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Psalm 146

1  Alleluia.
      Praise the Lord, O my soul:
      while I live will I praise the Lord; ♦︎
   as long as I have any being,
      I will sing praises to my God.
2  Put not your trust in princes,
      nor in any human power, ♦︎
   for there is no help in them.
3  When their breath goes forth, they return to the earth; ♦︎
   on that day all their thoughts perish.
4  Happy are those who have the God of Jacob for their help, ♦︎
   whose hope is in the Lord their God;
5  Who made heaven and earth,
      the sea and all that is in them; ♦︎
   who keeps his promise for ever;
6  Who gives justice to those that suffer wrong ♦︎
   and bread to those who hunger.
7  The Lord looses those that are bound; ♦︎
   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
8  The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; ♦︎
   the Lord loves the righteous;
9  The Lord watches over the stranger in the land;
      he upholds the orphan and widow; ♦︎
   but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
10  The Lord shall reign for ever, ♦︎
   your God, O Zion, throughout all generations.
      Alleluia.

¹⁸When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ ²⁰She said to them,
‘Call me no longer Naomi,^*
   call me Mara,^*
   for the Almighty^* has dealt bitterly with me.
²¹ I went away full,
   but the Lord has brought me back empty;
why call me Naomi
   when the Lord has dealt harshly with^* me,
   and the Almighty^* has brought calamity upon me?’

22 So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

The Earthly and the Heavenly Sanctuaries

9Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. ²For a tent^* was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence;^* this is called the Holy Place. ³Behind the second curtain was a tent^* called the Holy of Holies. ⁴In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; ⁵above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat.^* Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.

6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent^* to carry out their ritual duties; ⁷but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. ⁸By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent^* is still standing. ⁹This is a symbol^* of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, ¹⁰but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.

11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come,^* then through the greater and perfect^* tent^* (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), ¹²he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.