“Celebrate the Festival of Shelters in the autumn, when you gather the fruit from your vineyards and orchards. ¹⁷ Every year at these three festivals all your men must come to worship me, the Lord your God.

¹⁸ “Do not offer bread made with yeast when you sacrifice an animal to me. The fat of animals sacrificed to me during these festivals is not to be left until the following morning.

^19 (D)“Each year bring to the house of the Lord your God the first grain that you harvest.

“Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother's milk.

Promises and Instructions

²⁰ “I will send an angel ahead of you to protect you as you travel and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. ²¹ Pay attention to him and obey him. Do not rebel against him, for I have sent him, and he will not pardon such rebellion. ²² But if you obey him and do everything I command, I will fight against all your enemies. ²³ My angel will go ahead of you and take you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will destroy them. ²⁴ Do not bow down to their gods or worship them, and do not adopt their religious practices. Destroy their gods and break down their sacred stone pillars. ²⁵ If you worship me, the Lord your God, I will bless you with food and water and take away all your sicknesses. ²⁶ In your land no woman will have a miscarriage or be without children. I will give you long lives.

²⁷ “I will make the people who oppose you afraid of me; I will bring confusion among the people against whom you fight, and I will make all your enemies turn and run from you. ²⁸ I will throw your enemies into panic;^[a] I will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites as you advance. ²⁹ I will not drive them out within a year's time; if I did, the land would become deserted, and the wild animals would be too many for you. ³⁰ Instead, I will drive them out little by little, until there are enough of you to take possession of the land. ³¹ I will make the borders of your land extend from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give you power over the inhabitants of the land, and you will drive them out as you advance. ³² Do not make any agreement with them or with their gods. ³³ Do not let those people live in your country; if you do, they will make you sin against me. If you worship their gods, it will be a fatal trap for you.”

The Covenant Is Sealed

24 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up the mountain to me, you and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel; and while you are still some distance away, bow down in worship. ² You alone, and none of the others, are to come near me. The people are not even to come up the mountain.”

³ Moses went and told the people all the Lord's commands and all the ordinances, and all the people answered together, “We will do everything that the Lord has said.” ⁴ Moses wrote down all the Lord's commands. Early the next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ Then he sent young men, and they burned sacrifices to the Lord and sacrificed some cattle as fellowship offerings. ⁶ Moses took half of the blood of the animals and put it in bowls; and the other half he threw against the altar. ⁷ Then he took the book of the Covenant, in which the Lord's commands were written, and read it aloud to the people. They said, “We will obey the Lord and do everything that he has commanded.”

^8 (E)Then Moses took the blood in the bowls and threw it on the people. He said, “This is the blood that seals the covenant which the Lord made with you when he gave all these commands.”

⁹ Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel went up the mountain ¹⁰ and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was what looked like a pavement of sapphire, as blue as the sky. ¹¹ God did not harm these leading men of Israel; they saw God, and then they ate and drank together.

Moses on Mount Sinai

¹² The Lord said to Moses, “Come up the mountain to me, and while you are here, I will give you two stone tablets which contain all the laws that I have written for the instruction of the people.” ¹³ Moses and his helper Joshua got ready, and Moses began^[b] to go up the holy mountain. ¹⁴ Moses said to the leaders, “Wait here in the camp for us until we come back. Aaron and Hur are here with you; and so whoever has a dispute to settle can go to them.”

¹⁵ Moses went up Mount Sinai, and a cloud covered it. ^16-17 The dazzling light of the Lord's presence came down on the mountain. To the Israelites the light looked like a fire burning on top of the mountain. The cloud covered the mountain for six days, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud. ^18 (F)Moses went on up the mountain into the cloud. There he stayed for forty days and nights.

Offerings for the Sacred Tent^(G)

25 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Tell the Israelites to make an offering to me. Receive whatever offerings anyone wishes to give. ³ These offerings are to be: gold, silver, and bronze; ⁴ fine linen; blue, purple, and red wool; cloth made of goats' hair; ⁵ rams' skin dyed red; fine leather; acacia wood; ⁶ oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet-smelling incense; ⁷ carnelians and other jewels to be set in the ephod^[c] of the High Priest and in his breastpiece. ⁸ The people must make a sacred Tent for me, so that I may live among them. ⁹ Make it and all its furnishings according to the plan that I will show you.

The Covenant Box^(H)

¹⁰ “Make a Box out of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high. ¹¹ Cover it with pure gold inside and out and put a gold border all around it. ¹² Make four carrying rings of gold for it and attach them to its four legs, with two rings on each side. ¹³ Make carrying poles of acacia wood and cover them with gold ¹⁴ and put them through the rings on each side of the Box. ¹⁵ The poles are to be left in the rings and must not be taken out. ¹⁶ Then put in the Box the two stone tablets that I will give you, on which the commandments are written.

^17 (I)“Make a lid of pure gold, 45 inches long and 27 inches wide. ¹⁸ Make two winged creatures^[d] of hammered gold, ¹⁹ one for each end of the lid. Make them so that they form one piece with the lid. ²⁰ The winged creatures are to face each other across the lid, and their outspread wings are to cover it. ²¹ Put the two stone tablets inside the Box and put the lid on top of it. ²² I will meet you there, and from above the lid between the two winged creatures I will give you all my laws for the people of Israel.

The Table for the Bread Offered to God^(J)

²³ “Make a table out of acacia wood, 36 inches long, 18 inches wide, and 27 inches high. ²⁴ Cover it with pure gold and put a gold border around it. ²⁵ Make a rim 3 inches wide around it and a gold border around the rim. ²⁶ Make four carrying rings of gold for it and put them at the four corners, where the legs are. ²⁷ The rings to hold the poles for carrying the table are to be placed near the rim. ²⁸ Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with gold. ²⁹ Make plates, cups, jars, and bowls to be used for the wine offerings. All of these are to be made of pure gold. ^30 (K)The table is to be placed in front of the Covenant Box, and on the table there is always to be the sacred bread offered to me.

The Lampstand^(L)

³¹ “Make a lampstand of pure gold. Make its base and its shaft of hammered gold; its decorative flowers, including buds and petals, are to form one piece with it. ³² Six branches shall extend from its sides, three from each side. ³³ Each of the six branches is to have three decorative flowers shaped like almond blossoms with buds and petals. ³⁴ The shaft of the lampstand is to have four decorative flowers shaped like almond blossoms with buds and petals. ³⁵ There is to be one bud below each of the three pairs of branches. ³⁶ The buds, the branches, and the lampstand are to be a single piece of pure hammered gold. ³⁷ Make seven lamps for the lampstand and set them up so that they shine toward the front. ³⁸ Make its tongs and trays of pure gold. ³⁹ Use seventy-five pounds of pure gold to make the lampstand and all this equipment. ^40 (M)Take care to make them according to the plan that I showed you on the mountain.

The Coming of the Son of Man^(A)

^29 (B)“Soon after the trouble of those days, the sun will grow dark, the moon will no longer shine, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in space will be driven from their courses. ^30 (C)Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky; and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ The great trumpet will sound, and he will send out his angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather his chosen people from one end of the world to the other.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree^(D)

³² “Let the fig tree teach you a lesson. When its branches become green and tender and it starts putting out leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³ In the same way, when you see all these things, you will know that the time is near, ready to begin.^{[a] 34} Remember that all these things will happen before the people now living have all died. ³⁵ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

No One Knows the Day and Hour^(E)

³⁶ “No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come—neither the angels in heaven nor the Son;^[b] the Father alone knows. ^37 (F)The coming of the Son of Man will be like what happened in the time of Noah. ³⁸ In the days before the flood people ate and drank, men and women married, up to the very day Noah went into the boat; ^39 (G)yet they did not realize what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man comes. ⁴⁰ At that time two men will be working in a field: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. ⁴¹ Two women will be at a mill grinding meal: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. ⁴² Watch out, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come. ^43 (H)If the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, you can be sure that he would stay awake and not let the thief break into his house. ⁴⁴ So then, you also must always be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.

The Faithful or the Unfaithful Servant^(I)

⁴⁵ “Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant? It is the one that his master has placed in charge of the other servants to give them their food at the proper time. ⁴⁶ How happy that servant is if his master finds him doing this when he comes home! ⁴⁷ Indeed, I tell you, the master will put that servant in charge of all his property. ⁴⁸ But if he is a bad servant, he will tell himself that his master will not come back for a long time, ⁴⁹ and he will begin to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. ⁵⁰ Then that servant's master will come back one day when the servant does not expect him and at a time he does not know. ⁵¹ The master will cut him in pieces^[c] and make him share the fate of the hypocrites. There he will cry and gnash his teeth.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving^[a]

²⁴ Now then, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. ²⁵ Do not let such a woman win your heart; don't go wandering after her. ²⁶ She has been the ruin of many men and caused the death of too many to count. ²⁷ If you go to her house, you are on the way to the world of the dead. It is a shortcut to death.