The One Year Bible TLB (9 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Only wisdom from the Lord can save a man from the flattery of prostitutes; these girls have abandoned their husbands and flouted the laws of God.
18
Their houses lie along the road to death and hell.
19
The men who enter them are doomed. None of these men will ever be the same again.
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20
Follow the steps of the godly instead, and stay on the right path,
21
for only good men enjoy life to the full;
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22
evil men lose the good things they might have had,
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and they themselves shall be destroyed.
January 10When Sarah was 127 years old, she died in Hebron in the land of Canaan; there Abraham mourned and wept for her.
3
Then, standing beside her body, he said to the men of Heth:
4
“Here I am, a visitor in a foreign land, with no place to bury my wife. Please sell me a piece of ground for this purpose.”
5-6
“Certainly,” the men replied, “for you are an honored prince of God among us; it will be a privilege to have you choose the finest of our sepulchres, so that you can bury her there.”
7
Then Abraham bowed low before them and said,
8
“Since this is your feeling in the matter, be so kind as to ask Ephron, Zohar’s son,
9
to sell me the cave of Mach-pelah, down at the end of his field. I will of course pay the full price for it, whatever is publicly agreed upon, and it will become a permanent cemetery for my family.”
10
Ephron was sitting there among the others, and now he spoke up, answering Abraham as the others listened, speaking publicly before all the citizens of the town:
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“Sir,” he said to Abraham, “please listen to me. I will give you the cave and the field without any charge. Here in the presence of my people, I give it to you free. Go and bury your dead.”
12
Abraham bowed again to the men of Heth,
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and replied to Ephron, as all listened: “No, let me buy it from you. Let me pay the full price of the field, and then I will bury my dead.”
14-15
“Well, the land is worth 400 pieces of silver,” Ephron said, “but what is that between friends? Go ahead and bury your dead.”
16
So Abraham paid Ephron the price he had suggested—400 pieces of silver, as publicly agreed.
17-18
This is the land he bought: Ephron’s field at Mach-pelah, near Mamre, and the cave at the end of the field, and all the trees in the field. They became his permanent possession, by agreement in the presence of the men of Heth at the city gate.
19-20
So Abraham buried Sarah there, in the field and cave deeded to him by the men of Heth as a burial plot.
24:
1
Abraham was now a very old man, and God blessed him in every way.
2
One day Abraham said to his household administrator, who was his oldest servant,
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“Swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not let my son marry one of these local girls, these Canaanites.
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Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife for him there.”
5
“But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come so far from home?” the servant asked. “Then shall I take Isaac there, to live among your relatives?”
6
“No!” Abraham warned. “Be careful that you don’t do that under any circumstance.
7
For the Lord God of heaven told me to leave that land and my people, and promised to give me and my children this land. He will send his angel on ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a girl from there to be my son’s wife.
8
But if you don’t succeed, then you are free from this oath; but under no circumstances are you to take my son there.”
9
So the servant vowed
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to follow Abraham’s instructions.
10
He took with him ten of Abraham’s camels loaded with samples of the best of everything his master owned and journeyed to Iraq, to Nahor’s village.
11
There he made the camels kneel down outside the town, beside a spring. It was evening, and the women of the village were coming to draw water.
12
“O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey.
13
See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the girls of the village are coming out to draw water.
14
This is my request: When I ask one of them for a drink and she says, ‘Yes, certainly, and I will water your camels too!’—let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife. That is how I will know.”
15-16
As he was still speaking to the Lord about this, a beautiful young girl
*
named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder and filled it at the spring. (Her father was Bethuel the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.)
17
Running over to her, the servant asked her for a drink.
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“Certainly, sir,” she said, and quickly lowered the jug for him to drink.
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Then she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have enough!”
20
So she emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the spring again and kept carrying water to the camels until they had enough.
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The servant said no more, but watched her carefully to see if she would finish the job,
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so that he would know whether she was the one.
22
Then at last, when the camels had finished drinking, he produced a quarter-ounce gold earring
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and two five-ounce gold bracelets for her wrists.
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“Whose daughter are you, miss?” he asked. “Would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”
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“My father is Bethuel,” she replied. “My grandparents are Milcah and Nahor.
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Yes, we have plenty of straw and food for the camels, and a guest room.”
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The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah.
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“Thank you, Lord God of my master Abraham,” he prayed; “thank you for being so kind and true to him, and for leading me straight to the family of my master’s relatives.”
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The girl ran home to tell her folks,
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29-30
and when her brother Laban saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard her story, he rushed out to the spring where the man was still standing beside his camels, and said to him,
31
“Come and stay with us, friend;
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why stand here outside the city when we have a room all ready for you, and a place prepared for the camels!”
32
So the man went home with Laban, and Laban gave him straw to bed down the camels, and feed for them, and water for the camel drivers to wash their feet.
33
Then supper was served. But the old man said, “I don’t want to eat until I have told you why I am here.”
“All right,” Laban said, “tell us your errand.”
34
“I am Abraham’s servant,” he explained.
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“And Jehovah has overwhelmed my master with blessings so that he is a great man among the people of his land. God has given him flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and a fortune in silver and gold, and many slaves and camels and donkeys.
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“Now when Sarah, my master’s wife, was very old, she gave birth to my master’s son, and my master has given him everything he owns.
37
And my master made me promise not to let Isaac marry one of the local girls,
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38
but to come to his relatives here in this far-off land, to his brother’s family,
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and to bring back a girl from here to marry his son.
39
‘But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come?’ I asked him.
40
‘She will,’ he told me—‘for my Lord, in whose presence I have walked, will send his angel with you and make your mission successful. Yes, find a girl from among my relatives, from my brother’s family.
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You are under oath to go and ask. If they won’t send anyone, then you are freed from your promise.’
42
“Well, this afternoon when I came to the spring I prayed this prayer: ‘O Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, if you are planning to make my mission a success, please guide me in this way:
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Here I am, standing beside this spring. I will say to some girl who comes out to draw water, “Please give me a drink of water!”
44
And she will reply, “Certainly! And I’ll water your camels too!” Let that girl be the one you have selected to be the wife of my master’s son.’
45
“Well, while I was still speaking these words, Rebekah was coming along with her water jug upon her shoulder; and she went down to the spring and drew water and filled the jug. I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’
46
She quickly lifted the jug down from her shoulder so that I could drink, and told me, ‘Certainly, sir, and I will water your camels too!’ So she did!
47
Then I asked her, ‘Whose family are you from?’ And she told me, ‘Nahor’s. My father is Bethuel, the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.’ So I gave her the ring and the bracelets.
48
Then I bowed my head and worshiped and blessed Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, because he had led me along just the right path to find a girl from the family of my master’s brother.
*
49
So tell me, yes or no. Will you or won’t you be kind to my master and do what is right? When you tell me, then I’ll know what my next step should be, whether to move this way or that.”
50
Then Laban and Bethuel replied, “The Lord has obviously brought you here, so what can we say?
51
Take her and go! Yes, let her be the wife of your master’s son, as Jehovah has directed.”
Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the hillside.
2
Look! A leper is approaching. He kneels before him, worshiping. “Sir,” the leper pleads, “if you want to, you can heal me.”
3
Jesus touches the man.
“I want to,”
he says.
“Be healed.”
And instantly the leprosy disappears.
4
Then Jesus says to him,
“Don’t stop to talk to anyone;
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go right over to the priest to be examined; and take with you the offering required by Moses’ law for lepers who are healed—a public testimony of your cure.”
5-6
When Jesus arrived in Capernaum, a Roman army captain came and pled with him to come to his home and heal his servant boy who was in bed paralyzed and racked with pain.
7
“Yes,”
Jesus said,
“I will come and heal him.”
8-9
Then the officer said, “Sir, I am not worthy to have you in my home; and it isn’t necessary for you to come.
*
If you will only stand here and say, ‘Be healed,’ my servant will get well! I know, because I am under the authority of my superior officers and I have authority over my soldiers, and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave boy, ‘Do this or that,’ and he does it. And I know you have authority to tell his sickness to go—and it will go!”
10
Jesus stood there amazed! Turning to the crowd he said,
“I haven’t seen faith like this in all the land of Israel!
11
And I tell you this, that many Gentiles like this Roman officer,
*
shall come from all over the world and sit down in the Kingdom of Heaven with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
12
And many an Israelite—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—shall be cast into outer darkness, into the place of weeping and torment.”
13
Then Jesus said to the Roman officer,
“Go on home. What you have believed has happened!”
And the boy was healed that same hour!
14
When Jesus arrived at Peter’s house, Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever.
15
But when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left her; and she got up and prepared a meal for them!
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16
That evening several demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus; and when he spoke a single word, all the demons fled; and all the sick were healed.
17
This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, “He took our sicknesses and bore our diseases.”
*
And now, O Lord, have mercy on me; see how I suffer at the hands of those who hate me. Lord, snatch me back from the jaws of death.
14
Save me, so that I can praise you publicly before all the people at Jerusalem’s gates
*
and rejoice that you have rescued me.
15
The nations fall into the pitfalls they have dug for others; the trap they set has snapped on them.
16
The Lord is famous for the way he punishes the wicked in their own snares!
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17
The wicked shall be sent away to hell; this is the fate of all the nations forgetting the Lord.
18
For the needs of the needy shall not be ignored forever; the hopes of the poor shall not always be crushed.
19
O Lord, arise and judge and punish the nations; don’t let them defy you!
20
Make them tremble in fear; put the nations in their place until at last they know they are but puny men.