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²⁶Then Jeroboam said to himself, ‘Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. ²⁷If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.’ ²⁸So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people,^* ‘You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ ²⁹He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. ³⁰And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at Bethel and before the other as far as Dan.^{* 31}He also made houses^* on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites. ³²Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. ³³He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he alone had prescribed; he appointed a festival for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

33 Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people; any who wanted to be priests he consecrated for the high places. ³⁴This matter became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.

6  We have sinned like our forebears; ♦︎
   we have done wrong and dealt wickedly.
7  In Egypt they did not consider your wonders,
      nor remember the abundance of your faithful love; ♦︎
   they rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.
20  Thus they exchanged their glory ♦︎
   for the image of an ox that feeds on hay.
21  They forgot God their saviour, ♦︎
   who had done such great things in Egypt,
22  Wonderful deeds in the land of Ham ♦︎
   and fearful things at the Red Sea.
23  So he would have destroyed them,
      had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, ♦︎
   to turn away his wrath from consuming them.

Feeding the Four Thousand

8In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, ²‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. ³If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ ⁴His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ ⁵He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ ⁶Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. ⁷They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. ⁸They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. ⁹Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. ¹⁰And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.^*