Daily Bible Reading
Day 60
Today's reading: Deuteronomy 18,26
Look for the promises in God’s word. As you read and find them, write them in your journal along with the scripture reference.
Deuteronomy 18
Provision for Priests and Levites
1. The Levitical priests – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance.
2. They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.
3. This shall be the priests’ fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep – they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach.
4. You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.
5. For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently.
6. Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses
7. and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord.
8. He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance.
Provision for Prophetism
9. When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.
10. There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,
11. one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer.
12. Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.
13. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
14. Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.
15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him.
16. This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.”
17. The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good.
18. I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.
19. I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.
20. “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.
21. Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ –
22. whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”
Deuteronomy 26
Presentation of the First Fruits
1. When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it,
2. you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he chooses to locate his name.
3. You must go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord promised to our ancestors to give us.”
4. The priest will then take the basket from you and set it before the altar of the Lord your God.
5. Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.
6. But the Egyptians mistreated and oppressed us, forcing us to do burdensome labor.
7. So we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and he heard us and saw our humiliation, toil, and oppression.
8. Therefore the Lord brought us out of Egypt with tremendous strength and power, as well as with great awe-inspiring signs and wonders.
9. Then he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10. So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him.
11. You will celebrate all the good things that the Lord your God has given you and your family, along with the Levites and the resident foreigners among you.
Presentation of the Third-year Tithe
12. When you finish tithing all your income in the third year (the year of tithing), you must give it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows so that they may eat to their satisfaction in your villages.
13. Then you shall say before the Lord your God, “I have removed the sacred offering from my house and given it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows just as you have commanded me. I have not violated or forgotten your commandments.
14. I have not eaten anything when I was in mourning, or removed any of it while ceremonially unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; I have obeyed you and have done everything you have commanded me.
15. Look down from your holy dwelling place in heaven and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us, just as you promised our ancestors – a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Narrative Interlude
16. Today the Lord your God is commanding you to keep these statutes and ordinances, something you must do with all your heart and soul.
17. Today you have declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and obey him.
18. And today the Lord has declared you to be his special people (as he already promised you) so you may keep all his commandments.
19. Then he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. You will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.