Daily Text and Bible Reading: Sunday, February 9 [Press play below]
Press play below to hear today's Bible Chapters: Leviticus Chapter 24 and 25
Examining the Scriptures Daily
Sunday, February 9
Many are the hardships of the righteous one, but Jehovah rescues him from them all. Psalm 34.19.
As Jehovah’s people, we know that he loves us and that he wants us to enjoy the best life possible.
[Quotation] Romans 8.35 through 39: Who will separate us from the love of the Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 Just as it is written: “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we have been accounted as sheep for slaughtering.” 37 On the contrary, in all these things we are coming off completely victorious through the one who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things now here nor things to come nor powers 39 nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God’s love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [End Quotation]
We are also convinced that Bible principles always benefit us when we apply them.
[Quotation] Isaiah 48.17 and 18: This is what Jehovah says, your Repurchaser, the Holy One of Israel: “I, Jehovah, am your God, The One teaching you to benefit yourself, The One guiding you in the way you should walk. 18 If only you would pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. [End Quotation]
What, though, if we face challenges that we did not expect? For example, a family member might disappoint us in some way. We may have serious health issues that limit what we can do in Jehovah’s service. We might experience the devastating effects of a natural disaster. Or we may be persecuted for our beliefs. When we face such trials, we may wonder: ‘Why is this happening to me? Have I done something wrong? Does this indicate that Jehovah is not blessing me?’ Have you ever felt that way? If so, do not be discouraged. Many of Jehovah’s loyal servants have struggled with similar feelings.
[Quotation] Psalm 22.1 and 2: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you far from saving me, Far from my cries of anguish? 2 My God, I keep calling by day, and you do not answer; And by night there is no silence on my part. [End Quotation]
[Quotation] Habakkuk 1.2 and 3: How long, O Jehovah, must I cry for help, but you do not hear? How long must I ask for help from violence, but you do not intervene? 3 Why do you make me witness wrongdoing? And why do you tolerate oppression? Why are destruction and violence before me? And why do quarreling and conflict abound? [End Quotation]
Watchtower April 2023 page 14 paragraphs 1 and 2
Today's Bible Chapters: Leviticus Chapter 24 through 25
24.1 Jehovah continued to speak to Moses, saying:
24.2 “Command the Israelites to bring to you pure, beaten olive oil for the lights, to keep the lamps lit constantly.
24.3 Outside the curtain of the Testimony in the tent of meeting, Aaron should arrange to keep the lamps lit from evening to morning before Jehovah constantly. It is a permanent statute for all your generations.
24.4 He should set the lamps in order on the lampstand of pure gold before Jehovah constantly.
24.5 “You will take fine flour and bake it into 12 ring-shaped loaves. Two tenths of an ephah should go into each loaf.
24.6 You will place them in two sets of layers, six to the layer set, on the table of pure gold before Jehovah.
24.7 You should put pure frankincense on each layer set, and it will serve as the bread for a token offering made by fire to Jehovah.
24.8 On each Sabbath day, he should regularly arrange it before Jehovah. It is a lasting covenant with the Israelites.
24.9 It will become Aaron’s and his sons’, and they will eat it in a holy place, because it is something most holy for him from Jehovah’s offerings made by fire, as a lasting regulation.”
24.10 Now among the Israelites was a son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man, and a fight broke out between him and an Israelite man in the camp.
24.11 The son of the Israelite woman began to abuse the Name and to curse it. So they brought him to Moses. Incidentally, his mother was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.
24.12 They placed him in custody until Jehovah’s decision was made clear to them.
24.13 Then Jehovah said to Moses:
24.14 “Bring the one who cursed to the outside of the camp, and all those who heard him must lay their hands on his head, and then the entire assembly must stone him.
24.15 And you should tell the Israelites, ‘If any man curses his God, he will answer for his sin.
24.16 So the abuser of Jehovah’s name should be put to death without fail. The entire assembly should stone him without fail. The foreign resident should be put to death the same as the native for his abusing the Name.
24.17 “‘If a man takes a human life, he should be put to death without fail.
24.18 Anyone who strikes and kills a domestic animal should make compensation for it, life for life.
24.19 If a man injures his fellow man, then what he has done should be done to him.
24.20 Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, the same sort of injury he inflicted should be inflicted on him.
24.21 The man who strikes and kills an animal should make compensation for it, but the one who strikes and kills a man should be put to death.
24.22 “‘One judicial decision will apply for you, whether a foreign resident or a native, because I am Jehovah your God.’”
24.23 Moses then spoke to the Israelites, and they brought the one who uttered the curse to the outside of the camp, and they stoned him. Thus the Israelites did just as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
25.1 Jehovah spoke further to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying:
25.2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you eventually come into the land that I am giving you, then the land will observe a sabbath to Jehovah.
25.3 Six years you should sow your field with seed, and six years you should prune your vineyard, and you will gather the land’s produce.
25.4 But in the seventh year, there should be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath to Jehovah. You should not sow your field with seed or prune your vineyard.
25.5 You must not reap what grows on its own from the grain left after the harvest, and the grapes of your unpruned vine you must not gather. There should be a year of complete rest for the land.
25.6 However, you may eat the food that grows in the land during its sabbath; you, your male and female slaves, your hired worker, and the foreign settlers who are residing with you may eat it,
25.7 as well as the domestic and the wild animals in your land. Everything the land produces may be eaten.
25.8 “‘You will count off seven sabbath years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven sabbath years will amount to 49 years.
25.9 You will then sound the horn loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement, you should cause the sound of the horn to be heard in all your land.
25.10 You must sanctify the 50th year and proclaim liberty in the land to all its inhabitants. It will become a Jubilee for you, and each of you will return to his property and each of you should return to his family.
25.11 A Jubilee is what that 50th year will become for you. You will not sow seed or reap what grew on its own from leftover grain nor gather the grapes of unpruned vines.
25.12 For it is a Jubilee. It is to be holy to you. You may eat only what the land produces by itself.
25.13 “‘In this year of the Jubilee, each of you should return to his property.
25.14 If you sell anything to your fellow man or if you buy from him, do not exploit one another.
25.15 You should buy from your fellow man, taking into account the number of the years after the Jubilee, and he should sell to you according to the remaining years for crops.
25.16 If there are many years remaining, he may increase its purchase price, and when there are few years left, he should reduce its purchase price, because he is selling you the number of crops to be produced.
25.17 No one among you should exploit his fellow man, and you must be in fear of your God, for I am Jehovah your God.
25.18 By your carrying out my statutes and keeping my judicial decisions, you will dwell in security in the land.
25.19 The land will give its fruitage, and you will eat to satisfaction and dwell there in security.
25.20 “‘But if you should say: “What will we eat in the seventh year if we may not sow seed or gather our crops?”
25.21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year, and the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years.
25.22 Then you will sow seed in the eighth year and eat from the old crop until the ninth year. Until its crop arrives, you will eat from the old.
25.23 “‘The land should not be sold on a permanent basis, because the land is mine. For you are foreign residents and settlers from my standpoint.
25.24 Throughout the land of your possession, you should grant the right of buying back the land.
25.25 “‘If your brother becomes poor and has to sell some of his property, a repurchaser who is closely related to him must come and buy back what his brother sold.
25.26 If anyone has no repurchaser but he becomes prosperous and finds the means to repurchase it,
25.27 he should calculate its value for the years since he sold it and refund the difference to the man whom he sold it to. Then he may return to his property.
25.28 “‘But if he does not find the means to get it back from him, what he sold will remain with the purchaser until the Jubilee year; and it will revert to him in the Jubilee, and he will return to his property.
25.29 “‘Now if a man should sell a home in a walled city, his right of repurchase will also continue until the end of the year from the time of his completing the sale; his right of repurchase will be valid a whole year.
25.30 But if it is not bought back by the end of one full year, the house within the walled city will become the permanent property of its purchaser throughout his generations. It should not be released in the Jubilee.
25.31 However, the houses of settlements with no surrounding wall should be considered to be part of the field of the countryside. The right of repurchase should continue for it, and it should be released in the Jubilee.
25.32 “‘As for the houses of the Levites within their cities, the Levites will have the permanent right to repurchase them.
25.33 When the property of the Levites is not bought back, the house sold in the city belonging to them will also be released in the Jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property among the Israelites.
25.34 Moreover, the field of pasture ground surrounding their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession.
25.35 “‘If your brother who is nearby becomes poor and cannot support himself, you must sustain him as you would a foreign resident and a settler, so that he may keep alive with you.
25.36 Do not take interest or make a profit from him. You must be in fear of your God, and your brother will keep alive with you.
25.37 You must not lend him your money on interest or give out your food for profit.
25.38 I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, to prove myself your God.
25.39 “‘If your brother who lives nearby becomes poor and he has to sell himself to you, you must not force him to do slave labor.
25.40 He should be treated like a hired worker, like a settler. He should serve with you until the Jubilee year.
25.41 Then he will leave you, he and his children with him, and return to his family. He should return to the property of his forefathers.
25.42 For they are my slaves whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They should not sell themselves the way a slave is sold.
25.43 You must not treat him cruelly, and you must be in fear of your God.
25.44 Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you, from them you may buy a male or a female slave.
25.45 Also from the sons of the foreign settlers who are residing with you, from them and from their families that are born to them in your land you may buy slaves, and they will become your possession.
25.46 You may pass them on as an inheritance to your sons after you to inherit as a permanent possession. You may use them as workers, but you must not subject your Israelite brothers to cruel treatment.
25.47 “‘But if a foreign resident or a settler among you becomes wealthy and your brother has become poor alongside him and must sell himself to the foreign resident or the settler who lives among you, or to a member of the family of the foreign resident,
25.48 he will continue to have the right of repurchase after he has sold himself. One of his brothers may buy him back,
25.49 or his uncle or the son of his uncle may buy him back, or any close relative, one of his family, may buy him back. “‘Or if he himself has become wealthy, he may also buy himself back.
25.50 He should calculate with his purchaser the time from the year he sold himself to him until the Jubilee year, and the money of his sale will correspond to the number of years. His workdays during that time will be assessed at the rate of a hired worker.
25.51 If there are many years remaining, he should pay his repurchase price in proportion to the years that are left.
25.52 But if only a few years remain until the Jubilee year, he should then calculate for himself and pay his repurchase price in proportion to the years remaining.
25.53 He should continue to serve him year by year as a hired worker; and you should see to it that he does not treat him cruelly.
25.54 However, if he cannot buy himself back on these terms, he will then go free in the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.
25.55 “‘For the Israelites are my own slaves. They are my slaves whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Jehovah your God.