Bible in 90 Days

Remember the Lord

8 Carefully obey every command I give you today. Then you will live and grow in number, and you will enter and take the land the Lord promised your ancestors. ² Remember how the Lord your God has led you in the desert for these forty years, taking away your pride and testing you, because he wanted to know what was in your heart. He wanted to know if you would obey his commands. ³ He took away your pride when he let you get hungry, and then he fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever seen. This was to teach you that a person does not live on bread alone, but by everything the Lord says. ⁴ During these forty years, your clothes did not wear out, and your feet did not swell. ⁵ Know in your heart that the Lord your God corrects you as a parent corrects a child.

⁶ Obey the commands of the Lord your God, living as he has commanded you and respecting him. ⁷ The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with rivers and pools of water, with springs that flow in the valleys and hills, ⁸ a land that has wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey. ⁹ It is a land where you will have plenty of food, where you will have everything you need, where the rocks are iron, and where you can dig copper out of the hills.

¹⁰ When you have all you want to eat, then praise the Lord your God for giving you a good land. ¹¹ Be careful not to forget the Lord your God so that you fail to obey his commands, laws, and rules that I am giving to you today. ¹² When you eat all you want and build nice houses and live in them, ¹³ when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase, when you have more of everything, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud. You will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. ¹⁵ He led you through the large and terrible desert that was dry and had no water, and that had poisonous snakes and stinging insects. He gave you water from a solid rock ¹⁶ and manna to eat in the desert. Manna was something your ancestors had never seen. He did this to take away your pride and to test you, so things would go well for you in the end. ¹⁷ You might say to yourself, “I am rich because of my own power and strength,” ¹⁸ but remember the Lord your God! It is he who gives you the power to become rich, keeping the agreement he promised to your ancestors, as it is today.

¹⁹ If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship them and bow down to them, I warn you today that you will be destroyed. ²⁰ Just as the Lord destroyed the other nations for you, you can be destroyed if you do not obey the Lord your God.

The Lord Will Be with Israel

9 Listen, Israel. You will soon cross the Jordan River to go in and force out nations that are bigger and stronger than you. They have large cities with walls up to the sky. ² The people there are Anakites, who are strong and tall. You know about them, and you have heard it said: “No one can stop the Anakites.” ³ But today remember that the Lord your God goes in before you to destroy them like a fire that burns things up. He will defeat them ahead of you, and you will force them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has said.

⁴ After the Lord your God has forced those nations out ahead of you, don’t say to yourself, “The Lord brought me here to take this land because I am so good.” No! It is because these nations are evil that the Lord will force them out ahead of you. ⁵ You are going in to take the land, not because you are good and honest, but because these nations are evil. That is why the Lord your God will force them out ahead of you, to keep his promise to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ The Lord your God is giving you this good land to take as your own. But know this: It is not because you are good; you are a stubborn people.

Remember the Lord’s Anger

⁷ Remember this and do not forget it: You made the Lord your God angry in the desert. You would not obey the Lord from the day you left Egypt until you arrived here. ⁸ At Mount Sinai you made the Lord angry—angry enough to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up on the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets with the Agreement the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread or drink water. ¹⁰ The Lord gave me two stone tablets, which God had written on with his own finger. On them were all the commands that the Lord gave to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day you were gathered there.

¹¹ When the forty days and forty nights were over, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets with the Agreement on them. ¹² Then the Lord told me, “Get up and go down quickly from here, because the people you brought out from Egypt are ruining themselves. They have quickly turned away from what I commanded and have made an idol for themselves.”

¹³ The Lord said to me, “I have watched these people, and they are very stubborn! ¹⁴ Get away so that I may destroy them and make the whole world forget who they are. Then I will make another nation from you that will be bigger and stronger than they are.”

¹⁵ So I turned and came down the mountain that was burning with fire, and the two stone tablets with the Agreement were in my hands. ¹⁶ When I looked, I saw you had sinned against the Lord your God and had made an idol in the shape of a calf. You had quickly turned away from what the Lord had told you to do. ¹⁷ So I took the two stone tablets and threw them down, breaking them into pieces right in front of you.

¹⁸ Then I again bowed facedown on the ground before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread or drink water. You had sinned by doing what the Lord said was evil, and you made him angry. ¹⁹ I was afraid of the Lord’s anger and rage, because he was angry enough with you to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me again. ²⁰ And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but then I prayed for Aaron, too. ²¹ I took that sinful calf idol you had made and burned it in the fire. I crushed it into a powder like dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.

²² You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth Hattaavah.

²³ Then the Lord sent you away from Kadesh Barnea and said, “Go up and take the land I have given you.” But you rejected the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him. ²⁴ You have refused to obey the Lord as long as I have known you.

²⁵ The Lord had said he would destroy you, so I threw myself down in front of him for those forty days and forty nights. ²⁶ I prayed to the Lord and said, “Lord God, do not destroy your people, your own people, whom you freed and brought out of Egypt by your great power and strength. ²⁷ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at how stubborn these people are, and don’t look at their sin and evil. ²⁸ Otherwise, Egypt will say, ‘It was because the Lord was not able to take his people into the land he promised them, and it was because he hated them that he took them into the desert to kill them.’ ²⁹ But they are your people, Lord, your own people, whom you brought out of Egypt with your great power and strength.”

New Stone Tablets

10 At that time the Lord said to me, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden Ark. ² I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets, which you broke, and you will put the new tablets in the Ark.”

³ So I made the Ark out of acacia wood, and I cut out two stone tablets like the first ones. Then I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. ⁴ The Lord wrote the same things on these tablets he had written before —the Ten Commandments that he had told you on the mountain from the fire, on the day you were gathered there. And the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ Then I turned and came down the mountain; I put the tablets in the Ark I had made, as the Lord had commanded, and they are still there.

⁶ (The people of Israel went from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. Aaron died there and was buried; his son Eleazar became priest in his place. ⁷ From Moserah they went to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah they went to Jotbathah, a place with streams of water. ⁸ At that time the Lord chose the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord. They were to serve the Lord and to bless the people in his name, which they still do today. ⁹ That is why the Levites did not receive any land of their own; instead, they received the Lord himself as their gift, as the Lord your God told them.)

¹⁰ I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights just like the first time, and the Lord listened to me this time also. He did not want to destroy you. ¹¹ The Lord said to me, “Go and lead the people so that they will go in and take the land I promised their ancestors.”

What the Lord Wants You to Do

¹² Now, Israel, this is what the Lord your God wants you to do: Respect the Lord your God, and do what he has told you to do. Love him. Serve the Lord your God with your whole being, ¹³ and obey the Lord’s commands and laws that I am giving you today for your own good.

¹⁴ The Lord owns the world and everything in it—the heavens, even the highest heavens, are his. ¹⁵ But the Lord cared for and loved your ancestors, and he chose you, their descendants, over all the other nations, just as it is today. ¹⁶ Give yourselves completely to serving him, and do not be stubborn any longer. ¹⁷ The Lord your God is God of all gods and Lord of all lords. He is the great God, who is strong and wonderful. He does not take sides, and he will not be talked into doing evil. ¹⁸ He helps orphans and widows, and he loves foreigners and gives them food and clothes. ¹⁹ You also must love foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt. ²⁰ Respect the Lord your God and serve him. Be loyal to him and make your promises in his name. ²¹ He is the one you should praise; he is your God, who has done great and wonderful things for you, which you have seen with your own eyes. ²² There were only seventy of your ancestors when they went down to Egypt, and now the Lord your God has made you as many as the stars in the sky.

Great Things Israel Saw

11 Love the Lord your God and always obey his orders, rules, laws, and commands. ² Remember today it was not your children who saw and felt the correction of the Lord your God. They did not see his majesty, his power, his strength, ³ or his signs and the things he did in Egypt to the king and his whole country. ⁴ They did not see what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, when he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. The Lord ruined them forever. ⁵ They did not see what he did for you in the desert until you arrived here. ⁶ They did not see what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the ground opened up and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and everyone who stood with them in Israel. ⁷ It was you who saw all these great things the Lord has done.

⁸ So obey all the commands I am giving you today so that you will be strong and can go in and take the land you are going to take as your own. ⁹ Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a fertile land. ¹⁰ The land you are going to take is not like Egypt, where you were. There you had to plant your seed and water it, like a vegetable garden, by using your feet. ¹¹ But the land that you will soon cross the Jordan River to take is a land of hills and valleys, a land that drinks rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land the Lord your God cares for. His eyes are on it continually, and he watches it from the beginning of the year to the end.

¹³ If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today and love the Lord your God and serve him with your whole being, ¹⁴ then he will send rain on your land at the right time, in the fall and spring, and you will be able to gather your grain, new wine, and oil. ¹⁵ He will put grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will have plenty to eat.

¹⁶ Be careful, or you will be fooled and will turn away to serve and worship other gods. ¹⁷ If you do, the Lord will become angry with you and will shut the heavens so it will not rain. Then the land will not grow crops, and you will soon die in the good land the Lord is giving you. ¹⁸ Remember my words with your whole being. Write them down and tie them to your hands as a sign; tie them on your foreheads to remind you. ¹⁹ Teach them well to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on your doors and gates ²¹ so that both you and your children will live a long time in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, as long as the skies are above the earth.

²² If you are careful to obey every command I am giving you to follow, and love the Lord your God, and do what he has told you to do, and are loyal to him, ²³ then the Lord will force all those nations out of the land ahead of you, and you will take the land from nations that are bigger and stronger than you. ²⁴ Everywhere you step will be yours. Your land will go from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵ No one will be able to stop you. The Lord your God will do what he promised and will make the people afraid everywhere you go.

²⁶ See, today I am letting you choose a blessing or a curse. ²⁷ You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ²⁸ But you will be cursed if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God. So do not disobey the commands I am giving you today, and do not worship other gods you do not know. ²⁹ When the Lord your God brings you into the land you will take as your own, you are to announce the blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal. ³⁰ (These mountains are on the other side of the Jordan River, to the west, toward the sunset. They are near the great trees of Moreh in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley opposite Gilgal.) ³¹ You will soon cross the Jordan River to enter and take the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and live there, ³² be careful to obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today.

The Place for Worship

12 These are the commands and laws you must carefully obey in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Obey them as long as you live in the land. ² When you inherit the lands of these nations, you must completely destroy all the places where they serve their gods, on high mountains and hills and under every green tree. ³ Tear down their altars, smash their holy stone pillars, and burn their Asherah idols in the fire. Cut down their idols and destroy their names from those places.

⁴ Don’t worship the Lord your God that way, ⁵ but look for the place the Lord your God will choose—a place among your tribes where he is to be worshiped. Go there, ⁶ and bring to that place your burnt offerings and sacrifices; bring a tenth of what you gain and your special gifts; bring what you have promised and the special gifts you want to give the Lord, and bring the first animals born to your herds and flocks.

⁷ There you will be together with the Lord your God. There you and your families will eat, and you will enjoy all the good things for which you have worked, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ Do not worship the way we have been doing today, each person doing what he thinks is right. ⁹ You have not yet come to a resting place, to the land the Lord your God will give you as your own. ¹⁰ But soon you will cross the Jordan River to live in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own, where he will give you rest from all your enemies and you will live in safety. ¹¹ Then the Lord your God will choose a place where he is to be worshiped. To that place you must bring everything I tell you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your offerings of a tenth of what you gain, your special gifts, and all your best things you promised to the Lord. ¹² There rejoice before the Lord your God. Everyone should rejoice: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no land of their own. ¹³ Be careful that you don’t sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you please. ¹⁴ Offer them only in the place the Lord will choose. He will choose a place in one of your tribes, and there you must do everything I am commanding you.

¹⁵ But you may kill your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were a deer or a gazelle; this is the blessing the Lord your God is giving you. Anyone, clean or unclean, may eat this meat, ¹⁶ but do not eat the blood. Pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ Do not eat in your own towns what belongs to the Lord: one-tenth of your grain, new wine, or oil; the first animals born to your herds or flocks; whatever you have promised to give; the special gifts you want to give to the Lord, or any other gifts. ¹⁸ Eat these things when you are together with the Lord your God, in the place the Lord your God chooses to be worshiped. Everyone must do this: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns. Rejoice in the Lord your God’s presence about the things you have worked for. ¹⁹ Be careful not to forget the Levites as long as you live in the land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God enlarges your country as he has promised, and you want some meat so you say, “I want some meat,” you may eat as much meat as you want. ²¹ If the Lord your God chooses a place where he is to be worshiped that is too far away from you, you may kill animals from your herds and flocks, which the Lord has given to you. I have commanded that you may do this. You may eat as much of them as you want in your own towns, ²² as you would eat gazelle or deer meat. Both clean and unclean people may eat this meat, ²³ but be sure you don’t eat the blood, because the life is in the blood. Don’t eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ Don’t eat the blood, but pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ If you don’t eat it, things will go well for you and your children, because you will be doing what the Lord says is right.

²⁶ Take your holy things and the things you have promised to give, and go to the place the Lord will choose. ²⁷ Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices should be poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. ²⁸ Be careful to obey all the rules I am giving you so that things will always go well for you and your children, and you will be doing what the Lord your God says is good and right.

²⁹ You will enter the land and take it away from the nations that the Lord your God will destroy ahead of you. When you force them out and live in their land, ³⁰ they will be destroyed for you, but be careful not to be trapped by asking about their gods. Don’t say, “How do these nations worship? I will do the same.” ³¹ Don’t worship the Lord your God that way, because the Lord hates the evil ways they worship their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods!

³² Be sure to do everything I have commanded you. Do not add anything to it, and do not take anything away from it.

False Prophets

13 Prophets or those who tell the future with dreams might come to you and say they will show you a miracle or a sign. ² The miracle or sign might even happen, and then they might say, “Let’s serve other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let’s worship them.” ³ But you must not listen to those prophets or dreamers. The Lord your God is testing you, to find out if you love him with your whole being. ⁴ Serve only the Lord your God. Respect him, keep his commands, and obey him. Serve him and be loyal to him. ⁵ The prophets or dreamers must be killed, because they said you should turn against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and saved you from the land where you were slaves. They tried to turn you from doing what the Lord your God commanded you to do. You must get rid of the evil among you.

⁶ Someone might try to lead you to serve other gods—it might be your brother, your son or daughter, the wife you love, or a close friend. The person might say, “Let’s go and worship other gods.” (These are gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, ⁷ gods of the people who live around you, either nearby or far away, from one end of the land to the other.) ⁸ Do not give in to such people. Do not listen or feel sorry for them, and do not let them go free or protect them. ⁹ You must put them to death. You must be the first one to start to kill them, and then everyone else must join in. ¹⁰ You must throw stones at them until they die, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. ¹¹ Then everyone in Israel will hear about this and be afraid, and no one among you will ever do such an evil thing again.

Cities to Destroy

¹² The Lord your God is giving you cities in which to live, and you might hear something about one of them. Someone might say ¹³ that evil people have moved in among you. And they might lead the people of that city away from God, saying, “Let’s go and worship other gods.” (These are gods you have not known.) ¹⁴ Then you must ask about it, looking into the matter and checking carefully whether it is true. If it is proved that a hateful thing has happened among you, ¹⁵ you must kill with a sword everyone who lives in that city. Destroy the city completely and kill everyone in it, as well as the animals, with a sword. ¹⁶ Gather up everything those people owned, and put it in the middle of the city square. Then completely burn the city and everything they owned as a burnt offering to the Lord your God. That city should never be rebuilt; let it be ruined forever. ¹⁷ Don’t keep for yourselves any of the things found in that city, so the Lord will not be angry anymore. He will give you mercy and feel sorry for you, and he will make your nation grow larger, as he promised to your ancestors. ¹⁸ You will have obeyed the Lord your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving to you today, and you will be doing what the Lord says is right.

God’s Special People

14 You are the children of the Lord your God. When someone dies, do not cut yourselves or shave your heads to show your sadness. ² You are holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on earth to be his very own.

³ Do not eat anything the Lord hates. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: oxen, sheep, goats, ⁵ deer, gazelle, roe deer, wild goats, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. ⁶ You may eat any animal that has a split hoof and chews the cud, ⁷ but you may not eat camels, rabbits, or rock badgers. These animals chew the cud, but they do not have split hoofs, so they are unclean for you. ⁸ Pigs are also unclean for you; they have split hoofs, but they do not chew the cud. Do not eat their meat or touch their dead bodies.

⁹ There are many things that live in the water. You may eat anything that has fins and scales, ¹⁰ but do not eat anything that does not have fins and scales. It is unclean for you.

¹¹ You may eat any clean bird. ¹² But do not eat these birds: eagles, vultures, black vultures, ¹³ red kites, falcons, any kind of kite, ¹⁴ any kind of raven, ¹⁵ horned owls, screech owls, sea gulls, any kind of hawk, ¹⁶ little owls, great owls, white owls, ¹⁷ desert owls, ospreys, cormorants, ¹⁸ storks, any kind of heron, the hoopoes, or bats.

¹⁹ All insects with wings are unclean for you; do not eat them. ²⁰ Other things with wings are clean, and you may eat them.

²¹ Do not eat anything you find that is already dead. You may give it to a foreigner living in your town, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. But you are holy people, who belong to the Lord your God.

Do not cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk.

Giving One-Tenth

²² Be sure to save one-tenth of all your crops each year. ²³ Take it to the place the Lord your God will choose where he is to be worshiped. There, where you will be together with the Lord, eat the tenth of your grain, new wine, and oil, and eat the animals born first to your herds and flocks. Do this so that you will learn to respect the Lord your God always. ²⁴ But if the place the Lord will choose to be worshiped is too far away and he has blessed you so much you cannot carry a tenth, ²⁵ exchange your one-tenth for silver. Then take the silver with you to the place the Lord your God shall choose. ²⁶ Use the silver to buy anything you wish—cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or anything you wish. Then you and your family will eat and celebrate there before the Lord your God. ²⁷ Do not forget the Levites in your town, because they have no land of their own among you.

²⁸ At the end of every third year, everyone should bring one-tenth of that year’s crop and store it in your towns. ²⁹ This is for the Levites so they may eat and be full. (They have no land of their own among you.) It is also for strangers, orphans, and widows who live in your towns so that all of them may eat and be full. Then the Lord your God will bless you and all the work you do.

The Special Seventh Year

15 At the end of every seven years, you must tell those who owe you anything that they do not have to pay you back. ² This is how you must do it: Everyone who has loaned money must cancel the loan and not make a neighbor or relative pay it back. This is the Lord’s time for canceling what people owe. ³ You may make a foreigner pay what is owed to you, but you must not collect what another Israelite owes you. ⁴ But there should be no poor people among you, because the Lord your God will richly bless you in the land he is giving you as your own. ⁵ He will bless you if you obey the Lord your God completely, but you must be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bless you as he promised, and you will lend to other nations, but you will not need to borrow from them. You will rule over many nations, but none will rule over you.

⁷ If there are poor among you, in one of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be selfish or greedy toward them. ⁸ But give freely to them, and freely lend them whatever they need. ⁹ Beware of evil thoughts. Don’t think, “The seventh year is near, the year to cancel what people owe.” You might be mean to the needy and not give them anything. Then they will complain to the Lord about you, and he will find you guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give freely to the poor person, and do not wish that you didn’t have to give. The Lord your God will bless your work and everything you touch. ¹¹ There will always be poor people in the land, so I command you to give freely to your neighbors and to the poor and needy in your land.

Letting Slaves Go Free

¹² If one of your own people sells himself to you as a slave, whether it is a Hebrew man or woman, that person will serve you for six years. But in the seventh year you must let the slave go free. ¹³ When you let slaves go, don’t send them away without anything. ¹⁴ Give them some of your flock, your grain, and your wine, giving to them as the Lord has given to you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord your God saved you. That is why I am commanding this to you today.

¹⁶ But if your slave says to you, “I don’t want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and has a good life with you, ¹⁷ stick an awl^[a] through his ear into the door; he will be your slave for life. Also do this to a female slave.

¹⁸ Do not think of it as a hard thing when you let your slaves go free. After all, they served you six years and did twice the work of a hired person. The Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

Rules About Firstborn Animals

¹⁹ Save all the first male animals born to your herds and flocks. They are for the Lord your God. Do not work the first calf born to your oxen, and do not cut off the wool from the first lamb born to your sheep. ²⁰ Each year you and your family are to eat these animals in the presence of the Lord your God, in the place he will choose to be worshiped. ²¹ If an animal is crippled or blind or has something else wrong, do not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. ²² But you may eat that animal in your own town. Both clean and unclean people may eat it, as they would eat a gazelle or a deer. ²³ But don’t eat its blood; pour it out on the ground like water.

The Passover

16 Celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God during the month of Abib, because it was during Abib that he brought you out of Egypt at night. ² As the sacrifice for the Passover to the Lord your God, offer an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose to be worshiped. ³ Do not eat it with bread made with yeast. But for seven days eat bread made without yeast, the bread of suffering, because you left Egypt in a hurry. So all your life you will remember the time you left Egypt. ⁴ There must be no yeast anywhere in your land for seven days. Offer the sacrifice on the evening of the first day, and eat all the meat before morning; do not leave it overnight.

⁵ Do not offer the Passover sacrifice in just any town the Lord your God gives you, ⁶ but offer it in the place he will choose to be worshiped. Offer it in the evening as the sun goes down, which is when you left Egypt. ⁷ Roast the meat and eat it at the place the Lord your God will choose. The next morning go back to your tents. ⁸ Eat bread made without yeast for six days. On the seventh day have a special meeting for the Lord your God, and do not work that day.

The Feast of Weeks

⁹ Count seven weeks from the time you begin to harvest the grain, ¹⁰ and then celebrate the Feast of Weeks for the Lord your God. Bring an offering as a special gift to him, giving to him just as he has blessed you. ¹¹ Rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose to be worshiped. Everybody should rejoice: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your town, the strangers, orphans, and widows living among you. ¹² Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and carefully obey all these laws.

The Feast of Shelters

¹³ Celebrate the Feast of Shelters for seven days, after you have gathered your harvest from the threshing floor and winepress. ¹⁴ Everybody should rejoice at your Feast: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. ¹⁵ Celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God for seven days at the place he will choose, because the Lord your God will bless all your harvest and all the work you do, and you will be completely happy.

¹⁶ All your men must come before the Lord three times a year to the place he will choose. They must come at these times: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Shelters. No man should come before the Lord without a gift. ¹⁷ Each of you must bring a gift that will show how much the Lord your God has blessed you.

Judges for the People

¹⁸ Appoint judges and officers for your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you; they must judge the people fairly. ¹⁹ Do not judge unfairly or take sides. Do not let people pay you to make wrong decisions, because that kind of payment makes wise people seem blind, and it changes the words of good people. ²⁰ Always do what is right so that you will live and always have the land the Lord your God is giving you.

God Hates Idols

²¹ Do not set up a wooden Asherah idol next to the altar you build for the Lord your God, ²² and do not set up holy stone pillars. The Lord your God hates them.

17 If an ox or sheep has something wrong with it, do not offer it as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. He would hate that.

² A man or woman in one of the towns the Lord gave you might be found doing something evil and breaking the Agreement. ³ That person may have served other gods and bowed down to them or to the sun or moon or stars of the sky, which I have commanded should not be done. ⁴ If someone has told you about it, you must look into the matter carefully. If it is true that such a hateful thing has happened in Israel, ⁵ take the man or woman who has done the evil thing to the city gates and throw stones at that person until he dies. ⁶ There must be two or three witnesses that it is true before the person is put to death; if there is only one witness, the person should not be put to death. ⁷ The witnesses must be the first to throw stones at the person, and then everyone else will follow. You must get rid of the evil among you.

Courts of Law

⁸ Some cases that come before you, such as murder, quarreling, or attack, may be too difficult to judge. Take these cases to the place the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ Go to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who is on duty at that time. Ask them about the case, and they will decide. ¹⁰ You must follow the decision they give you at the place the Lord your God will choose. Be careful to do everything they tell you. ¹¹ Follow the teachings they give you, and do whatever they decide, exactly as they tell you. ¹² The person who does not show respect for the judge or priest who is there serving the Lord your God must be put to death. You must get rid of that evil from Israel. ¹³ Then everyone will hear about this and will be afraid, and they will not show disrespect anymore.

Choosing a King

¹⁴ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, taking it as your own and living in it, you will say, “Let’s appoint a king over us like the nations all around us.” ¹⁵ Be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be one of your own people. Do not appoint as your king a foreigner who is not a fellow Israelite. ¹⁶ The king must not have too many horses for himself, and he must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because the Lord has told you, “Don’t return that way again.” ¹⁷ The king must not have many wives, or his heart will be led away from God. He must not have too much silver and gold.

¹⁸ When he becomes king, he should write a copy of the teachings on a scroll for himself, a copy taken from the priests and Levites. ¹⁹ He should keep it with him all the time and read from it every day of his life. Then he will learn to respect the Lord his God, and he will obey all the teachings and commands. ²⁰ He should not think he is better than his fellow Israelites, and he must not stop obeying the law in any way so that he and his descendants may rule the kingdom for a long time.

Shares for Priests and Levites

18 The priests are from the tribe of Levi, and that tribe will not receive a share of the land with the Israelites. They will eat the offerings made to the Lord by fire, which is their share. ² They will not inherit any of the land like their brothers, but they will inherit the Lord himself, as he has promised them.

³ When you offer a bull or sheep as a sacrifice, you must share with the priests, giving them the shoulder, the cheeks, and the inner organs. ⁴ Give them the first of your grain, new wine, and oil, as well as the first wool you cut from your sheep. ⁵ The Lord your God has chosen the priests and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and serve the Lord always.

⁶ If a Levite moves from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he lives and comes to the place the Lord will choose, because he wants to serve the Lord there, ⁷ he may serve the Lord his God. He will be like his fellow Levites who serve there before the Lord. ⁸ They all will have an equal share of the food. That is separate from what he has received from the sale of family possessions.

Do Not Follow Other Nations

⁹ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, don’t learn to do the hateful things the other nations do. ¹⁰ Don’t let anyone among you offer a son or daughter as a sacrifice in the fire. Don’t let anyone use magic or witchcraft, or try to explain the meaning of signs. ¹¹ Don’t let anyone try to control others with magic, and don’t let them be mediums or try to talk with the spirits of dead people. ¹² The Lord hates anyone who does these things. Because the other nations do these things, the Lord your God will force them out of the land ahead of you. ¹³ But you must be innocent in the presence of the Lord your God.

The Lord’s Special Prophet

¹⁴ The nations you will force out listen to people who use magic and witchcraft, but the Lord your God will not let you do those things. ¹⁵ The Lord your God will give you a prophet like me, who is one of your own people. Listen to him. ¹⁶ This is what you asked the Lord your God to do when you were gathered at Mount Sinai. You said, “Don’t make us listen to the voice of the Lord our God again, and don’t make us look at this terrible fire anymore, or we will die.”

¹⁷ So the Lord said to me, “What they have said is good. ¹⁸ So I will give them a prophet like you, who is one of their own people. I will tell him what to say, and he will tell them everything I command. ¹⁹ This prophet will speak for me; anyone who does not listen when he speaks will answer to me. ²⁰ But if a prophet says something I did not tell him to say as though he were speaking for me, or if a prophet speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must be killed.”

²¹ You might be thinking, “How can we know if a message is not from the Lord?” ²² If what a prophet says in the name of the Lord does not happen, it is not the Lord’s message. That prophet was speaking his own ideas. Don’t be afraid of him.

Cities of Safety

19 When the Lord your God gives you land that belongs to the other nations, nations that he will destroy, you will force them out and live in their cities and houses. ² Then choose three cities in the middle of the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own. ³ Build roads to these cities, and divide the land the Lord is giving you into three parts so that someone who kills another person may run to these cities.

⁴ This is the rule for someone who kills another person and runs to one of these cities in order to save his life. But the person must have killed a neighbor without meaning to, not out of hatred. ⁵ For example, suppose someone goes into the forest with a neighbor to cut wood and swings an ax to cut down a tree. If the ax head flies off the handle, hitting and killing the neighbor, the one who killed him may run to one of these cities to save his life. ⁶ Otherwise, the dead person’s relative who has the duty of punishing a murderer might be angry and chase him. If the city is far away, the relative might catch and kill the person, even though he should not be killed because there was no intent to kill his neighbor. ⁷ This is why I command you to choose these three cities.

^8-9 Carefully obey all these laws I’m giving you today. Love the Lord your God, and always do what he wants you to do. Then the Lord your God will enlarge your land as he promised your ancestors, giving you the whole land he promised to them. After that, choose three more cities of safety ¹⁰ so that innocent people will not be killed in your land, the land that the Lord your God is giving you as your own. By doing this you will not be guilty of allowing the death of innocent people.

¹¹ But if a person hates his neighbor and, after hiding and waiting, attacks and kills him and then runs to one of these cities for safety, ¹² the elders of his own city should send for the murderer. They should bring the person back from the city of safety and hand him over to the relative who has the duty of punishing the murderer. ¹³ Show no mercy. You must remove from Israel the guilt of murdering innocent people so that things will go well for you.

¹⁴ Do not move the stone that marks the border of your neighbor’s land, which people long ago set in place. It marks what you inherit in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own.

Rules About Witnesses

¹⁵ One witness is not enough to accuse a person of a crime or sin. A case must be proved by two or three witnesses.

¹⁶ If a witness lies and accuses a person of a crime, ¹⁷ the two people who are arguing must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and judges who are on duty. ¹⁸ The judges must check the matter carefully. The witness who is a liar, lying about a fellow Israelite, ¹⁹ must be punished. He must be punished in the same way the other person would have been punished. You must get rid of the evil among you. ²⁰ The rest of the people will hear about this and be afraid, and no one among you will ever do such an evil thing again. ²¹ Show no mercy. A life must be paid for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.

Laws for War

20 When you go to war against your enemies and you see horses and chariots and an army that is bigger than yours, don’t be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, will be with you. ² The priest must come and speak to the army before you go into battle. ³ He will say, “Listen, Israel! Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Don’t lose your courage or be afraid. Don’t panic or be frightened, ⁴ because the Lord your God goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies and to save you.”

⁵ The officers should say to the army, “Has anyone built a new house but not given it to God? He may go home, because he might die in battle and someone else would get to give his house to God. ⁶ Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? He may go home, because he might die in battle and someone else would enjoy his vineyard. ⁷ Is any man engaged to a woman and not yet married to her? He may go home, because he might die in battle and someone else would marry her.” ⁸ Then the officers should also say, “Is anyone here afraid? Has anyone lost his courage? He may go home so that he will not cause others to lose their courage, too.” ⁹ When the officers finish speaking to the army, they should appoint commanders to lead it.

¹⁰ When you march up to attack a city, first make them an offer of peace. ¹¹ If they accept your offer and open their gates to you, all the people of that city will become your slaves and work for you. ¹² But if they do not make peace with you and fight you in battle, you should surround that city. ¹³ The Lord your God will give it to you. Then kill all the men with your swords, ¹⁴ and you may take everything else in the city for yourselves. Take the women, children, and animals, and you may use these things the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. ¹⁵ Do this to all the cities that are far away, that do not belong to the nations nearby.

¹⁶ But leave nothing alive in the cities of the land the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁷ Completely destroy these people: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded. ¹⁸ Otherwise, they will teach you what they do for their gods, and if you do these hateful things, you will sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ If you surround and attack a city for a long time, trying to capture it, do not destroy its trees with an ax. You can eat the fruit from the trees, but do not cut them down. These trees are not the enemy, so don’t make war against them. ²⁰ But you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build devices to attack the city walls, until the city is captured.

A Person Found Murdered

21 Suppose someone is found murdered, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own, and no one knows who killed the person. ² Your elders and judges should go to where the body was found, and they should measure how far it is to the nearby cities. ³ The elders of the city nearest the body must take a young cow that has never worked or worn a yoke, ⁴ and they must lead her down to a valley that has never been plowed or planted, with a stream flowing through it. There they must break the young cow’s neck. ⁵ The priests, the sons of Levi, should come forward, because they have been chosen by the Lord your God to serve him and to give blessings in the Lord’s name. They are the ones who decide cases of quarreling and attacks. ⁶ Then all the elders of the city nearest the murdered person should wash their hands over the young cow whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ They should declare: “We did not kill this person, and we did not see it happen. ⁸ Lord, remove this sin from your people Israel, whom you have saved. Don’t blame your people, the Israelites, for the murder of this innocent person.” And so the murder will be paid for. ⁹ Then you will have removed from yourselves the guilt of murdering an innocent person, because you will be doing what the Lord says is right.

Captive Women as Wives

¹⁰ When you go to war against your enemies, the Lord will help you defeat them so that you will take them captive. ¹¹ If you see a beautiful woman among the captives and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. ¹² Bring her into your home, where she must shave her head and cut her nails ¹³ and change the clothes she was wearing when you captured her. After she has lived in your house and cried for her parents for a month, you may marry her. You will be her husband, and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ But if you are not pleased with her, you must let her go anywhere she wants. You must not sell her for money or make her a slave, because you have taken away her honor.

The Oldest Son

¹⁵ A man might have two wives, one he loves and one he doesn’t. Both wives might have sons by him. If the older son belongs to the wife he does not love, ¹⁶ when that man wills his property to his sons he must not give the son of the wife he loves what belongs to the older son, the son of the wife he does not love. ¹⁷ He must agree to give the older son two shares of everything he owns, even though the older son is from the wife he does not love. That son was the first to prove his father could have children, so he has the rights that belong to the older son.

Sons Who Refuse to Obey

¹⁸ If someone has a son who is stubborn, who turns against his father and mother and doesn’t obey them or listen when they correct him, ¹⁹ his parents must take him to the elders at the city gate. ²⁰ They will say to the elders, “Our son is stubborn and turns against us. He will not obey us. He eats too much, and he is always drunk.” ²¹ Then all the men in his town must throw stones at him until he dies. Get rid of the evil among you, because then all the people of Israel will hear about this and be afraid.

Other Laws

²² If someone is guilty of a sin worthy of death, he must be put to death and his body displayed on a tree. ²³ But don’t leave his body hanging on the tree overnight; be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone whose body is displayed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not ruin the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own.

22 If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep wandering away, don’t ignore it. Take it back to its owner. ² If the owner does not live close to you, or if you do not know who the owner is, take the animal home with you. Keep it until the owner comes looking for it; then give it back. ³ Do the same thing if you find a donkey or coat or anything someone lost. Don’t just ignore it.

⁴ If you see your fellow Israelite’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, don’t ignore it. Help the owner get it up.

⁵ A woman must not wear men’s clothes, and a man must not wear women’s clothes. The Lord your God hates anyone who does that.

⁶ If you find a bird’s nest by the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother bird is sitting on the young birds or eggs, do not take the mother bird with the young birds. ⁷ You may take the young birds, but you must let the mother bird go free. Then things will go well for you, and you will live a long time.

⁸ When you build a new house, build a low wall around the edge of the roof^[b] so you will not be guilty if someone falls off the roof.

⁹ Don’t plant two different kinds of seeds in your vineyard. Otherwise, both crops will be ruined.

¹⁰ Don’t plow with an ox and a donkey tied together.

¹¹ Don’t wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together.

¹² Tie several pieces of thread together; then put these tassels on the four corners of your coat.

Marriage Laws

¹³ If a man marries a girl and has sexual relations with her but then decides he does not like her, ¹⁴ he might talk badly about her and give her a bad name. He might say, “I married this woman, but when I had sexual relations with her, I did not find that she was a virgin.” ¹⁵ Then the girl’s parents must bring proof that she was a virgin to the elders at the city gate. ¹⁶ The girl’s father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, but now he does not want her. ¹⁷ This man has told lies about my daughter. He has said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin,’ but here is the proof that my daughter was a virgin.” Then her parents are to show the sheet to the elders of the city, ¹⁸ and the elders must take the man and punish him. ¹⁹ They must make him pay about two and one-half pounds of silver to the girl’s father, because the man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. The girl will continue to be the man’s wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰ But if the things the husband said about his wife are true, and there is no proof that she was a virgin, ²¹ the girl must be brought to the door of her father’s house. Then the men of the town must put her to death by throwing stones at her. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by having sexual relations before she was married. You must get rid of the evil among you.

²² If a man is found having sexual relations with another man’s wife, both the woman and the man who had sexual relations with her must die. Get rid of this evil from Israel.

²³ If a man meets a virgin in a city and has sexual relations with her, but she is engaged to another man, ²⁴ you must take both of them to the city gate and put them to death by throwing stones at them. Kill the girl, because she was in a city and did not scream for help. And kill the man for having sexual relations with another man’s wife. You must get rid of the evil among you.

²⁵ But if a man meets an engaged girl out in the country and forces her to have sexual relations with him, only the man who had sexual relations with her must be put to death. ²⁶ Don’t do anything to the girl, because she has not done a sin worthy of death. This is like the person who attacks and murders a neighbor; ²⁷ the man found the engaged girl in the country and she screamed, but no one was there to save her.

²⁸ If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged to be married and forces her to have sexual relations with him and people find out about it, ²⁹ the man must pay the girl’s father about one and one-fourth pounds of silver. He must also marry the girl, because he has dishonored her, and he may never divorce her for as long as he lives.

³⁰ A man must not marry his father’s wife; he must not dishonor his father in this way.

The Lord’s People

23 No man who has had part of his sex organ cut off may come into the meeting to worship the Lord.

² No one born to parents who were forbidden by law to marry may come into the meeting to worship the Lord. The descendants for ten generations may not come in either.

³ No Ammonite or Moabite may come into the meeting to worship the Lord, and none of their descendants for ten generations may come in. ⁴ This is because the Ammonites and Moabites did not give you bread and water when you came out of Egypt. And they hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor in Northwest Mesopotamia, to put a curse on you. ⁵ But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam. He turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶ Don’t wish for their peace or success as long as you live.

⁷ Don’t hate Edomites; they are your close relatives. Don’t hate Egyptians, because you were foreigners in their country. ⁸ The great-grandchildren of these two peoples may come into the meeting to worship the Lord.

Keeping the Camp Clean

⁹ When you are camped in time of war, keep away from unclean things. ¹⁰ If a man becomes unclean during the night, he must go outside the camp and not come back. ¹¹ But when evening comes, he must wash himself, and at sunset he may come back into the camp.