2 Chronicles 3, 4, 1 John 3, Nahum 2, Luke 18

2 Chronicles 3, 4,

1 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.
 
2 He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
 
3 The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide (using the cubit of the old standard).
 
4 The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits long across the width of the building and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold.
 
5 He paneled the main hall with pine and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs.
 
6 He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim.
 
7 He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.
 
8 He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple-twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents of fine gold.
 
9 The gold nails weighed fifty shekels. He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.
 
10 In the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold.
 
11 The total wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub.
 
12 Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub.
 
13 The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.
 
14 He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.
 
15 In the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits long, each with a capital on top measuring five cubits.
 
16 He made interwoven chains and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains.
 
17 He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.

1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.
 
2 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
 
3 Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it-ten to a cubit. The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.
 
4 The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center.
 
5 It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths.
 
6 He then made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. In them the things to be used for the burnt offerings were rinsed, but the Sea was to be used by the priests for washing.
 
7 He made ten gold lampstands according to the specifications for them and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.
 
8 He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold sprinkling bowls.
 
9 He made the courtyard of the priests, and the large court and the doors for the court, and overlaid the doors with bronze.
 
10 He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner.
 
11 He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of God:
 
12 the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
 
13 the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);
 
14 the stands with their basins;
 
15 the Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
 
16 the pots, shovels, meat forks and all related articles. All the objects that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for the temple of the LORD were of polished bronze.
 
17 The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.
 
18 All these things that Solomon made amounted to so much that the weight of the bronze was not determined.
 
19 Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in God's temple: the golden altar; the tables on which was the bread of the Presence;
 
20 the lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to burn in front of the inner sanctuary as prescribed;
 
21 the gold floral work and lamps and tongs (they were solid gold);
 
22 the pure gold wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold doors of the temple: the inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors of the main hall.

1 John 3,

1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
 
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
 
3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
 
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
 
5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
 
6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
 
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
 
8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.
 
9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
 
10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
 
11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
 
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.
 
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
 
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
 
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
 
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
 
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
 
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
 
19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
 
20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
 
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
 
22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
 
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
 
24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Nahum 2,

1 An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength!
 
2 The LORD will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.
 
3 The shields of his soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of pine are brandished.
 
4 The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning.
 
5 He summons his picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place.
 
6 The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.
 
7 It is decreed that the city be exiled and carried away. Its slave girls moan like doves and beat upon their breasts.
 
8 Nineveh is like a pool, and its water is draining away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one turns back.
 
9 Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! The supply is endless, the wealth from all its treasures!
 
10 She is pillaged, plundered, stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale.
 
11 Where now is the lions' den, the place where they fed their young, where the lion and lioness went, and the cubs, with nothing to fear?
 
12 The lion killed enough for his cubs and strangled the prey for his mate, filling his lairs with the kill and his dens with the prey.
 
13 "I am against you," declares the LORD Almighty. "I will burn up your chariots in smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions. I will leave you no prey on the earth. The voices of your messengers will no longer be heard."

Luke 18

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
 
2 He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.
 
3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'
 
4 "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men,
 
5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "
 
6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says.
 
7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
 
8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
 
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
 
10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
 
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector.
 
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
 
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
 
14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
 
15 People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them.
 
16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
 
17 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
 
18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
 
19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-except God alone.
 
20 You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.' "
 
21 "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
 
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
 
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.
 
24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!
 
25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
 
26 Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
 
27 Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
 
28 Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"
 
29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God
 
30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."
 
31 Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.
 
32 He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him.
 
33 On the third day he will rise again."
 
34 The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
 
35 As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.
 
36 When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening.
 
37 They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."
 
38 He called out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
 
39 Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"
 
40 Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him,
 
41 "What do you want me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied.
 
42 Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you."
 
43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.