Today is the 14th day of February.

St. Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovers in the world.

Happy Valentine's Day to my love.

And those of you who are in love and have been in love,

well then you know, love will ruin you.

And then it will ruin you for anyone else.

So, happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

And we show up here every day, right, around the global campfire and read the Bible,

and the Bible is a multifaceted gem, of course.

Um, but it is so deeply a love story of a god who just will not stop trying even in the face of deep and utter

betrayal and so we we almost be deeply grateful for that today.

But we haven't shown up around the global campfire today to talk about all that.

We've come here to take the next step forward.

So let's do that, working our way through the book of Exodus.

Today we learn about the Ark of the Covenant and its construction.

Exodus, chapters 37 and 38.

Next, Bezalel made the Ark of Acacia wood, a sacred chest 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high.

He overlaid it inside and outside with pure gold, and he ran a molding of gold all around it.

He cast four gold rings and attached them to its four feet, two rings on each side.

Then he made poles from acacia wood and overlaid them with gold.

He inserted the poles into the rings at the sides of the ark to carry it. And he made the ark's cover, the place of atonement, from pure gold.

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