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FEBRUARY 14
73 And a little later those who stood by came Immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter
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up and said to Peter, “Surely you also are one remembered the word of Jesus who had said
of them, for your speech betrays you.” to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will
74 Then he began to curse and swear, saying, deny Me three times.” So he went out and
“I do not know the Man!” wept bitterly.

DAY 13:Why did Jesus refuse to take up arms and fight?
When the multitude comes to arrest Jesus in Matthew 26, one of His disciples strikes out
with a sword. John identifies the swordsman as Peter (John 18:10). Clearly, Peter was not aiming
for the ear, but for the head. Jesus‘ response was immediate.“Put your sword in its place, for all
who take the sword will perish by the sword”(v.52).Peter’s action was vigilantism.No matter how
unjust the arrest of Jesus, Peter had no right to take the law into his own hands in order to stop
it. Jesus’ reply was a restatement of the Genesis 9:6 principle: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by
man his blood shall be shed,” an affirmation that capital punishment is an appropriate penalty
for murder.
Jesus said that if it were a matter of force, His Father would send “more than twelve legions”
(v. 53). A Roman legion was composed of 6,000 soldiers, so this would represent more than
72,000 angels. In 2 Kings 19:35, a single angel killed more than 185,000 men in a single night, so
this many angels would make a formidable army.
But it wasn’t about force; it was that the “Scriptures…be fulfilled”(v.54) God Himself had fore-
ordained the very minutest details of how Jesus would die (Acts 2:23; 4:27,28). Dying was Christ’s
consummate act of submission to the Father’s will. Jesus Himself was in absolute control (John
10:17,18).Yet it was not Jesus alone,but everyone around Him—His enemies included—who ful-
filled precisely the details of the Old Testament prophecies. These events display His divine
sovereignty.

February 14 gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and of
fine woven linen. They made the breastplate
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square by doubling it; a span was its length
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and a span its width when doubled. And they
Exodus 39:1–40:38
set in it four rows of stones: a row with a
Of the blue, purple, and scarlet thread sardius, a topaz, and an emerald was the first
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39 they made garments of ministry, for row; the second row, a turquoise, a sapphire,
ministering in the holy place, and made the and a diamond; the third row, a jacinth, an
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holy garments for Aaron, as the LORD had agate, and an amethyst; the fourth row, a
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commanded Moses. beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. They were
2 He made the ephod of gold, blue, purple, enclosed in settings of gold in their mount-
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and scarlet thread, and of fine woven linen. ings. There were twelve stones according to
3 And they beat the gold into thin sheets and cut the names of the sons of Israel: according to
it into threads, to work it in with the blue, pur- their names, engraved like a signet, each one
ple, and scarlet thread, and the fine linen, into with its own name according to the twelve
artistic designs. They made shoulder straps tribes. And they made chains for the breast-
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for it to couple it together; it was coupled plate at the ends, like braided cords of pure
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together at its two edges. And the intricately gold. They also made two settings of gold
woven band of his ephod that was on it was of and two gold rings, and put the two rings on
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the same workmanship, woven of gold, blue, the two ends of the breastplate. And they put
purple, and scarlet thread, and of fine woven the two braided chains of gold in the two rings
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linen, as the LORD had commanded Moses. on the ends of the breastplate. The two ends
6 And they set onyx stones, enclosed in set- of the two braided chains they fastened in the
tings of gold; they were engraved, as signets two settings, and put them on the shoulder
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are engraved, with the names of the sons of straps of the ephod in the front. And they
Israel. He put them on the shoulders of the made two rings of gold and put them on the
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ephod as memorial stones for the sons of two ends of the breastplate, on the edge of it,
Israel, as the LORD had commanded Moses. which was on the inward side of the ephod.
8 And he made the breastplate, artistically 20 They made two other gold rings and put them
woven like the workmanship of the ephod, of on the two shoulder straps, underneath the
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