The Daily Audio Bible
Today's audio is from the NRSVUE. Switch to the NRSVUE to read along with the audio.
21 If one is found slain in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has killed him,
2 Then your elders and judges shall come forth and measure the distance to the cities around him who is slain.
3 And the city which is nearest to the slain man, the elders of that city shall take a heifer which has never been worked, never 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 near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name [and presence] of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every assault 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 have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
8 Forgive, O Lord, Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not allow the shedding of innocent blood to be charged to Your people Israel. And the guilt of blood shall be forgiven them.
9 So shall you purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.
10 When you go forth to battle against your enemies and the Lord your God has given them into your hands and you carry them away captive,
11 And you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her, that you may have her as your wife,
12 Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails [in purification from heathenism]
13 And put off her prisoner’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 And if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go absolutely free. You shall not sell her at all for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave or a servant, because you have humbled her.
15 If a man has two wives, one loved and the other disliked, and they both have borne him children, and if the firstborn son is the son of the one who is disliked,
16 Then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he shall not put the firstborn of his loved wife in place of the [actual] firstborn of the disliked wife—her firstborn being older.
17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the disliked as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he was the first issue of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or his mother and though they chasten him will not listen to them,
19 Then his father and 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 son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.(A)
21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall cleanse out the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and [reverently] fear.
22 And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death and [afterward] you hang him on a tree,(B)
23 His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God. Thus you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.(C)
22 You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep being driven away or stolen, and hide yourself from [your duty to help] them; you shall surely take them back to your brother.(D)
2 And if your brother [the owner] is not near you or if you do not know who he is, you shall bring the animal to your house and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it; then you shall restore it to him.
3 And so shall you do with his donkey or his garment or with anything which your brother has lost and you have found. You shall not hide from [your duty concerning] them.
4 You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down by the way, and hide from [your duty concerning] them; you shall surely help him to lift them up again.
5 The woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.
6 If a bird’s nest should chance to be before you in the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother bird with the young.
7 You shall surely let the mother bird go, and take only the young, that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.
8 When you build a new house, then you shall put a railing around your [flat] roof, so that no one may fall from there and bring guilt of blood upon your house.
9 You shall not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole crop be forfeited [under this ban], the seed which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard forfeited to the sanctuary.
10 You shall not plow with an ox [a clean animal] and a donkey [unclean] together.(E)
11 You shall not wear a garment of mingled stuff, wool and linen together.(F)
12 You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.(G)
13 If any man takes a wife and goes in to her, and then scorns her
14 And charges her with shameful things and gives her an evil reputation, and says, I took this woman, but when I came to her, I did not find in her the tokens of a virgin,
15 Then the father of the young woman, and her mother, shall get and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.
16 And her father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man as wife, but he hates and spurns her;
17 And behold, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, I found not in your daughter the evidences of her 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 And the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke and whip him.
19 And they shall fine him 100 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 divorce her all his days.
20 But if it is true that the evidences of virginity were not found in the young woman,
21 Then they shall bring her to the door of her father’s house and the men of her city shall stone her to death, because she has wrought [criminal] folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23 If a maiden who is a virgin is engaged to be married, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her,
24 Then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and shall stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So shall you put away evil from among you.
25 But if a man finds the betrothed maiden in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.
26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin punishable by death, for this is as when a man attacks and slays his neighbor,
27 For he came upon her in the open country, and the betrothed girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found,
29 Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not divorce her all his days.
30 A man shall not take his father’s former wife, nor shall he uncover her who belongs to his father.
51 Now when the time was almost come for Jesus to be received up [to heaven], He steadfastly and determinedly set His face to go to Jerusalem.
52 And He sent messengers before Him; and they reached and entered a Samaritan village to make [things] ready for Him;
53 But [the people] would not welcome or receive or accept Him, because His face was [set as if He was] going to Jerusalem.
54 And when His disciples James and John observed this, they said, Lord, do You wish us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, [a]even as Elijah did?(A)
55 But He turned and rebuked and severely censured them. [b]He said, You do not know of what sort of spirit you are,
56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them [c][from the penalty of eternal death]. And they journeyed on to another village.
57 And it occurred that as they were going along the road, a man said to Him, Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.
58 And Jesus told him, Foxes have lurking holes and the birds of the air have roosts and nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.
59 And He said to another, [d]Become My disciple, side with My party, and accompany Me! But he replied, Lord, permit me first to go and bury ([e]await the death of) my father.
60 But Jesus said to him, Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and publish abroad [f]throughout all regions the kingdom of God.
61 Another also said, I will follow You, Lord, and become Your disciple and side with Your party; but let me first say good-bye to those at my home.
62 Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back [to the things behind] is fit for the kingdom of God.
10 Now after this the Lord chose and appointed seventy others and sent them out ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to come (visit).
2 And He said to them, The harvest indeed is abundant [[g]there is much ripe grain], but the farmhands are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
3 Go your way; behold, I send you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
4 Carry no purse, no provisions bag, no [change of] sandals; refrain from [retarding your journey by] saluting and wishing anyone well along the way.
5 Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this household! [[h]Freedom from all the distresses that result from sin be with this family].
6 And if anyone [worthy] of peace and blessedness is there, the peace and blessedness you wish shall come upon him; but if not, it shall come back to you.
7 And stay on in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house.(B)
8 Whenever you go into a town and they receive and accept and welcome you, eat what is set before you;
9 And heal the sick in it and say to them, The kingdom of God has come close to you.
10 But whenever you go into a town and they do not receive and accept and welcome you, go out into its streets and say,
11 Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we are wiping off against you; yet know and understand this: the kingdom of God has come near you.
12 I tell you, it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that town.(C)
Psalm 74
A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.
1 O God, why do You cast us off forever? Why does Your anger burn and smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
2 [Earnestly] remember Your congregation which You have acquired of old, which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your heritage; remember Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.
3 Direct Your feet [quickly] to the perpetual ruins and desolations; the foe has devastated and desecrated everything in the sanctuary.
4 In the midst of Your Holy Place Your enemies have roared [with their battle cry]; they set up their own [idol] emblems for signs [of victory].
5 They seemed like men who lifted up axes upon a thicket of trees to make themselves a record.
6 And then all the carved wood of the Holy Place they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They have set Your sanctuary on fire; they have profaned the dwelling place of Your [a]Name by casting it to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, Let us make havoc [of such places] altogether. They have burned up all God’s meetinghouses in the land.
9 We do not see our symbols; there is no longer any prophet, neither does any among us know for how long.
10 O God, how long is the adversary to scoff and reproach? Is the enemy to blaspheme and revile Your name forever?
11 Why do You hold back Your hand, even Your right hand? Draw it out of Your bosom and consume them [make an end of them]!
12 Yet God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You did divide the [Red] Sea by Your might; You broke the heads of the [Egyptian] dragons in the waters.(A)
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan (Egypt); You did give him as food for the creatures inhabiting the wilderness.
15 You did cleave open [the rock bringing forth] fountains and streams; You dried up mighty, ever-flowing rivers (the Jordan).(B)
16 The day is Yours, the night also is Yours; You have established the [starry] light and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the borders of the earth [the divisions of land and sea and of the nations]; You have made summer and winter.(C)
18 [Earnestly] remember how the enemy has scoffed, O Lord, and reproached You, and how a foolish and impious people has blasphemed Your name.
19 Oh, do not deliver the life of your turtledove to the wild beast (to the greedy multitude); forget not the life [of the multitude] of Your poor forever.
20 Have regard for the covenant [You made with Abraham], for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Oh, let not the downtrodden return in shame; let the oppressed and needy praise Your name.
22 Arise, O God, plead Your own cause; remember [earnestly] how the foolish and impious man scoffs and reproaches You day after day and all day long.
23 Do not forget the [clamoring] voices of Your adversaries, the tumult of those who rise up against You, which ascends continually.
11 He who tills his land shall be satisfied with bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits is lacking in sense and is without understanding.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation