¹And the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to Moses, saying: ²“Speak to Aaron, and say to him, ‘When you arrange the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.’ ” ³And Aaron did so; he arranged the lamps to face toward the front of the lampstand, as the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded Moses. ⁴Now this workmanship of the lampstand was hammered gold; from its shaft to its flowers it was hammered work. According to the pattern which the Lᴏʀᴅ had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand. ⁵Then the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to Moses, saying: ⁶“Take the Levites from among the children of Israel and cleanse them ceremonially. ⁷Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purification on them, and let them shave all their body, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean. ⁸Then let them take a young bull with its grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, and you shall take another young bull as a sin offering. ⁹And you shall bring the Levites before the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall gather together the whole congregation of the children of Israel. ¹⁰So you shall bring the Levites before the Lᴏʀᴅ, and the children of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites; ¹¹and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lᴏʀᴅ, like a wave offering from the children of Israel, that they may perform the work of the Lᴏʀᴅ. ¹²Then the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the young bulls, and you shall offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to the Lᴏʀᴅ, to make atonement for the Levites. ¹³And you shall stand the Levites before Aaron and his sons, and then offer them like a wave offering to the Lᴏʀᴅ. ¹⁴Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be Mine. ¹⁵After that the Levites shall go in to service the tabernacle of meeting. So you shall cleanse them and offer them, like a wave offering. ¹⁶For they are wholly given to Me from among the children of Israel; I have taken them for Myself instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the children of Israel. ¹⁷For all the firstborn among the children of Israel are Mine, both man and beast; on the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them to Myself. ¹⁸I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the children of Israel. ¹⁹And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the work for the children of Israel in the tabernacle of meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near the sanctuary.” ²⁰Thus Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel did to the Levites; according to all that the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the children of Israel did to them. ²¹And the Levites purified themselves and washed their clothes; then Aaron presented them, like a wave offering before the Lᴏʀᴅ, and Aaron made atonement for them to cleanse them. ²²After that the Levites went in to do their work in the tabernacle of meeting before Aaron and his sons; as the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them. ²³Then the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴“This is what pertains to the Levites: From twenty-five years old and above one may enter to perform service in the work of the tabernacle of meeting; ²⁵and at the age of fifty years they must cease performing this work, and shall work no more. ²⁶They may minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of meeting, to attend to needs, but they themselves shall do no work. Thus you shall do to the Levites regarding their duties.”

¹To the Chief Musician. A Contemplation of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God, Our fathers have told us, The deeds You did in their days, In days of old: ²You drove out the nations with Your hand, But them You planted; You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out. ³For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, Nor did their own arm save them; But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, Because You favored them. ⁴You are my King, O God; Command victories for Jacob. ⁵Through You we will push down our enemies; Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us. ⁶For I will not trust in my bow, Nor shall my sword save me. ⁷But You have saved us from our enemies, And have put to shame those who hated us. ⁸In God we boast all day long, And praise Your name forever. Selah ⁹But You have cast us off and put us to shame, And You do not go out with our armies. ¹⁰You make us turn back from the enemy, And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves. ¹¹You have given us up like sheep intended for food, And have scattered us among the nations. ¹²You sell Your people for next to nothing, And are not enriched by selling them. ¹³You make us a reproach to our neighbors, A scorn and a derision to those all around us. ¹⁴You make us a byword among the nations, A shaking of the head among the peoples. ¹⁵My dishonor is continually before me, And the shame of my face has covered me, ¹⁶Because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles, Because of the enemy and the avenger. ¹⁷All this has come upon us; But we have not forgotten You, Nor have we dealt falsely with Your covenant. ¹⁸Our heart has not turned back, Nor have our steps departed from Your way; ¹⁹But You have severely broken us in the place of jackals, And covered us with the shadow of death. ²⁰If we had forgotten the name of our God, Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, ²¹Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart. ²²Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. ²³Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lᴏʀᴅ? Arise! Do not cast us off forever. ²⁴Why do You hide Your face, And forget our affliction and our oppression? ²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust; Our body clings to the ground. ²⁶Arise for our help, And redeem us for Your mercies’ sake.

¹The Daughters of Jerusalem Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned aside, That we may seek him with you? ²The Shulamite My beloved has gone to his garden, To the beds of spices, To feed his flock in the gardens, And to gather lilies. ³I am my beloved’s, And my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies. ⁴The Beloved O my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah, Lovely as Jerusalem, Awesome as an army with banners! ⁵Turn your eyes away from me, For they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats Going down from Gilead. ⁶Your teeth are like a flock of sheep Which have come up from the washing; Every one bears twins, And none is barren among them. ⁷Like a piece of pomegranate Are your temples behind your veil. ⁸There are sixty queens And eighty concubines, And virgins without number. ⁹My dove, my perfect one, Is the only one, The only one of her mother, The favorite of the one who bore her. The daughters saw her And called her blessed, The queens and the concubines, And they praised her. ¹⁰Who is she who looks forth as the morning, Fair as the moon, Clear as the sun, Awesome as an army with banners? ¹¹The Shulamite I went down to the garden of nuts To see the verdure of the valley, To see whether the vine had budded And the pomegranates had bloomed. ¹²Before I was even aware, My soul had made me As the chariots of my noble people. ¹³The Beloved and His Friends Return, return, O Shulamite; Return, return, that we may look upon you! The Shulamite What would you see in the Shulamite— As it were, the dance of the two camps?

¹Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ²of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. ³And this we will do if God permits. ⁴For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. ⁷For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; ⁸but if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. ⁹But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. ¹⁰For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. ¹¹And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, ¹²that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. ¹³For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” ¹⁵And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. ¹⁶For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. ¹⁷Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, ¹⁸that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. ¹⁹This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, ²⁰where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.