Leviticus 27 closes the book with vows, valuation, dedication, tithes, and what belongs irrevocably to the Lord. The chapter teaches truthful devotion and warns against treating holy things as negotiable.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/leviticus/leviticus-27-vows-dedications-and-what-belongs-to-the-lord

A Coptic Orthodox teaching overview of 3 Maccabees, explaining its wider Orthodox reception, relationship to 1 and 2 Maccabees, temple holiness, diaspora faithfulness, prayer under coercion, and divine deliverance without military triumphalism.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-overview

Ptolemy IV's victory at Raphia leads to Jerusalem, where admiration for the temple becomes presumption, the holy boundary is defended by Law and prayer, and the people learn holy resistance before God.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-1-ptolemy-jerusalem-and-the-holy-place

Simon the high priest prays from Scripture and salvation history, God defends His holy place, Ptolemy is humbled without repentance, and the crisis turns toward coerced assimilation in Egypt.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-2-simon-s-prayer-and-god-s-defense-of-the-temple

The Jews of Egypt are slandered as disloyal because they preserve covenant distinction, while Ptolemy recasts religious coercion as civic reform and orders their destruction.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-3-diaspora-faithfulness-under-suspicion

The forced gathering of the Jews exposes public humiliation and grief, while the failed registration reveals God's Providence already restraining evil before visible rescue appears.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-4-gathering-humiliation-and-hidden-providence

Ptolemy's repeated rage is restrained by God through sleep, forgetfulness, delay, and confusion, teaching that arrogant power is not sovereign even before visible deliverance appears.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-5-rage-delayed-by-providence

Eleazar's prayer gathers Israel's saving memory, and God answers with angelic rescue that overturns death without making the faithful into conquerors by violence.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-6-eleazar-s-prayer-and-angelic-deliverance

The delivered people receive public vindication, confront covenant betrayal, return home in peace, and register their rescue as sacred memory before blessing the Redeemer of Israel.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/3-maccabees/3-maccabees-7-thanksgiving-judgment-and-sacred-memory

4 Maccabees opens with the thesis that devout reason masters the passions, then announces that the martyrs will prove it by faithful endurance.

Read and follow along: https://orthodoxbiblestudy.com/bible-studies/old-testament/4-maccabees/4-maccabees-1-1-12-the-thesis-devout-reason-masters-the-passions