The Woman Caught in Adultery

John 8 [Then everyone went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²Early the next morning he went back to the Temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and began to teach them. ³The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery, and they made her stand before them all. ⁴"Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. ⁵In our Law Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say?" ⁶They said this to trap Jesus, so that they could accuse him. But he bent over and wrote on the ground with his finger. ⁷As they stood there asking him questions, he straightened up and said to them, "Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her." ⁸Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground. ⁹When they heard this, they all left, one by one, the older ones first. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰He straightened up and said to her, "Where are they? Is there no one left to condemn you?"
¹¹"No one, sir," she answered.
"Well, then," Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either. Go, but do not sin again."]

Jesus the Light of the World

¹²Jesus spoke to the Pharisees again. "I am the light of the world," he said. "Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness."
¹³The Pharisees said to him, "Now you are testifying on your own behalf; what you say proves nothing."
¹⁴"No," Jesus answered, "even though I do testify on my own behalf, what I say is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. You do not know where I came from or where I am going. ¹⁵You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one. ¹⁶But if I were to do so, my judgment would be true, because I am not alone in this; the Father who sent me is with me. ¹⁷It is written in your Law that when two witnesses agree, what they say is true. ¹⁸I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me also testifies on my behalf."
¹⁹"Where is your father?" they asked him.
"You know neither me nor my Father," Jesus answered. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also."
²⁰Jesus said all this as he taught in the Temple, in the room where the offering boxes were placed. And no one arrested him, because his hour had not come.

The Second Book of
CHRONICLES

King Solomon Prays for Wisdom
(1 Kings 3.1-15)

2 Chronicles 1 Solomon, the son of King David, took firm control of the kingdom of Israel, and the LORD his God blessed him and made him very powerful.
²King Solomon gave an order to all the officers in charge of units of a thousand men and of a hundred men, all the government officials, all the heads of families, and all the rest of the people, ³commanding them to go with him to the place of worship at Gibeon. They went there because that was where the Tent of the LORD's presence was located, which Moses, the LORD's servant, had made in the wilderness. ( ⁴The Covenant Box, however, was in Jerusalem, kept in a tent which King David had set up when he brought the Box from Kiriath Jearim.) ⁵The bronze altar which had been made by Bezalel, the son of Uri and grandson of Hur, was also in Gibeon in front of the Tent of the LORD's presence. King Solomon and all the people worshiped the LORD there. ⁶In front of the Tent the king worshiped the LORD by offering sacrifices on the bronze altar; he had a thousand animals killed and burned whole on it.
⁷That night God appeared to Solomon and asked, "What would you like me to give you?"
⁸Solomon answered, "You always showed great love for my father David, and now you have let me succeed him as king. ⁹O LORD God, fulfill the promise you made to my father. You have made me king over a people who are so many that they cannot be counted, ¹⁰so give me the wisdom and knowledge I need to rule over them. Otherwise, how would I ever be able to rule this great people of yours?"
¹¹God replied to Solomon, "You have made the right choice. Instead of asking for wealth or treasure or fame or the death of your enemies or even for long life for yourself, you have asked for wisdom and knowledge so that you can rule my people, over whom I have made you king. ¹²I will give you wisdom and knowledge. And in addition, I will give you more wealth, treasure, and fame than any king has ever had before or will ever have again."

King Solomon's Power and Wealth
(1 Kings 10.26 -29)

¹³So Solomon left the place of worship at Gibeon, where the Tent of the LORD's presence was, and returned to Jerusalem. There he ruled over Israel. ¹⁴He built up a force of fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand cavalry horses. Some of them he kept in Jerusalem, and the rest he stationed in various other cities. ¹⁵During his reign silver and gold became as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar was as plentiful as ordinary sycamore in the foothills of Judah. ¹⁶The king's agents controlled the export of horses from Musri and Cilicia, ¹⁷and the export of chariots from Egypt. They supplied the Hittite and Syrian kings with horses and chariots, selling chariots for 600 pieces of silver each and horses for 150 each.

Preparations for Building the Temple
(1 Kings 5.1-18)

2 Chronicles 2 King Solomon decided to build a temple where the LORD would be worshiped, and also to build a palace for himself. ²He put 70,000 men to work transporting materials, and 80,000 to work cutting stone in the hill country. There were 3,600 others responsible for supervising the work.
³Solomon sent a message to King Hiram of Tyre: "Do business with me as you did with my father, King David, when you sold him cedar logs for building his palace. ⁴I am building a temple to honor the LORD my God. It will be a holy place where my people and I will worship him by burning incense of fragrant spices, where we will present offerings of sacred bread to him continuously, and where we will offer burnt offerings every morning and evening, as well as on Sabbaths, New Moon Festivals, and other holy days honoring the LORD our God. He has commanded Israel to do this forever. ⁵I intend to build a great temple, because our God is greater than any other god. ⁶Yet no one can really build a temple for God, because even all the vastness of heaven cannot contain him. How then can I build a temple that would be anything more than a place to burn incense to God? ⁷Now send me a man with skill in engraving, in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in making blue, purple, and red cloth. He will work with the craftsmen of Judah and Jerusalem whom my father David selected. ⁸I know how skillful your lumbermen are, so send me cedar, cypress, and juniper logs from Lebanon. I am ready to send my men to assist yours ⁹in preparing large quantities of timber, because this temple I intend to build will be large and magnificent. ¹⁰As provisions for your lumbermen, I will send you 100,000 bushels of wheat, 100,000 bushels of barley, 110,000 gallons of wine, and 110,000 gallons of olive oil."
¹¹King Hiram sent Solomon a letter in reply. He wrote, "Because the LORD loves his people, he has made you their king. ¹²Praise the LORD God of Israel, Creator of heaven and earth! He has given King David a wise son, full of understanding and skill, who now plans to build a temple for the LORD and a palace for himself. ¹³I am sending you a wise and skillful master metalworker named Huram. ¹⁴His mother was a member of the tribe of Dan and his father was a native of Tyre. He knows how to make things out of gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood. He can work with blue, purple, and red cloth, and with linen. He can do all sorts of engraving and can follow any design suggested to him. Let him work with your skilled workers and with those who worked for your father, King David. ¹⁵So now send us the wheat, barley, wine, and olive oil that you promised. ¹⁶In the mountains of Lebanon we will cut down all the cedars you need, tie them together in rafts, and float them by sea as far as Joppa. From there you can take them to Jerusalem."

Jerusalem and the Nations

Zechariah 14 The day when the LORD will sit in judgment is near. Then Jerusalem will be looted, and the loot will be divided up before your eyes. ²The LORD will bring all the nations together to make war on Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half of the people will go into exile, but the rest of them will not be taken away from the city. ³Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past. ⁴At that time he will stand on the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem. Then the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west by a large valley. Half of the mountain will move northward, and half of it southward. ⁵You will escape through this valley that divides the mountain in two. You will flee as your ancestors did when the earthquake struck in the time of King Uzziah of Judah. The LORD my God will come, bringing all the angels with him.
⁶When that time comes, there will no longer be cold or frost, ⁷nor any darkness. There will always be daylight, even at nighttime. When this will happen is known only to the LORD.
⁸When that day comes, fresh water will flow from Jerusalem, half of it to the Dead Sea and the other half to the Mediterranean. It will flow all year long, in the dry season as well as the wet. ⁹Then the LORD will be king over all the earth; everyone will worship him as God and know him by the same name.
¹⁰The whole region, from Geba in the north to Rimmon in the south, will be made level. Jerusalem will tower above the land around it; the city will reach from the Benjamin Gate to the Corner Gate, where there had been an earlier gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal wine presses. ¹¹The people will live there in safety, no longer threatened by destruction.
¹²The LORD will bring a terrible disease on all the nations that make war on Jerusalem. Their flesh will rot away while they are still alive; their eyes and their tongues will rot away.
¹³At that time the LORD will make them so confused and afraid that everyone will seize the man next to him and attack him. ¹⁴The men of Judah will fight to defend Jerusalem. They will take as loot the wealth of all the nations--gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.
¹⁵A terrible disease will also fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, and the donkeys--on all the animals in the camps of the enemy.
¹⁶Then all of the survivors from the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go there each year to worship the LORD Almighty as king and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. ¹⁷If any nation refuses to go and worship the LORD Almighty as king, then rain will not fall on their land. ¹⁸If the Egyptians refuse to celebrate the Festival of Shelters, then they will be struck by the same disease that the LORD will send on every nation that refuses to go. ¹⁹This will be the punishment that will fall on Egypt and on all the other nations if they do not celebrate the Festival of Shelters.
²⁰At that time even the harness bells of the horses will be inscribed with the words "Dedicated to the LORD." The cooking pots in the Temple will be as sacred as the bowls before the altar. ²¹Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in all Judah will be set apart for use in the worship of the LORD Almighty. The people who offer sacrifices will use them for boiling the meat of the sacrifices. When that time comes, there will no longer be any merchant in the Temple of the LORD Almighty.