Bible in a Year.

On the forty-first day of the reading, we are invited to meditate on divine justice and holiness. In Exodus 23, God establishes laws of righteousness, mercy, and the celebration of sacred feasts. Leviticus 16 describes the solemn Day of Atonement, on which the high priest intercedes for the people, pointing to God's forgiveness. Psalm 77 expresses the anguished cry of those seeking to understand the Lord's ways, finding comfort in remembering His mighty works of deliverance.

1. Thou shalt not receive the voice of a lie: neither shalt thou join thy hand to bear false witness for a wicked person.

2. Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth.

3. Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in judgment.

4. If thou meet thy enemy's ox or ass going astray, bring it back to him.

5. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lie underneath his burden, thou shalt not pass by, but shalt lift him up with him.

6. Thou shalt not go aside in the poor man's judgment.

7. Thou shalt fly lying. The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death: because I abhor the wicked.

8. Neither shalt thou take bribes, which even blind the wise, and pervert the words of the just.

9. Thou shalt not molest a stranger, for you know the hearts of strangers: for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.

10. Six years thou shalt sow thy ground, and shalt gather the corn thereof.

11. But the seventh year thou shalt let it alone, and suffer it to rest, that the poor of thy people may eat, and whatsoever shall be left, let the beasts of the field eat it: so shalt thou do with thy vineyard and thy oliveyard.

12. Six days thou shalt work: the seventh day thou shalt cease, that thy ox and thy ass may rest: and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.

13. Keep all things that I have said to you. And by the name of strange gods you shall not swear, neither shall it be heard out of your mouth.

14. Three times every year you shall celebrate feasts to me.

15. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month of new corn, when thou didst come forth out of Egypt: thou shalt not appear empty before me.

16. And the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of thy work, whatsoever thou hast sown in the field. The feast also in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in all thy corn out of the field.

17. Thrice a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God.

18. Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of my victim upon leaven, neither shall the fat of my solemnity remain until the morning.

19. Thou shalt carry the firstfruits of the corn of thy ground to the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam.

20. Behold I will send my angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared.

21. Take notice of him, and hear his voice, and do not think him one to be contemned: for he will not forgive when thou hast sinned, and my name is in him.

22. But if thou wilt hear his voice, and do all that I speak, I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and will afflict them that afflict thee.

23. And my angel shall go before thee, and shall bring thee in unto the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, whom I will destroy.

24. Thou shalt not adore their gods, nor serve them. Thou shalt not do their works, but shalt destroy them, and break their statues.

25. And you shall serve the Lord your God, that I may bless your bread and your waters, and may take away sickness from the midst of thee.

26. There shall not be one fruitless nor barren in thy land: I will fill the number of thy days.

27. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come: and will turn the backs of all thy enemies before thee.

28. Sending out hornets before, that shall drive away the Hevite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, before thou come in.

29. I will not cast them out from thy face in one year: lest the land be brought into a wilderness, and the beasts multiply against thee.

30. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, till thou be increased, and dost possess the land.

31. And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea to the sea of the Palestines, and from the desert to the river: I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and will drive them out from before you.

32. Thou shalt not enter into league with them, nor with their gods.

33. Let them not dwell in thy land, lest perhaps thy make thee sin against me, if thou serve their god: which undoubtedly will be a scandal to thee.

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they were slain upon their offering strange fire:

2. And he commanded him, saying, Speak to Aaron thy brother, that he enter not at all into the sanctuary, which is within the veil before the propitiatory, with which the ark is covered, lest he die, (for I will appear in a cloud over the oracle,)

3. Unless he first do these things: He shall offer a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust.

4. He shall be vested with a linen tunick, he shall cover his nakedness with linen breeches: he shall be girded with a linen girdle, and he shall put a linen mitre upon his head: for these are holy vestments: all which he shall put on, after he is washed.

5. And he shall receive from the whole multitude of the children of Israel two buck goats for sin, and one ram for a holocaust.

6. And when he hath offered the calf and prayed for himself, and for his own house,

7. He shall make the two buck goats to stand before the Lord in the door of the tabernacle of the testimony:

8. And casting lots upon them both, one to be offered to the Lord, and the other to be the emissary goat:

9. That whose lot fell to be offered to the Lord, he shall offer for sin:

10. But that whose lot was to be the emissary goat, he shall present alive before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers upon him, and let him go into the wilderness.

11. After these things are duly celebrated, he shall offer the calf, and praying for himself and for his own house, he shall immolate it:

12. And taking the censer, which he hath filled with the burning coals of the altar, and taking up with his hand the compounded perfume for incense, he shall go in within the veil into the holy place:

13. That when the perfumes are put upon the fire, the cloud and vapour thereof may cover the oracle, which is over the testimony, and he may not die.

14. He shall take also of the blood of the calf, and sprinkle with his finger seven times towards the propitiatory to the east.

15. And when he hath killed the buck goat for the sin of the people, he shall carry in the blood thereof within the veil, as he was commanded to do with the blood of the calf, that he may sprinkle it over against the oracle,

16. And may expiate the sanctuary from the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions, and all their sins. According to this rite shall he do to the tabernacle of the testimony, which is fixed among them in the midst of the filth of their habitation.

17. Let no man be in the tabernacle when the high priest goeth into the sanctuary, to pray for himself and his house, and for the whole congregation of Israel, until he come out.

18. And when he is come out to the altar that is before the Lord, let him pray for himself, and taking the blood of the calf, and of the buck goat, let him pour it upon the horns thereof round about:

19. And sprinkling with his finger seven times, let him expiate, and sanctify it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.

20. After he hath cleansed the sanctuary, and the tabernacle, and the altar, then let him offer the living goat:

21. And putting both hands upon his head, let him confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their offences and sins: and praying that they may light on his head, he shall turn him out by a man ready for it, into the desert.

22. And when the goat hath carried all their iniquities into an uninhabited land, and shall be let go into the desert,

23. Aaron shall return into the tabernacle of the testimony, and putting off the vestments, which he had on him before when he entered into the sanctuary, and leaving them there,

24. He shall wash his flesh in the holy place, and shall put on his own garments. And after that he has come out and hath offered his own holocaust, and that of the people, he shall pray both for himself, and for the people:

25. And the fat that is offered for sins, he shall burn upon the altar.

26. But he that hath let go the emissary goat, shall wash his clothes, and his body with water, and so shall enter into the camp.

27. But the calf and the buck goat, that were sacrificed for sin, and whose blood was carried into the sanctuary, to accomplish the atonement, they shall carry forth without the camp, e and shall burn with fire, their skins and their flesh, and their dung:

28. And whosoever burneth them shall wash his clothes, and flesh with water, and so shall enter into the camp.

29. And this shall be to you an everlasting ordinance: The seventh month, the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no work, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you.

30. Upon this day shall be the expiation for you, and the cleansing from all your sins: you shall be cleansed before the Lord.

31. For it is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls by a perpetual religion.

32. And the priest that is anointed, and whose hands are consecrated to do the office of the priesthood in his father's stead, shall make atonement; and he shall be vested with the linen robe and the holy vestments,

33. And he shall expiate the sanctuary and the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar, the priest also and all the people.

34. And this shall be an ordinance for ever, that you pray for the children of Israel, and for all their sins once in a year. He did therefore as the Lord had commanded Moses.

1. Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of Asaph.

2. I cried to the Lord with my voice; to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

3. In the day of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted:

4. I remembered God, and was delighted, and was exercised, and my spirit swooned away.

5. My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not.

6. I thought upon the days of old: and I had in my mind the eternal years.

7. And I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercised and I swept my spirit.

8. Will God then cast off for ever? or will he never be more favourable again?

9. Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation?

10. Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies?

11. And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High.

12. I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning.

13. And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions.

14. Thy way, O God, is in the holy place: who is the great God like our God?

15. Thou art the God that dost wonders. Thou hast made thy power known among the nations:

16. with thy arm thou hast redeemed thy people the children of Jacob and of Joseph.

17. The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee: and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled.

18. Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass:

19. the voice of thy thunder in a wheel. Thy lightnings enlightened the world: the earth shook and trembled.

20. Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in many waters: and thy footsteps shall not be known.

21. Thou hast conducted thy people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron