Bible in 90 Days

A Warning Not to Forget God in Prosperity

8 “All the commandment which I command you this day you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. ² And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. ³ And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out upon you, and your foot did not swell, these forty years. ⁵ Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. ⁶ So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, ⁹ a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ¹⁰ And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

¹¹ “Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God, by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes, which I command you this day: ¹² lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, ¹⁶ who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. ¹⁷ Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ ¹⁸ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth; that he may confirm his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as at this day. ¹⁹ And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you this day that you shall surely perish. ²⁰ Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

The Consequences of Rebelling against God

9 “Hear, O Israel; you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, ² a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ ³ Know therefore this day that he who goes over before you as a devouring fire is the Lord your God; he will destroy them and subdue them before you; so you shall drive them out, and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

⁴ “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. ⁵ Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶ “Know therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. ⁷ Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you came out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ And the Lord gave me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.’

¹³ “Furthermore the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people; ¹⁴ let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ ¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸ Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin which you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me that time also. ²⁰ And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹ Then I took the sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the mountain.

²² “At Tab′erah also, and at Massah, and at Kib′roth-hatta′avah, you provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³ And when the Lord sent you from Ka′desh-bar′nea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him or obey his voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

²⁵ “So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. ²⁶ And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thy heritage, whom thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which thou didst bring us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.” ²⁹ For they are thy people and thy heritage, whom thou didst bring out by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm.’

The Second Pair of Tablets

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Hew two tables of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. ² And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ ³ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tables in my hand. ⁴ And he wrote on the tables, as at the first writing, the ten commandments^[a] which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

⁶ (The people of Israel journeyed from Be-er′oth Bene-ja′akan^[b] to Mose′rah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and his son Elea′zar ministered as priest in his stead. ⁷ From there they journeyed to Gud′godah, and from Gud′godah to Jot′bathah, a land with brooks of water. ⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day. ⁹ Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

¹⁰ “I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord hearkened to me that time also; the Lord was unwilling to destroy you. ¹¹ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

The Essence of the Law

¹² “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I command you this day for your good? ¹⁴ Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it; ¹⁵ yet the Lord set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day. ¹⁶ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. ¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve him and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear. ²¹ He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.

Rewards for Obedience

11 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments always. ² And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline^[c] of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³ his signs and his deeds which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; ⁴ and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵ and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; ⁶ and what he did to Dathan and Abi′ram the sons of Eli′ab, son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel; ⁷ for your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which he did.

⁸ “You shall therefore keep all the commandment which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land which you are going over to possess, ⁹ and that you may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of vegetables; ¹¹ but the land which you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹² a land which the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³ “And if you will obey my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ he^[d] will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. ¹⁵ And he^[e] will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be full. ¹⁶ Take heed lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, ¹⁷ and the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and he shut up the heavens, so that there be no rain, and the land yield no fruit, and you perish quickly off the good land which the Lord gives you.

¹⁸ “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ²⁰ And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates, ²¹ that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. ²² For if you will be careful to do all this commandment which I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and cleaving to him, ²³ then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. ²⁴ Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours; your territory shall be from the wilderness and Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphra′tes, to the western sea. ²⁵ No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.

²⁶ “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day, ²⁸ and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹ And when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Ger′izim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰ Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oak^[f] of Moreh? ³¹ For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land which the Lord your God gives you; and when you possess it and live in it, ³² you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day.

Pagan Shrines to Be Destroyed

12 “These are the statutes and ordinances which you shall be careful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live upon the earth. ² You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree; ³ you shall tear down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Ashe′rim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place. ⁴ You shall not do so to the Lord your God. ⁵ But you shall seek the place which the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there; thither you shall go, ⁶ and thither you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering that you present, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock; ⁷ and there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you. ⁸ You shall not do according to all that we are doing here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; ⁹ for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁰ But when you go over the Jordan, and live in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live in safety, ¹¹ then to the place which the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, thither you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering that you present, and all your votive offerings which you vow to the Lord. ¹² And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. ¹³ Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see; ¹⁴ but at the place which the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.

A Prescribed Place of Worship

¹⁵ “However, you may slaughter and eat flesh within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the hart. ¹⁶ Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water. ¹⁷ You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or of your flock, or any of your votive offerings which you vow, or your freewill offerings, or the offering that you present; ¹⁸ but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your towns; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. ¹⁹ Take heed that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land.

²⁰ “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat flesh,’ because you crave flesh, you may eat as much flesh as you desire. ²¹ If the place which the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your towns as much as you desire. ²² Just as the gazelle or the hart is eaten, so you may eat of it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. ²³ Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. ²⁴ You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water. ²⁵ You shall not eat it; that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. ²⁶ But the holy things which are due from you, and your votive offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place which the Lord will choose, ²⁷ and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. ²⁸ Be careful to heed all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you for ever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹ “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, ³⁰ take heed that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do likewise.’ ³¹ You shall not do so to the Lord your God; for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

^32 [g] “Everything that I command you you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from it.

13 “If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or wonder which he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ ³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and cleave to him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

⁶ “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, ⁷ some of the gods of the peoples that are round about you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, ⁸ you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him; ⁹ but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. ¹¹ And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

¹² “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to dwell there, ¹³ that certain base fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of the city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, ¹⁴ then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently; and behold, if it be true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you, ¹⁵ you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, destroying it utterly, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square, and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God; it shall be a heap for ever, it shall not be built again. ¹⁷ None of the devoted things shall cleave to your hand; that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show you mercy, and have compassion on you, and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, ¹⁸ if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments which I command you this day, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.

Pagan Practices Forbidden

14 “You are the sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. ² For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.

Clean and Unclean Foods

³ “You shall not eat any abominable thing. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the hart, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain-sheep. ⁶ Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. ⁷ Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: The camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you. ⁸ And the swine, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcases you shall not touch.

⁹ “Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: Whatever has fins and scales you may eat. ¹⁰ And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.

¹¹ “You may eat all clean birds. ¹² But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, ¹³ the buzzard, the kite, after their kinds; ¹⁴ every raven after its kind; ¹⁵ the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk, after their kinds; ¹⁶ the litle owl and the great owl, the water hen ¹⁷ and the pelican, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, ¹⁸ the stork, the heron, after their kinds; the hoopoe and the bat. ¹⁹ And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. ²⁰ All clean winged things you may eat.

²¹ “You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

“You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

Regulations concerning Tithes

²² “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth from the field year by year. ²³ And before the Lord your God, in the place which he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstlings of your herd and flock; that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. ²⁴ And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to bring the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, ²⁵ then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, ²⁶ and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. ²⁷ And you shall not forsake the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

²⁸ “At the end of every three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in the same year, and lay it up within your towns; ²⁹ and the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

Laws concerning the Sabbatical Year

15 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. ² And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. ³ Of a foreigner you may exact it; but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. ⁴ But there will be no poor among you (for the Lord will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess), ⁵ if only you will obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment which I command you this day. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.

⁷ “If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, ⁸ but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. ⁹ Take heed lest there be a base thought in your heart, and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye be hostile to your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and it be sin in you. ¹⁰ You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him; because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. ¹¹ For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.

¹² “If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. ¹³ And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed; ¹⁴ you shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press; as the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. ¹⁵ You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. ¹⁶ But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you, ¹⁷ then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your bondman for ever. And to your bondwoman you shall do likewise. ¹⁸ It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for at half the cost of a hired servant he has served you six years. So the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

The Firstborn of Livestock

¹⁹ “All the firstling males that are born of your herd and flock you shall consecrate to the Lord your God; you shall do no work with the firstling of your herd, nor shear the firstling of your flock. ²⁰ You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place which the Lord will choose. ²¹ But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind, or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. ²² You shall eat it within your towns; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a hart. ²³ Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

The Passover Reviewed

16 “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover to the Lord your God; for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. ² And you shall offer the passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place which the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. ³ You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in hurried flight—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. ⁴ No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days; nor shall any of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. ⁵ You may not offer the passover sacrifice within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you; ⁶ but at the place which the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the passover sacrifice, in the evening at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷ And you shall boil it and eat it at the place which the Lord your God will choose; and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. ⁸ For six days you shall eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work on it.

The Festival of Weeks Reviewed

⁹ “You shall count seven weeks; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain. ¹⁰ Then you shall keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you; ¹¹ and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place which the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. ¹² You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

The Festival of Booths Reviewed

¹³ “You shall keep the feast of booths seven days, when you make your ingathering from your threshing floor and your wine press; ¹⁴ you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. ¹⁵ For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place which the Lord will choose; because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

¹⁶ “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose: at the feast of unleavened bread, at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed; ¹⁷ every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you.

Municipal Judges and Officers

¹⁸ “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹ You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality; and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. ²⁰ Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you.

Forbidden Forms of Worship

²¹ “You shall not plant any tree as an Ashe′rah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make. ²² And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

17 “You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever; for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

² “If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, ³ and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, ⁴ and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in Israel, ⁵ then you shall bring forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. ⁶ On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. ⁷ The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

Legal Decisions by Priests and Judges

⁸ “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns which is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God will choose, ⁹ and coming to the Levitical priests, and to the judge who is in office in those days, you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. ¹⁰ Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place which the Lord will choose; and you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you; ¹¹ according to the instructions which they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the verdict which they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. ¹² The man who acts presumptuously, by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people shall hear, and fear, and not act presumptuously again.

Limitations of Royal Authority

¹⁴ “When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me’; ¹⁵ you may indeed set as king over you him whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. ¹⁶ Only he must not multiply horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ ¹⁷ And he shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply for himself silver and gold.

¹⁸ “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, from that which is in charge of the Levitical priests; ¹⁹ and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them; ²⁰ that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left; so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

Privileges of Priests and Levites

18 “The Levitical priests, that is, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings by fire to the Lord, and his rightful dues. ² They shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. ³ And this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. ⁴ The first fruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. ⁵ For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for ever.

⁶ “And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires—to the place which the Lord will choose, ⁷ then he may minister in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord. ⁸ They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.^[h]

Child-Sacrifice, Divination, and Magic Prohibited

⁹ “When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,^[i] any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. ¹² For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord; and because of these abominable practices the Lord your God is driving them out before you. ¹³ You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do.

A New Prophet Like Moses

¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed— ¹⁶ just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷ And the Lord said to me, ‘They have rightly said all that they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. ²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.

Laws concerning the Cities of Refuge

19 “When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God gives you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, ² you shall set apart three cities for you in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess. ³ You shall prepare the roads, and divide into three parts the area of the land which the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

⁴ “This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If any one kills his neighbor unintentionally without having been at enmity with him in time past— ⁵ as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and save his life; ⁶ lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and wound him mortally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he was not at enmity with his neighbor in time past. ⁷ Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities. ⁸ And if the Lord your God enlarges your border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers— ⁹ provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three other cities to these three, ¹⁰ lest innocent blood be shed in your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

¹¹ “But if any man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and attacks him, and wounds him mortally so that he dies, and the man flees into one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. ¹³ Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood^[j] from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

Property Boundaries

¹⁴ “In the inheritance which you will hold in the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess, you shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set.

Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ “A single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed; only on the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained. ¹⁶ If a malicious witness rises against any man to accuse him of wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days; ¹⁸ the judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, ¹⁹ then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you. ²⁰ And the rest shall hear, and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. ²¹ Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Rules of Warfare

20 “When you go forth to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. ² And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people, ³ and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you draw near this day to battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint; do not fear, or tremble, or be in dread of them; ⁴ for the Lord your God is he that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ ⁵ Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘What man is there that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶ And what man is there that has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. ⁷ And what man is there that has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’ ⁸ And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest the heart of his fellows melt as his heart.’ ⁹ And when the officers have made an end of speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people.

¹⁰ “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. ¹¹ And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. ¹² But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; ¹³ and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, ¹⁴ but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. ¹⁶ But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, ¹⁷ but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded; ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field men that they should be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

Law concerning Murder by Persons Unknown

21 “If in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, any one is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, ² then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance to the cities which are around him that is slain; ³ and the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer which has never been worked and which has not pulled in the yoke. ⁴ And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ And the priests the sons of Levi shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled. ⁶ And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; ⁷ and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, neither did our eyes see it shed. ⁸ Forgive, O Lord, thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of thy people Israel; but let the guilt of blood be forgiven them.’ ⁹ So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

Female Captives

¹⁰ “When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hands, and you take them captive, ¹¹ and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife, ¹² then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails. ¹³ And she shall put off her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ Then, if you have no delight in her, you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

The Right of the Firstborn

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other disliked, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the disliked, and if the first-born son is hers that is disliked, ¹⁶ then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the first-born in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the first-born, ¹⁷ but he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of the disliked, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the first issue of his strength; the right of the first-born is his.

A Rebellious Son

¹⁸ “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, ¹⁹ then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, ²⁰ and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Miscellaneous Laws

²² “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ²³ his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.

22 “You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and withhold your help^[k] from them; you shall take them back to your brother. ² And if he is not near you, or if you do not know him, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him. ³ And so you shall do with his ass; so you shall do with his garment; so you shall do with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not withhold your help. ⁴ You shall not see your brother’s ass or his ox fallen down by the way, and withhold your help^[l] from them; you shall help him to lift them up again.

⁵ “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.

⁶ “If you chance to come upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; ⁷ you shall let the mother go, but the young you may take to yourself; that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.

⁸ “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if any one fall from it.

⁹ “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited to the sanctuary,^[m] the crop which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard. ¹⁰ You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together. ¹¹ You shall not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together.

¹² “You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.

Laws concerning Sexual Relations

¹³ “If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her, ¹⁴ and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings an evil name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her the tokens of virginity,’ ¹⁵ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate; ¹⁶ and the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he spurns her; ¹⁷ and lo, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, “I did not find in your daughter the tokens of virginity.” And yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him; ¹⁹ and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. ²⁰ But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, ²¹ then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

²² “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from Israel.

²³ “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, ²⁴ then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

²⁵ “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. ²⁶ But to the young woman you shall do nothing; in the young woman there is no offense punishable by death, for this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor; ²⁷ because he came upon her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.

²⁸ “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, ²⁹ then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not put her away all his days.

^30 [n] “A man shall not take his father’s wife, nor shall he uncover her who is his father’s.^[o]

Those Excluded from the Assembly

23 “He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.

² “No bastard shall enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

³ “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none belonging to them shall enter the assembly of the Lord for ever; ⁴ because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Be′or from Pethor of Mesopota′mia, to curse you. ⁵ Nevertheless the Lord your God would not hearken to Balaam; but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you. ⁶ You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days for ever.

⁷ “You shall not abhor an E′domite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. ⁸ The children of the third generation that are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

Sanitary, Ritual, and Humanitarian Precepts

⁹ “When you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

¹⁰ “If there is among you any man who is not clean by reason of what chances to him by night, then he shall go outside the camp, he shall not come within the camp; ¹¹ but when evening comes on, he shall bathe himself in water, and when the sun is down, he may come within the camp.