AME Zion Universal Reading May 9th 2021
- Artisans Called by God
- May 2, 2021
- 21 min read
Updated: May 9, 2021
First Portion
Leviticus Chapter 25
1And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,2Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land shall rest a Sabbath to the Lord.3You may sow your field for six years, and for six years you may prune your vineyard, and gather in its produce,4But in the seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor shall you prune your vineyard.5You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest, and you shall not pick the grapes you had set aside [for yourself], [for] it shall be a year of rest for the land.6And [the produce of] the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to eat for you, for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you,7And all of its produce may be eaten [also] by your domestic animals and by the beasts that are in your land.8And you shall count for yourself seven sabbatical years, seven years seven times. And the days of these seven sabbatical years shall amount to forty nine years for you.9You shall proclaim [with] the shofar blasts, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement, you shall sound the shofar throughout your land.10And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom [for slaves] throughout the land for all who live on it. It shall be a Jubilee for you, and you shall return, each man to his property, and you shall return, each man to his family.11This fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you you shall not sow, nor shall you reap its aftergrowth or pick [its grapes] that you had set aside [for yourself].12For it is Jubilee. It shall be holy for you; you shall eat its produce from the field.13During this Jubilee year, you shall return, each man to his property.14And when you make a sale to your fellow Jew or make a purchase from the hand of your fellow Jew, you shall not wrong one another.15According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall purchase from your fellow Jew; according to the number of years of crops, he shall sell to you.16The more [the remaining] years, you shall increase its purchase [price], and the fewer the [remaining] years, you shall decrease its purchase [price], because he is selling you a number of crops.17And you shall not wrong, one man his fellow Jew, and you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord, your God.18You shall perform My statutes, keep My ordinances and perform them then you will live on the land securely.
Sunday
Isaiah 29:1–Isaiah 30 (NLT):
A Message about Jerusalem
1 “What sorrow awaits Ariel, the City of David.
Year after year you celebrate your feasts.
2 Yet I will bring disaster upon you,
and there will be much weeping and sorrow.
For Jerusalem will become what her name Ariel means—
an altar covered with blood.
3 I will be your enemy,
surrounding Jerusalem and attacking its walls.
I will build siege towers
and destroy it.
4 Then deep from the earth you will speak;
from low in the dust your words will come.
Your voice will whisper from the ground
like a ghost conjured up from the grave.
5 “But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed
like the finest of dust.
Your many attackers will be driven away
like chaff before the wind.
Suddenly, in an instant,
6 I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire.
7 All the nations fighting against Jerusalem
will vanish like a dream!
Those who are attacking her walls
will vanish like a vision in the night.
8 A hungry person dreams of eating
but wakes up still hungry.
A thirsty person dreams of drinking
but is still faint from thirst when morning comes.
So it will be with your enemies,
with those who attack Mount Zion.”
9 Are you amazed and incredulous?
Don’t you believe it?
Then go ahead and be blind.
You are stupid, but not from wine!
You stagger, but not from liquor!
10 For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep.
He has closed the eyes of your prophets and visionaries.
11 All the future events in this vision are like a sealed book to them. When you give it to those who can read, they will say, “We can’t read it because it is sealed.” 12 When you give it to those who cannot read, they will say, “We don’t know how to read.”
13 And so the Lord says,
“These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
14 Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites
with amazing wonders.
The wisdom of the wise will pass away,
and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear.”
15 What sorrow awaits those who try to hide their plans from the Lord,
who do their evil deeds in the dark!
“The Lord can’t see us,” they say.
“He doesn’t know what’s going on!”
16 How foolish can you be?
He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay!
Should the created thing say of the one who made it,
“He didn’t make me”?
Does a jar ever say,
“The potter who made me is stupid”?
17 Soon—and it will not be very long—
the forests of Lebanon will become a fertile field,
and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.
18 In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book,
and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.
19 The humble will be filled with fresh joy from the Lord.
The poor will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 The scoffer will be gone,
the arrogant will disappear,
and those who plot evil will be killed.
21 Those who convict the innocent
by their false testimony will disappear.
A similar fate awaits those who use trickery to pervert justice
and who tell lies to destroy the innocent.
22 That is why the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the people of Israel,
“My people will no longer be ashamed
or turn pale with fear.
23 For when they see their many children
and all the blessings I have given them,
they will recognize the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob.
They will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Then the wayward will gain understanding,
and complainers will accept instruction.
Second Portion
Leviticus Chapter 25
19And the land will then yield its fruit and you will eat to satiety, and live upon it securely.20And if you should say, "What will we eat in the seventh year? We will not sow, and we will not gather in our produce!"21[Know then, that] I will command My blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years.22And you will sow in the eighth year, while [still] eating from the old crops until the ninth year; until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old [crop].23The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and [temporary] residents with Me.24Therefore, throughout the land of your possession, you shall give redemption for the land.25If your brother becomes destitute and sells some of his inherited property, his redeemer who is related to him shall come forth and redeem his brother's sale.26And if a man does not have a redeemer, but he gains enough means to afford its redemption,27he shall calculate the years for which the land has been sold, and return the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, and [then] he may return to his inheritance.28But if he cannot afford enough to repay him, his sale shall remain in the possession of the one who has purchased it, until the Jubilee year. And then, in the Jubilee year, it shall go out and revert to his inheritance.
Monday
1 Corinthians 5:1–5 (NLT): Paul Condemns Spiritual Pride
I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.
3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.
Third Portion
Leviticus Chapter 25
29And when a man sells a residential house in a walled city, its redemption may take place until the completion of the year of its sale. Its [period of] redemption shall be a full year.30But if it is not redeemed by the end of a complete year, then that house which is in the city that has a wall, shall remain permanently [the property] of the one who purchased it throughout his generations. It will not leave [his possession] in the Jubilee.31But houses in open cities, which do not have a wall surrounding them, are to be considered as the field of the land. It may have redemption and shall leave [the purchaser's possession] in the Jubilee.32And, [regarding] the cities of the Levites, the houses of their inherited cities shall forever have a [right of] redemption for the Levites.33And if one purchases from the Levites, whether a house or an inherited city, will leave [the possession of the purchaser] in the Jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites, are their inherited property amidst the children of Israel.34And a field in the open areas of their cities cannot be sold, because it is their eternal inheritance.35If your brother becomes destitute and his hand falters beside you, you shall support him [whether] a convert or a resident, so that he can live with you.36You shall not take from him interest or increase, and you shall fear your God, and let your brother live with you.37You shall not give him your money with interest, nor shall you give your food with increase.38I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be a God to you.
Tuesday
Exodus 23:1–9 (NLT): A Call for Justice
“You must not pass along false rumors. You must not cooperate with evil people by lying on the witness stand.
2 “You must not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you are called to testify in a dispute, do not be swayed by the crowd to twist justice. 3 And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor.
4 “If you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner. 5 If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help.
6 “In a lawsuit, you must not deny justice to the poor.
7 “Be sure never to charge anyone falsely with evil. Never sentence an innocent or blameless person to death, for I never declare a guilty person to be innocent.
8 “Take no bribes, for a bribe makes you ignore something that you clearly see. A bribe makes even a righteous person twist the truth.
9 “You must not oppress foreigners. You know what it’s like to be a foreigner, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Fourth Portion
Leviticus Chapter 25
39And if your brother becomes destitute with you, and is sold to you, do not work him with slave labor.40As an employee or a [hired] resident, he shall be with you; until the Jubilee year he shall work with you.41Then, he shall leave you he, and his children with him, and he shall return to his family and resume the status of his fathers.42For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt they shall not be sold as a slave is sold.43You shall not work him with rigor, and you shall fear your God.44Your male slave or female slave whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may acquire a male slave or a female slave.45And also from the children of the residents that live among you, from them you may acquire [slaves] and from their family that is with you whom they begot in your land, and they shall become your inheritance.46You shall hold onto them as an inheritance for your children after you, as acquired property, and may thus have them serve you forever. But as for your brethren, the children of Israel, a man shall not work his brother with rigor.47If a resident non Jew gains wealth with you, and your brother becomes destitute with him and is sold to a resident non Jew among you or to an idol of the family of a non Jew.48After he is sold, he shall have redemption; one of his brothers shall redeem him.49Or his uncle or his cousin shall redeem him, or the closest [other] relative from his family shall redeem him; or, if he becomes able to afford it, he can be redeemed [on his own].50He shall calculate with his purchaser [the number of years] from the year of his being sold to him until the Jubilee year; then, the purchase price shall be [divided] by the number of years; as the days of a hired worker, he shall be with him.51If there are still many years, according to them, he shall return his redemption [money] out of the money for which he was purchased.52But if only a few years remain until the Jubilee year, he shall make the [same] calculation; according to his years [that remain until Jubilee], he shall return the redemption [money]._53He shall be with him as an employee hired year by year; he shall not enslave him with rigor in your sight.54And if he is not redeemed through [any of] these [ways], he shall go out in the Jubilee year he and his children with him.55For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants, whom I took out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God.
Leviticus Chapter 26
1You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you set up a statue or a monument for yourselves. And in your land you shall not place a pavement stone on which to prostrate yourselves, for I am the Lord, your God.2You shall keep My Sabbaths and fear My Sanctuary. I am the Lord.3If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them,4I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit.5Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your food to satiety, and you will live in security in your land.6And I will grant peace in the Land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten [you]; I will remove wild beasts from the Land, and no army will pass through your land;7You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you;8Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.9I will turn towards you, and I will make you fruitful and increase you, and I will set up My covenant with you.
Wednesday
Jeremiah 29:10–14 (NLT):
10 This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 14 I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”
Fifth Portion
Leviticus Chapter 26
10You will eat very old [produce], and you will clear out the old from before the new.11And I will place My dwelling in your midst, and My Spirit will not reject you;12I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.13I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being slaves to them; and I broke the pegs of your yoke and led you upright.14But if you do not listen to Me and do not perform all these commandments,15and if you despise My statutes and reject My ordinances, not performing any of My commandments, thereby breaking My covenant16then I too, will do the same to you; I will order upon you shock, consumption, fever, and diseases that cause hopeless longing and depression. You will sow your seed in vain, and your enemies will eat it.17I will set My attention against you, and you will be smitten before your enemies. Your enemies will rule over you; you will flee, but no one will be pursuing you.18And if, during these, you will not listen to Me, I will add another seven punishments for your sins:19I will break the pride of your strength and make your skies like iron and your land like copper.20Your strength will be expended in vain; your land will not yield its produce, neither will the tree of the earth give forth its fruit.21And if you treat Me as happenstance, and you do not wish to listen to Me, I will add seven punishments corresponding to your sins:22I will incite the wild beasts of the field against you, and they will bereave you, utterly destroy your livestock and diminish you, and your roads will become desolate.23And if, through these, you will still not be chastised [to return] to Me, and if you [continue to] treat Me happenstance,24Then I too, will treat you as happenstance. I will again add seven punishments for your sins:25I will bring upon you an army that avenges the avenging of a covenant, and you will gather into your cities. I will incite the plague in your midst, and you will be delivered into the enemy's hands,26when I break for you the staff of bread, and ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, and you will eat, yet not be satisfied.27And if, despite this, you still do not listen to Me, still treating Me as happenstance,28I will treat you with a fury of happenstance, adding again seven [chastisements] for your sins:29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.30I will demolish your edifices and cut down your sun idols; I will make your corpses [fall] upon the corpses of your idols, and My Spirit will reject you.31I will lay your cities waste and make your holy places desolate, and I will not partake of your pleasant fragrances.32I will make the Land desolate, so that it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it.33And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you. Your land will be desolate, and your cities will be laid waste.34Then, the land will be appeased regarding its sabbaticals. During all the days that it remains desolate while you are in the land of your enemies, the Land will rest and thus appease its sabbaticals.35It will rest during all the days that it remains desolate, whatever it had not rested on your sabbaticals, when you lived upon it.36And those of you who survive I will bring fear in their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a rustling leaf will pursue them; they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but there will be no pursuer.37Each man will stumble over his brother, [fleeing] as if from the sword, but without a pursuer. You will not be able to stand up against your enemies.38You will become lost among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you.39And because of their iniquity, those of you who survive will rot away in the lands of your enemies; moreover, they will rot away because the iniquities of their fathers are still within them.40They will then confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers their betrayal that they dealt Me, and that they also treated Me as happenstance.41Then I too, will treat them as happenstance and bring them [back while] in the land of their enemies. If then, their clogged heart becomes humbled, then, [their sufferings] will gain appeasement for their iniquity,42and I will remember My covenant [with] Jacob, and also My covenant [with] Isaac, and also My covenant [with] Abraham I will remember. And I will remember the Land,43[For] the Land will be bereft of them, appeasing its sabbaticals when it had been desolate of them, and they will gain appeasement for their iniquity. This was all in retribution for their having despised My ordinances and in retribution for their having rejected My statutes.44But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the Lord their God.45I will remember for them the covenant [made with] the ancestors, whom I took out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them. I am the Lord.46These are the statutes, the ordinances, and the laws that the Lord gave between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.
Thursday
Mark 7:1–8 (NLT): Jesus Teaches about Inner Purity
One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. 2 They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. 3 (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. 4 Similarly, they don’t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to—such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”
6 Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’
8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
Sixth Portion
Leviticus Chapter 27
1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,2Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When a man expresses a vow, [pledging the] value of lives to the Lord,3the [fixed] value of a male shall be as follows: From twenty years old until sixty years old, the value is fifty silver shekels, according to the holy shekel;4And if she is a female, the value is thirty shekels;5And if [the person is] from five years old until twenty years old, the value of a male shall be twenty shekels, while that of a female shall be ten shekels;6And if [the person is] from one month old until five years old, the value of a male shall be five silver shekels, while the value of a female shall be three silver shekels;7And if [the person is] sixty years old or over, if it is a male, the value shall be fifteen shekels, while for a female, it shall be ten shekels.8But if he is [too] poor to [pay] the valuation [amount], he shall stand him up before the kohen, and the kohen shall evaluate him according to how much the one who is vowing his value can afford.9Now, if an animal of whose type is [fit] to be brought as an offering to the Lord, whatever part of it the person donates to the Lord, shall become holy.10He shall not exchange it or offer a substitute for it, whether it be a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one. But if he does substitute one animal for another animal, [both] that one and its replacement shall be holy.11And if it is any unclean animal, of whose type shall not be brought as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand up the animal before the kohen.12The kohen shall then evaluate it whether it is good or bad; like the evaluation of the kohen, so shall it be.13But if he redeems it, he shall add its fifth to its value.14And if a man consecrates his house [to be] holy to the Lord, the kohen shall evaluate it whether good or bad; as the kohen evaluates it, so shall it remain.15But if the one who consecrated it redeems his house, he shall add to it a fifth of its valuation money, and it shall be his.
Friday
Isaiah 29:1–8 (NLT): A Message about Jerusalem
1 “What sorrow awaits Ariel, the City of David.
Year after year you celebrate your feasts.
2 Yet I will bring disaster upon you,
and there will be much weeping and sorrow.
For Jerusalem will become what her name Ariel means—
an altar covered with blood.
3 I will be your enemy,
surrounding Jerusalem and attacking its walls.
I will build siege towers
and destroy it.
4 Then deep from the earth you will speak;
from low in the dust your words will come.
Your voice will whisper from the ground
like a ghost conjured up from the grave.
5 “But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed
like the finest of dust.
Your many attackers will be driven away
like chaff before the wind.
Suddenly, in an instant,
6 I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire.
7 All the nations fighting against Jerusalem
will vanish like a dream!
Those who are attacking her walls
will vanish like a vision in the night.
8 A hungry person dreams of eating
but wakes up still hungry.
A thirsty person dreams of drinking
but is still faint from thirst when morning comes.
So it will be with your enemies,
with those who attack Mount Zion.”
Seventh Portion
Leviticus Chapter 27
16And if a man consecrates some of the field of his inherited property to the Lord, the valuation shall be according to its sowing: an area which requires a chomer of barley seeds at fifty silver shekels.17Now, if he consecrates his field from [when] the Jubilee year [has ended], it shall remain at [its full] valuation.18But if he consecrates his field after the Jubilee, the kohen shall calculate the money for him, according to the remaining years until the [next] Jubilee year, and it shall be deducted from the valuation.19If the one who consecrated it redeems the field, he shall add to it a fifth of the valuation money, and it shall be his.20But if he does not redeem the field, and if he has sold the field to someone else it may no longer be redeemed.21But, when the field leaves in the Jubilee, it shall be holy to the Lord like a field devoted; his inherited property shall belong to the kohen.22And if he consecrates to the Lord a field that he had acquired, that is not part of his inherited property,23the kohen shall calculate for him the amount of the valuation until the Jubilee year, and he shall give the valuation on that day, holy to the Lord.24In the Jubilee year, the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it namely, the one whose inherited land it was.25Every valuation shall be made according to the holy shekel, whereby one shekel is the equivalent of twenty gerahs.26However, a firstborn animal that must be [sacrificed as] a firstborn to the Lord no man may consecrate it; whether it be an ox or sheep, it belongs to the Lord.27Now, if [someone consecrates] an unclean animal, he may redeem [it] by [paying] the valuation, and he shall add its fifth to it, and if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold for the valuation [price].28However, anything that a man devotes to the Lord from any of his property whether a person, an animal, or part of his inherited field shall not be sold, nor shall it be redeemed, [for] all devoted things are holy of holies to the Lord.29Any devoting of a person who has been devoted, need not be redeemed [for] he is to be put to death.30Any tithe of the Land, whether it be from the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree it is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord.31And if a man redeems some of his tithe, he shall add its fifth to it.32Any tithe of cattle or flock of all that pass under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord.33He shall not inspect [a tithed animal] for a good or a bad one, nor shall he offer a substitute for it. And if he does replace it, then [both] that one and its replacement are holy; it cannot be redeemed.34These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses to [tell] the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Maftir Portion
Leviticus Chapter 27
32Any tithe of cattle or flock of all that pass under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord.33He shall not inspect [a tithed animal] for a good or a bad one, nor shall he offer a substitute for it. And if he does replace it, then [both] that one and its replacement are holy; it cannot be redeemed.34These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses to [tell] the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Haftarah
Jeremiah Chapter 16
19O Lord, Who are my power and my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble, to You nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Only lies have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail!20Can a man make gods for himself, and they are no gods?"21Therefore, behold I let them know; at this time I will let them know My power and My might, and they shall know that My Name is the Lord.
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