¹Then the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to Moses, saying: ²“Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually. ³Outside the veil of the Testimony, in the tabernacle of meeting, Aaron shall be in charge of it from evening until morning before the Lᴏʀᴅ continually; it shall be a statute forever in your generations. ⁴He shall be in charge of the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the Lᴏʀᴅ continually. ⁵“And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. ⁶You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lᴏʀᴅ. ⁷And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lᴏʀᴅ. ⁸Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lᴏʀᴅ continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. ⁹And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lᴏʀᴅ made by fire, by a perpetual statute.” ¹⁰Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. ¹¹And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) ¹²Then they put him in custody, that the mind of the Lᴏʀᴅ might be shown to them. ¹³And the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁴“Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. ¹⁵Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. ¹⁶And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ, he shall be put to death. ¹⁷‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. ¹⁸Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal. ¹⁹If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him— ²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. ²¹And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. ²²You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lᴏʀᴅ your God.’ ” ²³Then Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they took outside the camp him who had cursed, and stoned him with stones. So the children of Israel did as the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded Moses.

¹To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. In You, O Lᴏʀᴅ, I put my trust; Let me never be ashamed; Deliver me in Your righteousness. ²Bow down Your ear to me, Deliver me speedily; Be my rock of refuge, A fortress of defense to save me. ³For You are my rock and my fortress; Therefore, for Your name’s sake, Lead me and guide me. ⁴Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength. ⁵Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lᴏʀᴅ God of truth. ⁶I have hated those who regard useless idols; But I trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ. ⁷I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities, ⁸And have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a wide place. ⁹Have mercy on me, O Lᴏʀᴅ, for I am in trouble; My eye wastes away with grief, Yes, my soul and my body! ¹⁰For my life is spent with grief, And my years with sighing; My strength fails because of my iniquity, And my bones waste away. ¹¹I am a reproach among all my enemies, But especially among my neighbors, And am repulsive to my acquaintances; Those who see me outside flee from me. ¹²I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. ¹³For I hear the slander of many; Fear is on every side; While they take counsel together against me, They scheme to take away my life. ¹⁴But as for me, I trust in You, O Lᴏʀᴅ; I say, “You are my God.” ¹⁵My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, And from those who persecute me. ¹⁶Make Your face shine upon Your servant; Save me for Your mercies’ sake. ¹⁷Do not let me be ashamed, O Lᴏʀᴅ, for I have called upon You; Let the wicked be ashamed; Let them be silent in the grave. ¹⁸Let the lying lips be put to silence, Which speak insolent things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. ¹⁹Oh, how great is Your goodness, Which You have laid up for those who fear You, Which You have prepared for those who trust in You In the presence of the sons of men! ²⁰You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence From the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion From the strife of tongues. ²¹Blessed be the Lᴏʀᴅ, For He has shown me His marvelous kindness in a strong city! ²²For I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before Your eyes”; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications When I cried out to You. ²³Oh, love the Lᴏʀᴅ, all you His saints! For the Lᴏʀᴅ preserves the faithful, And fully repays the proud person. ²⁴Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the Lᴏʀᴅ.

¹A good name is better than precious ointment, And the day of death than the day of one’s birth; ²Better to go to the house of mourning Than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart. ³Sorrow is better than laughter, For by a sad countenance the heart is made better. ⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. ⁵It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise Than for a man to hear the song of fools. ⁶For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. ⁷Surely oppression destroys a wise man’s reason, And a bribe debases the heart. ⁸The end of a thing is better than its beginning; The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. ⁹Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, For anger rests in the bosom of fools. ¹⁰Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not inquire wisely concerning this. ¹¹Wisdom is good with an inheritance, And profitable to those who see the sun. ¹²For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense, But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. ¹³Consider the work of God; For who can make straight what He has made crooked? ¹⁴In the day of prosperity be joyful, But in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, So that man can find out nothing that will come after him. ¹⁵I have seen everything in my days of vanity: There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, And there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. ¹⁶Do not be overly righteous, Nor be overly wise: Why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷Do not be overly wicked, Nor be foolish: Why should you die before your time? ¹⁸It is good that you grasp this, And also not remove your hand from the other; For he who fears God will escape them all. ¹⁹Wisdom strengthens the wise More than ten rulers of the city. ²⁰For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin. ²¹Also do not take to heart everything people say, Lest you hear your servant cursing you. ²²For many times, also, your own heart has known That even you have cursed others. ²³All this I have proved by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise”; But it was far from me. ²⁴As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, Who can find it out? ²⁵I applied my heart to know, To search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, To know the wickedness of folly, Even of foolishness and madness. ²⁶And I find more bitter than death The woman whose heart is snares and nets, Whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, But the sinner shall be trapped by her. ²⁷“Here is what I have found,” says the Preacher, “Adding one thing to the other to find out the reason, ²⁸Which my soul still seeks but I cannot find: One man among a thousand I have found, But a woman among all these I have not found. ²⁹Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes.”

¹But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ²For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! ⁶For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, ⁷always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁸Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; ⁹but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. ¹⁰But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, ¹¹persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. ¹²Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. ¹³But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, ¹⁷that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.