Deuteronomy 5:1-26:19

Other Translations of Deuteronomy 5:1-26:19

King James Version

The Ten Commandments

5¹ And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, keep...: Heb. keep to do them and do them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. ³ The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. ⁴ The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, ⁵ (I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to shew you the word of the Lord: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;) saying,

⁶ I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. bondage: Heb. servants ⁷ Thou shalt have none other gods before me. ⁸ Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: ⁹ Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, ¹⁰ And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. ¹¹ Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. ¹² Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. ¹³ Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: ¹⁴ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. ¹⁵ And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. ¹⁶ Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ¹⁷ Thou shalt not kill. ¹⁸ Neither shalt thou commit adultery. ¹⁹ Neither shalt thou steal. ²⁰ Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. ²¹ Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.

The People's Fear

²² These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.

²³ And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; ²⁴ And ye said, Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. ²⁵ Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear hear: Heb. add to hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die. ²⁶ For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? ²⁷ Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it. ²⁸ And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. ²⁹ O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! ³⁰ Go say to them, Get you into your tents again. ³¹ But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it. ³² Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. ³³ Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.

The Great Commandment

6¹ Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go go: Heb. pass over to possess it: ² That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. ³ Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: ⁵ And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. ⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: ⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. ⁸ And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. ⁹ And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Warnings against Disobedience

¹⁰ And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, ¹¹ And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; ¹² Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. bondage: Heb. bondmen or, servants ¹³ Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. ¹⁴ Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; ¹⁵ (For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. ¹⁶ Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

¹⁷ Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. ¹⁸ And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, ¹⁹ To cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the Lord hath spoken. ²⁰ And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? ²¹ Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: ²² And the Lord shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, sore: Heb. evil upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: ²³ And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. ²⁴ And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. ²⁵ And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.

Israel Warned of the Idolatry of Canaan

7¹ When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; ² And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: ³ Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. ⁴ For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. ⁵ But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, their images: Heb. their statues, or, pillars and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

A Holy People to the LORD

⁶ For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. ⁷ The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: ⁸ But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; ¹⁰ And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. ¹¹ Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹² Wherefore it shall come to pass, if if: Heb. because ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: ¹³ And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. ¹⁴ Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. ¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. ¹⁶ And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. ¹⁷ If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? ¹⁸ Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; ¹⁹ The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out: so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. ²⁰ Moreover the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. ²¹ Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. ²² And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. ²³ But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. ²⁴ And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them. ²⁵ The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. ²⁶ Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

A Good Land to Be Possessed

8¹ All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. ² And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. ³ And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. ⁴ Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. ⁵ Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. ⁶ Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. ⁷ For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; ⁸ A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil of oil...: Heb. of olive tree of oil olive, and honey; ⁹ A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

¹⁰ When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

Warning against Forgetting the LORD

¹¹ Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: ¹² Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; ¹³ And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; ¹⁴ Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; ¹⁵ Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; ¹⁶ Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; ¹⁷ And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. ¹⁸ But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. ¹⁹ And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. ²⁰ As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God.

The LORD Will Destroy the Nations of Canaan

9¹ Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven, ² A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak! ³ Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. ⁴ Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee. ⁵ Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Israel's Rebellion at Horeb

⁶ Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

⁷ Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you. ⁹ When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: ¹⁰ And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant. ¹² And the Lord said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image. ¹³ Furthermore the Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: ¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they. ¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes. ¹⁸ And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also. ²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time. ²¹ And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. ²² And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³ Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. ²⁴ Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. ²⁵ Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: ²⁸ Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. ²⁹ Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.

The Second Tablets of Stone

10¹ At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. ² And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. ³ And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. ⁴ And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, commandments: Heb. words which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. ⁵ And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me. ⁶ And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead. ⁷ From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. ⁸ At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. ⁹ Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him. ¹⁰ And I stayed in the mount, according to the first first...: or, former days time, forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also, and the Lord would not destroy thee. ¹¹ And the Lord said unto me, Arise, take take...: Heb. go in journey thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.

What God Requires

¹² And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, ¹³ To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? ¹⁴ Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. ¹⁵ Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. ¹⁶ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: ¹⁸ He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. ¹⁹ Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. ²¹ He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. ²² Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.

The Greatness of the LORD

11¹ Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. ² And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, ³ And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land; ⁴ And what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day; ⁵ And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place; ⁶ And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance substance...: or, living substance which followed them that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel: ⁷ But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸ Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it; ⁹ And that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: ¹¹ But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: ¹² A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. ¹³ And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto 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 That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. ¹⁵ And I will send send: Heb. give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. ¹⁶ Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; ¹⁷ And then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you.

¹⁸ Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. ²⁰ And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: ²¹ That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. ²² For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; ²³ Then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. ²⁴ Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. ²⁵ There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.

²⁶ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; ²⁷ A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: ²⁸ And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known. ²⁹ And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. ³⁰ Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh? ³¹ For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. ³² And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.

Only One Place of Worship

12¹ These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. ² Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess possess: or, inherit served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: ³ And ye shall overthrow overthrow: Heb. break down their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. ⁴ Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God.

⁵ But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come: ⁶ And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks: ⁷ And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. ⁸ Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. ⁹ For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you. ¹⁰ But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; ¹¹ Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice your choice...: Heb. the choice of your vows vows which ye vow unto the Lord: ¹² And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates; forasmuch as he hath no part nor inheritance with you. ¹³ Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest: ¹⁴ But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee. ¹⁵ Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart. ¹⁶ Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. ¹⁷ Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy freewill offerings, or heave offering of thine hand: ¹⁸ But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto. ¹⁹ Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth. ²⁰ When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. ²¹ If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. ²² Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike. ²³ Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. ²⁴ Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. ²⁵ Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. ²⁶ Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose: ²⁷ And thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh. ²⁸ Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹ When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest succeedest...: Heb. inheritest, or, possessest them them, and dwellest in their land; ³⁰ Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. ³¹ Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. ³² What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

13¹ If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, ² And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; ³ Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. ⁵ And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn to turn...: Heb. revolt against the Lord you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

⁶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; ⁷ Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; ⁸ Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: ⁹ But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. bondage: Heb. bondmen ¹¹ And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

¹² If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, ¹³ Certain men, the children the children...: or, naughty men of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; ¹⁴ Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; ¹⁵ Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the Lord thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. ¹⁷ And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; ¹⁸ When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.

14¹ Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. ² For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

Clean and Unclean Food

³ Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. ⁴ These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, ⁵ The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois. ⁶ And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat. ⁷ Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you. ⁸ And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase. ⁹ These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: ¹⁰ And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. ¹¹ Of all clean birds ye shall eat. ¹² But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, ¹³ And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, ¹⁴ And every raven after his kind, ¹⁵ And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, ¹⁶ The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, ¹⁷ And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, ¹⁸ And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. ¹⁹ And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. ²⁰ But of all clean fowls ye may eat. ²¹ Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

The Law of the Tithe

²² Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. ²³ And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. ²⁴ And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee: ²⁵ Then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose: ²⁶ And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: desireth: Heb. asketh of thee and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, ²⁷ And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. ²⁸ At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: ²⁹ And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.

The Year of Release

15¹ At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. ² And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor creditor: Heb. master of the lending of his hand that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release. ³ Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release; ⁴ Save Save...: or, To the end that there be no poor among you when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it: ⁵ Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day. ⁶ For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.

Lending to the Poor

⁷ If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: ⁸ But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. ⁹ Beware that there be not a thought thought: Heb. word in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. ¹⁰ Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. ¹¹ For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

The Treatment of Servants

¹² And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. ¹³ And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: ¹⁴ Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. ¹⁵ And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day. ¹⁶ And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee; ¹⁷ Then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. ¹⁸ It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.

The Consecration of Firstlings

¹⁹ All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep. ²⁰ Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household. ²¹ And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God. ²² Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart. ²³ Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.

The Three Appointed Feasts

16¹ Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the Lord thy God: for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. ² Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to place his name there. ³ Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. ⁴ And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning. ⁵ Thou mayest not sacrifice sacrifice: or, kill the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee: ⁶ But at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. ⁷ And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. ⁸ Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work therein. ⁹ Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. ¹⁰ And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute a tribute: or, sufficiency of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee: ¹¹ And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there. ¹² And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes. ¹³ Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn corn...: Heb. floor, and thy winepress and thy wine: ¹⁴ And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. ¹⁵ Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. ¹⁶ Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty: ¹⁷ Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee.

The Administration of Justice

¹⁸ Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. ¹⁹ Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words words: or, matters of the righteous. ²⁰ That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ²¹ Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. ²² Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; image: or, statue, or, pillar which the Lord thy God hateth.

17¹ Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock, or sheep, sheep: or, goat wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God. ² If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, ³ And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ⁴ And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: ⁵ Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. ⁶ At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.

⁸ If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; ⁹ And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: ¹⁰ And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: ¹¹ According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. ¹² And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

Instructions concerning a King

¹⁴ When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; ¹⁵ Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. ¹⁶ But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. ¹⁷ Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. ¹⁸ And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: ¹⁹ And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: ²⁰ That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

The Portions of the Levites

18¹ The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance. ² Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them. ³ And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw. ⁴ The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him. ⁵ For the Lord thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for ever. ⁶ And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the Lord shall choose; ⁷ Then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, which stand there before the Lord. ⁸ They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony.

Warning against Heathen Practices

⁹ When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, ¹¹ Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. ¹² For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. ¹³ Thou shalt be perfect perfect: or, upright, or, sincere with the Lord thy God. ¹⁴ For these nations, which thou shalt possess, possess: or, inherit hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.

God Promises a Prophet like Moses

¹⁵ The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; ¹⁶ According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. ¹⁷ And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. ¹⁹ And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. ²⁰ But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. ²¹ And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? ²² When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

The Cities of Refuge

19¹ When the Lord thy God hath cut off the nations, whose land the Lord thy God giveth thee, and thou succeedest succeedest: Heb. inheritest, or, possessest them, and dwellest in their cities, and in their houses; ² Thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it. ³ Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither. ⁴ And this is the case of the slayer, which shall flee thither, that he may live: Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past; ⁵ As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head head: Heb. iron slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour, that he die; he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live: ⁶ Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay slay...: Heb. smite him in life him; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past. ⁷ Wherefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt separate three cities for thee. ⁸ And if the Lord thy God enlarge thy coast, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, and give thee all the land which he promised to give unto thy fathers; ⁹ If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the Lord thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three: ¹⁰ That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee. ¹¹ But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally mortally: Heb. in life that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities: ¹² Then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ¹³ Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.

¹⁴ Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.

The Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. ¹⁶ If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; ¹⁷ Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; ¹⁸ And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; ¹⁹ Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. ²⁰ And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. ²¹ And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The Laws concerning War

20¹ When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. ² And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, ³ And shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, faint: Heb. be tender fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them; ⁴ For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. ⁵ And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. ⁶ And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten eaten...: Heb. made it common of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. ⁷ And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. ⁸ And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint faint: Heb. melt as well as his heart. ⁹ And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead to lead...: Heb. to be in the head of the people the people.

¹⁰ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. ¹¹ And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. ¹² And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: ¹³ And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: ¹⁴ But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take take: Heb. spoil unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. ¹⁵ Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. ¹⁶ But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: ¹⁷ But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee: ¹⁸ That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the Lord your God. ¹⁹ When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: ²⁰ Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.

Settlement for an Unknown Murderer's Crime

21¹ If one be found slain in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him: ² Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain: ³ And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer, which hath not been wrought with, and which hath not drawn in the yoke; ⁴ And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley: ⁵ And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord; and by their word word: Heb. mouth shall every controversy and every stroke be tried: ⁶ And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: ⁷ And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. ⁸ Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. ⁹ So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.

Various Laws

¹⁰ When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, ¹¹ And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; ¹² Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare pare: or, suffer to grow: Heb. make, or, dress her nails; ¹³ And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. ¹⁴ And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

¹⁵ If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: ¹⁶ Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: ¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

¹⁸ If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: ¹⁹ Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; ²⁰ And they shall say unto 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 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. ²² And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: ²³ His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed accursed...: Heb. the curse of God of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

22¹ Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. ² And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again. ³ In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself. ⁴ Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.

⁵ The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. ⁶ If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: ⁷ But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days. ⁸ When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence. ⁹ Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed fruit of thy seed: Heb. fulness of the seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. ¹⁰ Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. ¹¹ Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together. ¹² Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters quarters: Heb. wings of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself.

Laws concerning Chastity

¹³ If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, ¹⁴ And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: ¹⁵ Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: ¹⁶ And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; ¹⁷ And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; ¹⁹ And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up 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 this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: ²¹ Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you. ²² If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. ²³ If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; ²⁴ Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. ²⁵ But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force force: or, take strong hold of her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die: ²⁶ But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: ²⁷ For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her. ²⁸ If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; ²⁹ Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. ³⁰ A man shall not take his father's wife, nor discover his father's skirt.

Those Excluded from the Congregation

23¹ He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. ² A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord. ³ An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever: ⁴ Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. ⁵ Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee. ⁶ Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity prosperity: Heb. good all thy days for ever. ⁷ Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land. ⁸ The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the Lord in their third generation.

Laws of Sanitation

⁹ When the host goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing. ¹⁰ If there be among you any man, that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night, then shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall not come within the camp: ¹¹ But it shall be, when evening cometh on, he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again. ¹² Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: ¹³ And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: ¹⁴ For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean unclean...: Heb. nakedness of any thing thing in thee, and turn away from thee.

Laws of Human Relations

¹⁵ Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: ¹⁶ He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him. ¹⁷ There shall be no whore whore: or, sodomitess of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. ¹⁸ Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God. ¹⁹ Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: ²⁰ Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it. ²¹ When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in thee. ²² But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee. ²³ That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth. ²⁴ When thou comest into thy neighbour's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure; but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel. ²⁵ When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn.

24¹ When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some some...: Heb. matter of nakedness uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. ² And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. ³ And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; ⁴ Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

⁵ When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken. ⁶ No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge. ⁷ If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you. ⁸ Take heed in the plague of leprosy, that thou observe diligently, and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you: as I commanded them, so ye shall observe to do. ⁹ Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt. ¹⁰ When thou dost lend lend...: Heb. lend the loan of any thing to, etc thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. ¹¹ Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. ¹² And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge: ¹³ In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God.

¹⁴ Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: ¹⁵ At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth setteth...: Heb. lifteth his soul unto it his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee. ¹⁶ The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. ¹⁷ Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge: ¹⁸ But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing. ¹⁹ When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands. ²⁰ When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. ²¹ When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: afterward: Heb. after thee it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. ²² And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

25¹ If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. ² And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. ³ Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. ⁴ Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

⁵ If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. ⁶ And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. ⁷ And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother. ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; ⁹ Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house. ¹⁰ And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed. ¹¹ When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: ¹² Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

¹³ Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. ¹⁴ Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. ¹⁵ But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ¹⁶ For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.

The Command to Blot Out Amalek

¹⁷ Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; ¹⁸ How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. ¹⁹ Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.

The Firstfruits and the Tithe

26¹ And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein; ² That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. ³ And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. ⁴ And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. ⁵ And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: ⁶ And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: ⁷ And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: ⁸ And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: ⁹ And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.

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English Standard Version

The Ten Commandments

5¹ And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. ³ Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. ⁴ The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, ⁵ while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said:

⁶ "'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ⁷ "'You shall have no other gods beforeOr besides me. ⁸ "'You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁹ You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ¹⁰ but showing steadfast love to thousandsOr to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. ¹¹ "'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. ¹² "'Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. ¹⁵ You shall remember that you were a slaveOr servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. ¹⁶ "'Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁷ "'You shall not murder.The Hebrew word also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence ¹⁸ "'And you shall not commit adultery. ¹⁹ "'And you shall not steal. ²⁰ "'And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ²¹ "'And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.'

The People's Fear

²² "These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

²³ And as soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders. ²⁴ And you said, 'Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. ²⁵ Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die. ²⁶ For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? ²⁷ Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.' ²⁸ "And the Lord heard your words, when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, 'I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. ²⁹ Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendantsOr sons forever! ³⁰ Go and say to them, "Return to your tents." ³¹ But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.' ³² You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. ³³ You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.

The Great Commandment

6¹ "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rulesOr just decrees; also verse 20 that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, ² that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. ³ Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁴ "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Or The Lord our God is one Lord; or The Lord is our God, the Lord is one; or The Lord is our God, the Lord alone ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Warnings against Disobedience

¹⁰ "And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you--with great and good cities that you did not build, ¹¹ and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant--and when you eat and are full, ¹² then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ¹³ It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. ¹⁴ You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you-- ¹⁵ for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God-- lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. ¹⁶ "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

¹⁷ You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. ¹⁸ And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers ¹⁹ by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised. ²⁰ "When your son asks you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?' ²¹ then you shall say to your son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²² And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. ²³ And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. ²⁴ And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. ²⁵ And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.'

Israel Warned of the Idolatry of Canaan

7¹ "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, ² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.That is, set apart (devote) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction) You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. ³ You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. ⁵ But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

A Holy People to the LORD

⁶ "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸ but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, ¹⁰ and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹² "And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. ¹³ He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. ¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. ¹⁷ "If you say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?' ¹⁸ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, ¹⁹ the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ²⁰ Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed. ²¹ You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God. ²² The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once,Or quickly lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. ²³ But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴ And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵ The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. ²⁶ And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destructionThat is, set apart (devoted) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction); twice in this verse like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

A Good Land to Be Possessed

8¹ "The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. ² And you shall remember the whole way that 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 man lives by every wordHebrew by all that comes from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out on 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 out in the 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.

Warning against Forgetting the LORD

¹¹ "Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, ¹² lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good 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 slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrifying 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 that 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 that he swore to your fathers, as it is 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 today 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 LORD Will Destroy the Nations of Canaan

9¹ "Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, 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 today that he who goes over before you as a consuming 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 that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Israel's Rebellion at Horeb

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 tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that 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 tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that 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 tablets of stone, the tablets 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 that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal 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 tablets 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 goldenHebrew cast-metal calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets and threw 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 that 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 that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened 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 that 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 ran down from the mountain. ²² "At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³ And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, 'Go up and take possession of the land that 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, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember your 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 you brought us say, "Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness." ²⁹ For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.'

The Second Tablets of Stone

10¹ "At that time the Lord said to me, 'Cut for yourself two tablets 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 tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.' ³ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten CommandmentsHebrew words that 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 tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the Lord commanded me." ⁶ (The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakanOr the wells of the Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place. ⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, 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 myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened 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, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.'

What God Requires

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 am commanding you today 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 on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are 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 awesome 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 hold fast 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 terrifying things that your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

The Greatness of the LORD

11¹ "You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. ² And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the disciplineOr instruction of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³ his signs and his deeds that 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 flow over 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 Abiram the sons of Eliab, 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 that he did.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸ "You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, ⁹ and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land that 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 irrigated it,Hebrew watered it with your feet like a garden of vegetables. ¹¹ But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹² a land that 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 indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ heSamaritan, Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew I; also verse 15 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 will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. ¹⁶ Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; ¹⁷ then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving 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 on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ 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 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that 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 that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast 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 toHebrew and the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. ²⁵ No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.

²⁶ "See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, ²⁸ and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. ²⁹ And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim 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, opposite Gilgal, beside the oakSeptuagint, Syriac; see Genesis 12:6. Hebrew oaks, or terebinths of Moreh? ³¹ For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, ³² you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

Only One Place of Worship

12¹ "These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. ² You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. ³ You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. ⁴ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.

⁵ But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitationOr name as its habitation there. There you shall go, ⁶ and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn 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 today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, ⁹ for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, ¹¹ then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. ¹² And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. ¹³ Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, ¹⁴ but at the place that 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. ¹⁵ "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. ¹⁶ Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on 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 firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, ¹⁸ but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. ¹⁹ Take care that you do not neglect 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 meat,' because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. ²¹ If the place that 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 whenever you desire. ²² Just as the gazelle or the deer 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 on 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 that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that 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 obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, 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 care 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 the same.' ³¹ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that 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 Ch 13:1 in Hebrew"Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

13¹ "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or wonder that 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 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 hold fast 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 slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evilOr evil person from your midst.

⁶ "If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embraceHebrew 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 who are around 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 afterward 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 slavery. 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 is giving you to dwell there, ¹³ that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their 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 abomination has been done among you, ¹⁵ you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction,That is, setting apart (devoting) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction) 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 forever. It shall not be built again. ¹⁷ None of the devoted things shall stick 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 that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.

14¹ "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 treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Clean and Unclean Food

³ "You shall not eat any abomination. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex,Or addax 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 pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses 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 that you shall not eat: the eagle,The identity of many of these birds is uncertain the bearded vulture, the black vulture, ¹³ the kite, the falcon of any kind; ¹⁴ every raven of any kind; ¹⁵ the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; ¹⁶ the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl ¹⁷ and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, ¹⁸ the stork, the heron of any kind; 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 has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner 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 young goat in its mother's milk.

The Law of the Tithe

²² "You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. ²³ And before the Lord your God, in the place that 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 firstborn 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 carry 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 that 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 neglect 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 out 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.

The Year of Release

15¹ "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 that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess-- ⁵ if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. 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.

Lending to the Poor

⁷ "If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving 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 care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release is near,' and your eye look grudginglyOr be evil; also verse 10 on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. 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 there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'

The Treatment of Servants

¹² "If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is soldOr sells himself 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 winepress. 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 is well-off with you, ¹⁷ then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same. 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 Consecration of Firstlings

¹⁹ "All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. ²⁰ You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place that 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 deer. ²³ Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

The Three Appointed Feasts

16¹ "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 that 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 haste--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 that 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 that the Lord your God is giving you, ⁶ but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷ And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that 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. ⁹ "You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put 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 male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that 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. ¹³ "You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. ¹⁴ You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, 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 that 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 that 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 that he has given you.

The Administration of Justice

¹⁸ "You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving 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 accept 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 that the Lord your God is giving you. ²¹ "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make. ²² And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

17¹ "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 that the Lord your God is giving 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 abomination has been done in Israel, ⁵ then you shall bring out 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 the one who 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 purgeSeptuagint drive out; also verse 12 the evilOr evil person; also verse 12 from your midst.

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 that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and 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 that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. ¹¹ According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that 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.

Instructions concerning a King

¹⁴ "When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving 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 around me,' ¹⁵ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers 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 acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, 'You shall never return that way again.' ¹⁷ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive 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, approved byHebrew from before 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 brothers, 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.

The Portions of the Levites

18¹ "The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord's food offeringsOr the offerings by fire to the Lord as theirHebrew his inheritance. ² They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; 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 an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. ⁴ The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first 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 all time. ⁶ "And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives--and he may come when he desiresOr lives - if he comes enthusiastically-- to the place that the Lord will choose, ⁷ and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, ⁸ then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain

Warning against Heathen Practices

⁹ "When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,Hebrew makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer ¹¹ or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, ¹² for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations 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, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

God Promises a Prophet like Moses

¹⁵ "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers--it is to him you shall listen-- 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 are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. 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 listen to my words that 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 that I have not commanded him to speak, orOr and 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 that 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 that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

The Cities of Refuge

19¹ "When the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, ² you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ You shall measure the distancesHebrew road and divide into three parts the area of the land that 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 anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past-- ⁵ as when someone 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 live, ⁶ lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. ⁷ Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities. ⁸ And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers-- ⁹ provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, 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 that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you. ¹¹ "But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his city shall send and take 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 bloodOr the blood of the innocent from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

¹⁴ "You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

The Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ "A single witness shall not suffice against a person 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 established. ¹⁶ If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person 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 evilOr evil person from your midst. 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.

The Laws concerning War

20¹ "When you go out 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, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, ⁴ for the Lord your God is he who 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, 'Is there any man who 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 is there any man who 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 is there any man who 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, 'Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.' ⁹ And when the officers have finished 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 it responds to you peaceably 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 livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder 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 that 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 is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, ¹⁷ but you shall devote them to complete destruction,That is, set apart (devote) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction) the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you 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. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees that 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.

Settlement for an Unknown Murderer's Crime

21¹ "If in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess someone 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 out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. ³ And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a 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 Then 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, nor did our eyes see it shed. ⁸ Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.' 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.

Various Laws

¹⁰ "When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, ¹¹ and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, ¹² and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. ¹³ And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament 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 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

¹⁵ "If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved,Or hated; also verses 16, 17 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 firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, ¹⁷ but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits 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 the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen 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. 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 on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

22¹ "You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. ² And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. ³ And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother's, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. ⁴ You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.

⁵ "A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. ⁶ "If you come across a bird's nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. ⁷ You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for 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 anyone should fall from it. ⁹ "You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited,Hebrew become holy the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard. ¹⁰ You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. ¹¹ You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. ¹² "You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself.

Laws concerning Chastity

¹³ "If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her ¹⁴ and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, 'I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,' ¹⁵ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence 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 marry, and he hates her; ¹⁷ and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, "I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity." And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whipOr discipline him, ¹⁹ and they shall fine him a hundred shekelsA shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virginOr girl of marriageable age of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. ²⁰ But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was 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 done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 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 your midst. 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 you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, ²⁷ because he met 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 divorce her all his days. ³⁰ Ch 23:1 in Hebrew "A man shall not take his father's wife, so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness.Hebrew uncover his father's skirt

Those Excluded from the Congregation

23¹ "No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. ² "No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord. ³ "No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, ⁴ because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you ⁵ But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam; instead 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 forever. ⁷ "You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. ⁸ Children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord.

Laws of Sanitation

⁹ "When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing. ¹⁰ "If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp. He shall not come inside the camp, ¹¹ but when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water, and as the sun sets, he may come inside the camp. ¹² "You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. ¹³ And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. ¹⁴ Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you

Laws of Human Relations

¹⁵ "You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him. ¹⁷ "None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute. ¹⁸ You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dogOr male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God. ¹⁹ "You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest ²⁰ You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ²¹ "If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin ²² But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. ²³ You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. ²⁴ "If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. ²⁵ If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.

24¹ "When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, ² and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, ³ and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, ⁴ then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

⁵ "When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken. ⁶ "No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge. ⁷ "If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. ⁸ "Take care, in a case of leprousLeprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 disease, to be very careful to do according to all that the Levitical priests shall direct you. As I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. ⁹ Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt. ¹⁰ "When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. ¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. ¹² And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. ¹³ You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. ¹⁵ You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin. ¹⁶ "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. ¹⁷ "You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge, ¹⁸ but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. ¹⁹ "When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²² You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

25¹ "If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, ² then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. ³ Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight. ⁴ "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

⁵ "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. ⁶ And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷ And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.' ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, 'I do not wish to take her,' ⁹ then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.' ¹⁰ And the name of his houseHebrew its name shall be called in Israel, 'The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.' ¹¹ "When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, ¹² then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.

¹³ "You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ A full and fairOr just, or righteous; twice in this verse weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord your God.

The Command to Blot Out Amalek

¹⁷ "Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, ¹⁸ how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. ¹⁹ Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.

The Firstfruits and the Tithe

26¹ "When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, ² you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. ³ And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, 'I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.' ⁴ Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. ⁵ "And you shall make response before the Lord your God, 'A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. ⁶ And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. ⁷ Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. ⁸ And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror,Hebrew with great terror with signs and wonders. ⁹ And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

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The Message

The Ten Commandments

5¹ Moses called all Israel together. He said to them, Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them. ² God, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³ God didn't just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now. ⁴ God spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain. ⁵ At the time I stood between God and you, to tell you what God said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn't climb the mountain. He said:

⁶ I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of slaves. ⁷ No other gods, only me. ⁸ No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. ⁹ Don't bow down to them and don't serve them because I am God, your God, and I'm a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. ¹⁰ But I'm lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. ¹¹ No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won't put up with the irreverent use of his name. ¹² No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. ¹³ Work six days, doing everything you have to do, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day - no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. ¹⁵ Don't ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That's why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest. ¹⁶ Respect your father and mother - God, your God, commands it! You'll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well. ¹⁷ No murder. ¹⁸ No adultery. ¹⁹ No stealing. ²⁰ No lies about your neighbor. ²¹ No coveting your neighbor's wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either - nothing that belongs to your neighbor!

The People's Fear

²² These are the words that God spoke to the whole congregation at the mountain. He spoke in a tremendous voice from the fire and cloud and dark mist. And that was it. No more words. Then he wrote them on two slabs of stone and gave them to me.

²³ As it turned out, when you heard the Voice out of that dark cloud and saw the mountain on fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders, ²⁴ and said, ²⁵ But why risk it further? This huge fire will devour us if we stay around any longer. If we hear God's voice anymore, we'll die for sure. ²⁶ Has anyone ever known of anyone who has heard the Voice of God the way we have and lived to tell the story? ²⁷ "From now on, you go and listen to what God, our God, says and then tell us what God tells you. We'll listen and we'll do it." ²⁸ God heard what you said to me and told me, "I've heard what the people said to you. They're right - good and true words. ²⁹ What I wouldn't give if they'd always feel this way, continuing to revere me and always keep all my commands; they'd have a good life forever, they and their children! ³⁰ "Go ahead and tell them to go home to their tents. ³¹ But you, you stay here with me so I can tell you every commandment and all the rules and regulations that you must teach them so they'll know how to live in the land that I'm giving them as their own." ³² So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don't veer off to the right or the left. ³³ Walk straight down the road God commands so that you'll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you're about to possess.

The Great Commandment

6¹ This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you're about to cross into to possess. ² This is so that you'll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I'm commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives. ³ Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you're told so that you'll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.

⁴ Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! ⁵ Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got! ⁶ Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you ⁷ and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. ⁸ Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; ⁹ inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

Warnings against Disobedience

¹⁰ When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you're going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn't build, ¹¹ well-furnished houses you didn't buy, come upon wells you didn't dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn't plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, ¹² make sure you don't forget how you got there - God brought you out of slavery in Egypt. ¹³ Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. ¹⁴ Don't fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, ¹⁵ because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don't provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth. ¹⁶ Don't push God, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place.

¹⁷ Carefully keep the commands of God, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you. ¹⁸ Do what is right; do what is good in God's sight so you'll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that God so solemnly promised through your ancestors, ¹⁹ throwing out your enemies left and right - exactly as God said. ²⁰ The next time your child asks you, "What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?" ²¹ tell your child, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. ²² We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. ²³ He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. ²⁴ That's why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come. ²⁵ "It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to do."

Israel Warned of the Idolatry of Canaan

7¹ When God, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you: the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Those seven nations are all bigger and stronger than you are. ² God, your God, will turn them over to you and you will conquer them. You must completely destroy them, offering them up as a holy destruction to God. Don't make a treaty with them. Don't let them off in any way. ³ Don't marry them: Don't give your daughters to their sons and don't take their daughters for your sons - ⁴ before you know it they'd involve you in worshiping their gods, and God would explode in anger, putting a quick end to you. ⁵ Here's what you are to do: Tear apart their altars stone by stone, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their sex-and-religion Asherah groves, set fire to their carved god-images.

A Holy People to the LORD

⁶ Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure. ⁷ God wasn't attracted to you and didn't choose you because you were big and important - the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. ⁸ He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. ¹⁰ But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn't slow to pay them off - those who hate him, he pays right on time. ¹¹ So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹² And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors: ¹³ He will love you, he will bless you, he will increase you. ¹⁴ You'll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals. ¹⁵ God will get rid of all sickness. And all the evil afflictions you experienced in Egypt he'll put not on you but on those who hate you. ¹⁶ You'll make mincemeat of all the peoples that God, your God, hands over to you. Don't feel sorry for them. And don't worship their gods - they'll trap you for sure. ¹⁷ You're going to think to yourselves, "Oh! We're outnumbered ten to one by these nations! We'll never even make a dent in them!" ¹⁸ But I'm telling you, Don't be afraid. Remember, yes, remember in detail what God, your God, did to Pharaoh and all Egypt. ¹⁹ Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, God's mighty hand as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. God, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you're now so afraid of. ²⁰ And to top it off, the Hornet. God will unleash the Hornet on them until every survivor-in-hiding is dead. ²¹ So don't be intimidated by them. God, your God, is among you - God majestic, God awesome. ²² God, your God, will get rid of these nations, bit by bit. You won't be permitted to wipe them out all at once lest the wild animals take over and overwhelm you. ²³ But God, your God, will move them out of your way - he'll throw them into a huge panic until there's nothing left of them. ²⁴ He'll turn their kings over to you and you'll remove all trace of them under Heaven. Not one person will be able to stand up to you; you'll put an end to them all. ²⁵ Make sure you set fire to their carved gods. Don't get greedy for the veneer of silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves - you'll get trapped by it for sure. God hates it; it's an abomination to God, your God. ²⁶ And don't dare bring one of these abominations home or you'll end up just like it, burned up as a holy destruction. No: It is forbidden! Hate it. Abominate it. Destroy it and preserve God's holiness.

A Good Land to Be Possessed

8¹ Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. ² Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. ³ He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth. ⁴ Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. ⁵ You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child. ⁶ So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. ⁷ God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. ⁸ It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. ⁹ It's land where you'll never go hungry - always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.

¹⁰ After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.

Warning against Forgetting the LORD

¹¹ Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today ¹² Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, ¹³ see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up - ¹⁴ make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; ¹⁵ the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; ¹⁶ the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you. ¹⁷ If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!" - ¹⁸ well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors - as it is today. ¹⁹ If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it - destruction. ²⁰ You'll go to your doom - the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God.

The LORD Will Destroy the Nations of Canaan

9¹ Attention, Israel! ² gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites - you've heard all about them; you've heard the saying, "No one can stand up to an Anakite." ³ Today know this: God, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you - he's a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as God promised you would. ⁴ But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don't start thinking to yourselves, "It's because of all the good I've done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations." Actually it's because of all the evil these nations have done. ⁵ No, it's nothing good that you've done, no record for decency that you've built up, that got you here; it's because of the vile wickedness of these nations that God, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Israel's Rebellion at Horeb

⁶ Know this and don't ever forget it: It's not because of any good that you've done that God is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You're stubborn as mules.

⁷ Keep in mind and don't ever forget how angry you made God, your God, in the wilderness. You've kicked and screamed against God from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way. ⁸ You made God angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you. ⁹ When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water. ¹⁰ Then God gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that God spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ It was at the end of the forty days and nights that God gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² God said to me, "Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god." ¹³ God said, "I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels. ¹⁴ Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I'm going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I'll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be." ¹⁵ I turned around and started down the mountain - by now the mountain was blazing with fire - carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms. ¹⁶ That's when I saw it: There you were, sinning against God, your God - you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that God had commanded you to walk on. ¹⁷ I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched. ¹⁸ Then I prostrated myself before God, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against God, doing what is evil in God's eyes and making him angry. ¹⁹ I was terrified of God's furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again God listened to me. ²⁰ And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron - ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time. ²¹ But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain. ²² And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving) - more occasions when you made God furious with you. ²³ The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: "Go. Possess the land that I'm giving you." And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn't obey him. ²⁴ You've been rebels against God from the first day I knew you. ²⁵ When I was on my face, prostrate before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you, ²⁶ I prayed to God for you, "My Master, God, don't destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt. ²⁷ "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don't make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin, ²⁸ lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, 'God couldn't do it; he got tired and wasn't able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.' ²⁹ "They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued."

The Second Tablets of Stone

10¹ God responded. He said, "Shape two slabs of stone similar to the first ones. Climb the mountain and meet me. Also make yourself a wooden chest. ² I will engrave the stone slabs with the words that were on the first ones, the ones you smashed. Then you will put them in the Chest." ³ So I made a chest out of acacia wood, shaped two slabs of stone, just like the first ones, and climbed the mountain with the two slabs in my arms. ⁴ He engraved the stone slabs the same as he had the first ones, the Ten Words that he addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. Then God gave them to me. ⁵ I turned around and came down the mountain. I put the stone slabs in the Chest that I made and they've been there ever since, just as God commanded me. ⁶ The People of Israel went from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. Aaron died there and was buried. His son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. ⁷ From there they went to Gudgodah, and then to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water. ⁸ That's when God set apart the tribe of Levi to carry God's Covenant Chest, to be on duty in the Presence of God, to serve him, and to bless in his name, as they continue to do today. ⁹ And that's why Levites don't have a piece of inherited land as their kinsmen do. God is their inheritance, as God, your God, promised them. ¹⁰ I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights, just as I did the first time. And God listened to me, just as he did the first time: God decided not to destroy you. ¹¹ God told me, "Now get going. Lead your people as they resume the journey to take possession of the land that I promised their ancestors that I'd give to them."

What God Requires

¹² So now Israel, what do you think God expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve God, your God, with everything you have in you, ¹³ obey the commandments and regulations of God that I'm commanding you today - live a good life. ¹⁴ Look around you: Everything you see is God's - the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. ¹⁵ But it was your ancestors that God fell in love with; he picked their children - that's you! - out of all the other peoples. That's where we are right now. ¹⁶ So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded. ¹⁷ God, your God, is the God of all gods, he's the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn't play favorites, takes no bribes, ¹⁸ makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing. ¹⁹ You must treat foreigners with the same loving care - remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt. ²⁰ Reverently respect God, your God, serve him, hold tight to him, back up your promises with the authority of his name. ²¹ He's your praise! He's your God! He did all these tremendous, these staggering things that you saw with your own eyes. ²² When your ancestors entered Egypt, they numbered a mere seventy souls. And now look at you - you look more like the stars in the night skies in number. And your God did it.

The Greatness of the LORD

11¹ So love God, your God; guard well his rules and regulations; obey his commandments for the rest of time. ² Today it's very clear that it isn't your children who are front and center here: They weren't in on what God did, didn't see the acts, didn't experience the discipline, didn't marvel at his greatness, the way he displayed his power in the miracle-signs and deeds ³ that he let loose in Egypt on Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land, ⁴ the way he took care of the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, burying them in the waters of the Red Sea as they pursued you. God drowned them. And you're standing here today alive. ⁵ Nor was it your children who saw how God took care of you in the wilderness up until the time you arrived here, ⁶ what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how the Earth opened its jaws and swallowed them with their families - their tents, and everything around them - right out of the middle of Israel. ⁷ Yes, it was you - your eyes - that saw every great thing that God did.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸ So it's you who are in charge of keeping the entire commandment that I command you today so that you'll have the strength to invade and possess the land that you are crossing the river to make your own. ⁹ Your obedience will give you a long life on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors and their children, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ The land you are entering to take up ownership isn't like Egypt, the land you left, where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land you are about to cross the river and take for your own is a land of mountains and valleys; it drinks water that rains from the sky. ¹² It's a land that God, your God, personally tends - he's the gardener - he alone keeps his eye on it all year long. ¹³ From now on if you listen obediently to the commandments that I am commanding you today, love God, your God, and serve him with everything you have within you, ¹⁴ he'll take charge of sending the rain at the right time, both autumn and spring rains, so that you'll be able to harvest your grain, your grapes, your olives. ¹⁵ He'll make sure there's plenty of grass for your animals. You'll have plenty to eat. ¹⁶ But be vigilant, lest you be seduced away and end up serving and worshiping other gods ¹⁷ and God erupts in anger and shuts down Heaven so there's no rain and nothing grows in the fields, and in no time at all you're starved out - not a trace of you left on the good land that God is giving you.

¹⁸ Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. ²⁰ Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities ²¹ so that you'll live a long time, and your children with you, on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors for as long as there is a sky over the Earth. ²² That's right. If you diligently keep all this commandment that I command you to obey - love God, your God, do what he tells you, stick close to him - ²³ God on his part will drive out all these nations that stand in your way. Yes, he'll drive out nations much bigger and stronger than you. ²⁴ Every square inch on which you place your foot will be yours. Your borders will stretch from the wilderness to the mountains of Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵ No one will be able to stand in your way. Everywhere you go, God-sent fear and trembling will precede you, just as he promised.

²⁶ I've brought you today to the crossroads of Blessing and Curse. ²⁷ The Blessing: if you listen obediently to the commandments of God, your God, which I command you today. ²⁸ The Curse: if you don't pay attention to the commandments of God, your God, but leave the road that I command you today, following other gods of which you know nothing. ²⁹ Here's what comes next: When God, your God, brings you into the land you are going into to make your own, you are to give out the Blessing from Mount Gerizim and the Curse from Mount Ebal. ³⁰ After you cross the Jordan River, follow the road to the west through Canaanite settlements in the valley near Gilgal and the Oaks of Moreh. ³¹ You are crossing the Jordan River to invade and take the land that God, your God, is giving you. ³² Be vigilant. Observe all the regulations and rules I am setting before you today.

Only One Place of Worship

12¹ These are the rules and regulations that you must diligently observe for as long as you live in this country that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, has given you to possess. ² Ruthlessly demolish all the sacred shrines where the nations that you're driving out worship their gods - wherever you find them, on hills and mountains or in groves of green trees. ³ Tear apart their altars. Smash their phallic pillars. Burn their sex-and-religion Asherah shrines. Break up their carved gods. Obliterate the names of those god sites. ⁴ Stay clear of those places - don't let what went on there contaminate the worship of God, your God.

⁵ Instead find the site that God, your God, will choose and mark it with his name as a common center for all the tribes of Israel. Assemble there. ⁶ Bring to that place your Absolution-Offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and Tribute-Offerings, your Vow-Offerings, your Freewill-Offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ Feast there in the Presence of God, your God. Celebrate everything that you and your families have accomplished under the blessing of God, your God. ⁸ Don't continue doing things the way we're doing them at present, each of us doing as we wish. ⁹ Until now you haven't arrived at the goal, the resting place, the inheritance that God, your God, is giving you. ¹⁰ But the minute you cross the Jordan River and settle into the land God, your God, is enabling you to inherit, he'll give you rest from all your surrounding enemies. You'll be able to settle down and live in safety. ¹¹ From then on, at the place that God, your God, chooses to mark with his name as the place where you can meet him, bring everything that I command you: your Absolution-Offerings and sacrifices, tithes and Tribute-Offerings, and the best of your Vow-Offerings that you vow to God. ¹² Celebrate there in the Presence of God, your God, you and your sons and daughters, your servants and maids, including the Levite living in your neighborhood because he has no place of his own in your inheritance. ¹³ Be extra careful: Don't offer your Absolution-Offerings just any place that strikes your fancy. ¹⁴ Offer your Absolution-Offerings only in the place that God chooses in one of your tribal regions. There and only there are you to bring all that I command you. ¹⁵ It's permissible to slaughter your nonsacrificial animals like gazelle and deer in your towns and eat all you want from them with the blessing of God, your God. Both the ritually clean and unclean may eat. ¹⁶ But you may not eat the blood. Pour the blood out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ Nor may you eat there the tithe of your grain, new wine, or olive oil; nor the firstborn of your herds and flocks; nor any of the Vow-Offerings that you vow; nor your Freewill-Offerings and Tribute-Offerings. ¹⁸ All these you must eat in the Presence of God, your God, in the place God, your God, chooses - you, your son and daughter, your servant and maid, and the Levite who lives in your neighborhood. You are to celebrate in the Presence of God, your God, all the things you've been able to accomplish. ¹⁹ And make sure that for as long as you live on your land you never, never neglect the Levite. ²⁰ When God, your God, expands your territory as he promised he would do, and you say, "I'm hungry for meat," because you happen to be craving meat at the time, go ahead and eat as much meat as you want. ²¹ If you're too far away from the place that God, your God, has marked with his name, it's all right to slaughter animals from your herds and flocks that God has given you, as I've commanded you. In your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want. ²² Just as the nonsacrificial animals like the gazelle and deer are eaten, you may eat them; the ritually unclean and clean may eat them at the same table. ²³ Only this: Absolutely no blood. Don't eat the blood. Blood is life; don't eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ Don't eat it; pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ Don't eat it; then you'll have a good life, you and your children after you. By all means, do the right thing in God's eyes. ²⁶ And this: Lift high your Holy-Offerings and your Vow-Offerings and bring them to the place God designates. ²⁷ Sacrifice your Absolution-Offerings, the meat and blood, on the Altar of God, your God; pour out the blood of the Absolution-Offering on the Altar of God, your God; then you can go ahead and eat the meat. ²⁸ Be vigilant, listen obediently to these words that I command you so that you'll have a good life, you and your children, for a long, long time, doing what is good and right in the eyes of God, your God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹ When God, your God, cuts off the nations whose land you are invading, shoves them out of your way so that you displace them and settle in their land, ³⁰ be careful that you don't get curious about them after they've been destroyed before you. Don't get fascinated with their gods, thinking, "I wonder what it was like for them, worshiping their gods. I'd like to try that myself." ³¹ Don't do this to God, your God. They commit every imaginable abomination with their gods. God hates it all with a passion. Why, they even set their children on fire as offerings to their gods! ³² Diligently do everything I command you, the way I command you: don't add to it; don't subtract from it.

13¹ When a prophet or visionary gets up in your community and gives out a miracle-sign or wonder, ² and the miracle-sign or wonder that he gave out happens and he says, "Let's follow other gods" (these are gods you know nothing about), "let's worship them," ³ don't pay any attention to what that prophet or visionary says. God, your God, is testing you to find out if you totally love him with everything you have in you. ⁴ You are to follow only God, your God, hold him in deep reverence, keep his commandments, listen obediently to what he says, serve him - hold on to him for dear life! ⁵ And that prophet or visionary must be put to death. He has urged mutiny against God, your God, who rescued you from Egypt, who redeemed you from a world of slavery and put you on the road on which God, your God, has commanded you to walk. Purge the evil from your company.

⁶ And when your brother or son or daughter, or even your dear wife or lifelong friend, comes to you in secret and whispers, "Let's go and worship some other gods" (gods that you know nothing about, neither you nor your ancestors, ⁷ the gods of the peoples around you near and far, from one end of the Earth to the other), ⁸ don't go along with him; shut your ears. Don't feel sorry for him and don't make excuses for him. ⁹ Kill him. That's right, kill him. You throw the first stone. Take action at once and swiftly with everybody in the community getting in on it at the end. ¹⁰ Stone him with stones so that he dies. He tried to turn you traitor against God, your God, the one who got you out of Egypt and the world of slavery. ¹¹ Every man, woman, and child in Israel will hear what's been done and be in awe. No one will dare to do an evil thing like this again.

¹² When word comes in from one of your cities that God, your God, is giving you to live in, ¹³ reporting that evil men have gotten together with some of the citizens of the city and have broken away, saying, "Let's go and worship other gods" (gods you know nothing about), ¹⁴ then you must conduct a careful examination. Ask questions, investigate. If it turns out that the report is true and this abomination did in fact take place in your community, ¹⁵ you must execute the citizens of that town. Kill them, setting that city apart for holy destruction: the city and everything in it including its animals. ¹⁶ Gather the plunder in the middle of the town square and burn it all - town and plunder together up in smoke, a holy sacrifice to God, your God. Leave it there, ashes and ruins. Don't build on that site again. ¹⁷ And don't let any of the plunder devoted to holy destruction stick to your fingers. Get rid of it so that God may turn from anger to compassion, generously making you prosper, just as he promised your ancestors. ¹⁸ Yes. Obediently listen to God, your God. Keep all his commands that I am giving you today. Do the right thing in the eyes of God, your God.

14¹ You are children of God, your God, so don't mutilate your bodies or shave your heads in funeral rites for the dead. ² You only are a people holy to God, your God; God chose you out of all the people on Earth as his cherished personal treasure.

Clean and Unclean Food

³ Don't eat anything abominable. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: ox, sheep, goat, ⁵ deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, mountain sheep - ⁶ any animal that has a cloven hoof and chews the cud. ⁷ But you may not eat camels, rabbits, and rock badgers because they chew the cud but they don't have a cloven hoof - that makes them ritually unclean. ⁸ And pigs: Don't eat pigs - they have a cloven hoof but don't chew the cud, which makes them ritually unclean. Don't even touch a pig's carcass. ⁹ This is what you may eat from the water: anything that has fins and scales. ¹⁰ But if it doesn't have fins or scales, you may not eat it. It's ritually unclean. ¹¹ You may eat any ritually clean bird. ¹² These are the exceptions, so don't eat these: eagle, vulture, black vulture, ¹³ kite, falcon, the buzzard family, ¹⁴ the raven family, ¹⁵ ostrich, nighthawk, the hawk family, ¹⁶ little owl, great owl, white owl, ¹⁷ pelican, osprey, cormorant, ¹⁸ stork, the heron family, hoopoe, bat. ¹⁹ Winged insects are ritually unclean; don't eat them. ²⁰ But ritually clean winged creatures are permitted. ²¹ Because you are a people holy to God, your God, don't eat anything that you find dead. You can, though, give it to a foreigner in your neighborhood for a meal or sell it to a foreigner. Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk.

The Law of the Tithe

²² Make an offering of ten percent, a tithe, of all the produce which grows in your fields year after year. ²³ Bring this into the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates for worship and there eat the tithe from your grain, wine, and oil and the firstborn from your herds and flocks. In this way you will learn to live in deep reverence before God, your God, as long as you live. ²⁴ But if the place God, your God, designates for worship is too far away and you can't carry your tithe that far, God, your God, will still bless you: ²⁵ exchange your tithe for money and take the money to the place God, your God, has chosen to be worshiped. ²⁶ Use the money to buy anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, or beer - anything that looks good to you. You and your family can then feast in the Presence of God, your God, and have a good time. ²⁷ Meanwhile, don't forget to take good care of the Levites who live in your towns; they won't get any property or inheritance of their own as you will. ²⁸ At the end of every third year, gather the tithe from all your produce of that year and put it aside in storage. ²⁹ Keep it in reserve for the Levite who won't get any property or inheritance as you will, and for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who live in your neighborhood. That way they'll have plenty to eat and God, your God, will bless you in all your work.

The Year of Release

15¹ At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts. ² This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment: All-Debts-Are-Canceled - God says so. ³ You may collect payment from foreigners, but whatever you have lent to your fellow Israelite you must write off. ⁴ There must be no poor people among you because God is going to bless you lavishly in this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, your very own land. ⁵ But only if you listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, diligently observing every commandment that I command you today. ⁶ Oh yes - God, your God, will bless you just as he promised. You will lend to many nations but won't borrow from any; you'll rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

Lending to the Poor

⁷ When you happen on someone who's in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don't look the other way pretending you don't see him. Don't keep a tight grip on your purse. ⁸ No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. ⁹ Don't count the cost. Don't listen to that selfish voice saying, "It's almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled," and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He'll call God's attention to you and your blatant sin. ¹⁰ Give freely and spontaneously. Don't have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers God, your God's, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures. ¹¹ There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.

The Treatment of Servants

¹² If a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman was sold to you and has served you for six years, in the seventh year you must set him or her free, released into a free life. ¹³ And when you set them free don't send them off empty-handed. ¹⁴ Provide them with some animals, plenty of bread and wine and oil. Load them with provisions from all the blessings with which God, your God, has blessed you. ¹⁵ Don't for a minute forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and God, your God, redeemed you from that slave world. For that reason, this day I command you to do this. ¹⁶ But if your slave, because he loves you and your family and has a good life with you, says, "I don't want to leave you," ¹⁷ then take an awl and pierce through his earlobe into the doorpost, marking him as your slave forever. Do the same with your women slaves who want to stay with you. ¹⁸ Don't consider this an unreasonable hardship, this setting your slave free. After all, he's worked six years for you at half the cost of a hired hand. Believe me, God, your God, will bless you in everything you do.

The Consecration of Firstlings

¹⁹ Consecrate to God, your God, all the firstborn males in your herds and flocks. Don't use the firstborn from your herds as work animals; don't shear the firstborn from your flocks. ²⁰ These are for you to eat every year, you and your family, in the Presence of God, your God, at the place that God designates for worship. ²¹ If the animal is defective, lame, say, or blind - anything wrong with it - don't slaughter it as a sacrifice to God, your God. ²² Stay at home and eat it there. Both the ritually clean and unclean may eat it, the same as with a gazelle or a deer. ²³ Only you must not eat its blood. Pour the blood out on the ground like water.

The Three Appointed Feasts

16¹ Observe the month of Abib by celebrating the Passover to God, your God. It was in the month of Abib that God, your God, delivered you by night from Egypt. ² Offer the Passover-Sacrifice to God, your God, at the place God chooses to be worshiped by establishing his name there. ³ Don't eat yeast bread with it; for seven days eat it with unraised bread, hard-times bread, because you left Egypt in a hurry - that bread will keep the memory fresh of how you left Egypt for as long as you live. ⁴ There is to be no sign of yeast anywhere for seven days. And don't let any of the meat that you sacrifice in the evening be left over until morning. ⁵ Don't sacrifice the Passover in any of the towns that God, your God, gives you ⁶ other than the one God, your God, designates for worship; there and there only you will offer the Passover-Sacrifice at evening as the sun goes down, marking the time that you left Egypt. ⁷ Boil and eat it at the place designated by God, your God. Then, at daybreak, turn around and go home. ⁸ Eat unraised bread for six days. Set aside the seventh day as a holiday; don't do any work. ⁹ Starting from the day you put the sickle to the ripe grain, count out seven weeks. ¹⁰ Celebrate the Feast-of-Weeks to God, your God, by bringing your Freewill-Offering - give as generously as God, your God, has blessed you. ¹¹ Rejoice in the Presence of God, your God: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite who lives in your neighborhood, the foreigner, the orphan and widow among you; rejoice at the place God, your God, will set aside to be worshiped. ¹² Don't forget that you were once a slave in Egypt. So be diligent in observing these regulations. ¹³ Observe the Feast-of-Booths for seven days when you gather the harvest from your threshing-floor and your wine-vat. ¹⁴ Rejoice at your festival: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite, the foreigner, and the orphans and widows who live in your neighborhood. ¹⁵ Celebrate the Feast to God, your God, for seven days at the place God designates. God, your God, has been blessing you in your harvest and in all your work, so make a day of it - really celebrate! ¹⁶ All your men must appear before God, your God, three times each year at the place he designates: at the Feast-of-Unraised-Bread (Passover), at the Feast-of-Weeks, and at the Feast-of-Booths. No one is to show up in the Presence of God empty-handed; ¹⁷ each man must bring as much as he can manage, giving generously in response to the blessings of God, your God.

The Administration of Justice

¹⁸ Appoint judges and officers, organized by tribes, in all the towns that God, your God, is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly and honestly. ¹⁹ Don't twist the law. Don't play favorites. Don't take a bribe - a bribe blinds even a wise person; it undermines the intentions of the best of people. ²⁰ The right! The right! Pursue only what's right! It's the only way you can really live and possess the land that God, your God, is giving you. ²¹ Don't plant fertility Asherah trees alongside the Altar of God, your God, that you build. ²² Don't set up phallic sex pillars - God, your God, hates them.

17¹ And don't sacrifice to God, your God, an ox or sheep that is defective or has anything at all wrong with it. That's an abomination, an insult to God, your God. ² If you find anyone within the towns that God, your God, is giving you doing what is wrong in God's eyes, breaking his covenant ³ by going off to worship other gods, bowing down to them - the sun, say, or the moon, or any rebel sky-gods - ⁴ look at the evidence and investigate carefully. If you find that it is true, that, in fact, an abomination has been committed in Israel, ⁵ then you are to take the man or woman who did this evil thing outside your city gates and stone the man or the woman. Hurl stones at the person until dead. ⁶ But only on the testimony of two or three witnesses may a person be put to death. No one may be put to death on the testimony of one witness. ⁷ The witnesses must throw the first stones in the execution, then the rest of the community joins in. You have to purge the evil from your community.

⁸ When matters of justice come up that are too much for you - hard cases regarding homicides, legal disputes, fights - take them up to the central place of worship that God, your God, has designated. ⁹ Bring them to the Levitical priests and the judge who is in office at the time. Consult them and they will hand down the decision for you. ¹⁰ Then carry out their verdict at the place designated by God, your God. Do what they tell you, in exactly the way they tell you. ¹¹ Follow their instructions precisely: Don't leave out anything; don't add anything. ¹² Anyone who presumes to override or twist the decision handed down by the priest or judge who was acting in the Presence of God, your God, is as good as dead - root him out, rid Israel of the evil. ¹³ Everyone will take notice and be impressed. That will put an end to presumptuous behavior.

Instructions concerning a King

¹⁴ When you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you and take it over and settle down, and then say, "I'm going to get me a king, a king like all the nations around me," ¹⁵ make sure you get yourself a king whom God, your God, chooses. Choose your king from among your kinsmen; don't take a foreigner - only a kinsman. ¹⁶ And make sure he doesn't build up a war machine, amassing military horses and chariots. He must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because God told you, "You'll never go back there again!" ¹⁷ And make sure he doesn't build up a harem, collecting wives who will divert him from the straight and narrow. And make sure he doesn't pile up a lot of silver and gold. ¹⁸ This is what must be done: When he sits down on the throne of his kingdom, the first thing he must do is make himself a copy of this Revelation on a scroll, copied under the supervision of the Levitical priests. ¹⁹ That scroll is to remain at his side at all times; he is to study it every day so that he may learn what it means to fear his God, living in reverent obedience before these rules and regulations by following them. ²⁰ He must not become proud and arrogant, changing the commands at whim to suit himself or making up his own versions. If he reads and learns, he will have a long reign as king in Israel, he and his sons.

The Portions of the Levites

18¹ The Levitical priests - that's the entire tribe of Levi - don't get any land-inheritance with the rest of Israel. They get the Fire-Gift-Offerings of God - they will live on that inheritance. ² But they don't get land-inheritance like the rest of their kinsmen. God is their inheritance. ³ This is what the priests get from the people from any offering of an ox or a sheep: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ You must also give them the firstfruits of your grain, wine, and oil and the first fleece of your sheep, ⁵ because God, your God, has chosen only them and their children out of all your tribes to be present and serve always in the name of God, your God. ⁶ If a Levite moves from any town in Israel - and he is quite free to move wherever he desires - and comes to the place God designates for worship, ⁷ he may serve there in the name of God along with all his brother Levites who are present and serving in the Presence of God. ⁸ And he will get an equal share to eat, even though he has money from the sale of his parents' possessions.

Warning against Heathen Practices

⁹ When you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you, don't take on the abominable ways of life of the nations there. ¹⁰ Don't you dare sacrifice your son or daughter in the fire. Don't practice divination, sorcery, fortunetelling, witchery, ¹¹ casting spells, holding séances, or channeling with the dead. ¹² People who do these things are an abomination to God. It's because of just such abominable practices that God, your God, is driving these nations out before you. ¹³ Be completely loyal to God, your God. ¹⁴ These nations that you're about to run out of the country consort with sorcerers and witches. But not you. God, your God, forbids it.

God Promises a Prophet like Moses

¹⁵ God, your God, is going to raise up a prophet for you. God will raise him up from among your kinsmen, a prophet like me. Listen obediently to him. ¹⁶ This is what you asked God, your God, for at Horeb on the day you were all gathered at the mountain and said, "We can't hear any more from God, our God; we can't stand seeing any more fire. We'll die!" ¹⁷ And God said to me, "They're right; they've spoken the truth. ¹⁸ I'll raise up for them a prophet like you from their kinsmen. I'll tell him what to say and he will pass on to them everything I command him. ¹⁹ And anyone who won't listen to my words spoken by him, I will personally hold responsible. ²⁰ "But any prophet who fakes it, who claims to speak in my name something I haven't commanded him to say, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die." ²¹ You may be wondering among yourselves, "How can we tell the difference, whether it was God who spoke or not?" Here's how: ²² If what the prophet spoke in God's name doesn't happen, then obviously God wasn't behind it; the prophet made it up. Forget about him.

The Cities of Refuge

19¹ When God, your God, throws the nations out of the country that God, your God, is giving you and you settle down in their cities and houses, ² you are to set aside three easily accessible cities in the land that God, your God, is giving you as your very own. ³ Divide your land into thirds, this land that God, your God, is giving you to possess, and build roads to the towns so that anyone who accidentally kills another can flee there. ⁴ This is the guideline for the murderer who flees there to take refuge: He has to have killed his neighbor without premeditation and with no history of bad blood between them. ⁵ For instance, a man goes with his neighbor into the woods to cut a tree; he swings the ax, the head slips off the handle and hits his neighbor, killing him. He may then flee to one of these cities and save his life. ⁶ If the city is too far away, the avenger of blood racing in hot-blooded pursuit might catch him since it's such a long distance, and kill him even though he didn't deserve it. It wasn't his fault. There was no history of hatred between them. ⁷ Therefore I command you: Set aside the three cities for yourselves. ⁸ When God, your God, enlarges your land, extending its borders as he solemnly promised your ancestors, by giving you the whole land he promised them ⁹ because you are diligently living the way I'm commanding you today, namely, to love God, your God, and do what he tells you all your life; and when that happens, then add three more to these three cities ¹⁰ so that there is no chance of innocent blood being spilled in your land. God, your God, is giving you this land as an inheritance - you don't want to pollute it with innocent blood and bring bloodguilt upon yourselves. ¹¹ On the other hand, if a man with a history of hatred toward his neighbor waits in ambush, then jumps him, mauls and kills him, and then runs to one of these cities, that's a different story. ¹² The elders of his own city are to send for him and have him brought back. They are to hand him over to the avenger of blood for execution. ¹³ Don't feel sorry for him. Clean out the pollution of wrongful murder from Israel so that you'll be able to live well and breathe clean air.

¹⁴ Don't move your neighbor's boundary markers, the longstanding landmarks set up by your pioneer ancestors defining their property.

The Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ You cannot convict anyone of a crime or sin on the word of one witness. You need two or three witnesses to make a case. ¹⁶ If a hostile witness stands to accuse someone of a wrong, ¹⁷ then both parties involved in the quarrel must stand in the Presence of God before the priests and judges who are in office at that time. ¹⁸ The judges must conduct a careful investigation; if the witness turns out to be a false witness and has lied against his fellow Israelite, ¹⁹ give him the same medicine he intended for the other party. Clean the polluting evil from your company. ²⁰ People will hear of what you've done and be impressed; that will put a stop to this kind of evil among you. ²¹ Don't feel sorry for the person: It's life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The Laws concerning War

20¹ When you go to war against your enemy and see horses and chariots and soldiers far outnumbering you, do not recoil in fear of them; God, your God, who brought you up out of Egypt is with you. ² When the battle is about to begin, let the priest come forward and speak to the troops. ³ He'll say, "Attention, Israel. In a few minutes you're going to do battle with your enemies. Don't waver in resolve. Don't fear. Don't hesitate. Don't panic. ⁴ God, your God, is right there with you, fighting with you against your enemies, fighting to win." ⁵ Then let the officers step up and speak to the troops: "Is there a man here who has built a new house but hasn't yet dedicated it? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶ And is there a man here who has planted a vineyard but hasn't yet enjoyed the grapes? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man enjoy the grapes. ⁷ Is there a man here engaged to marry who hasn't yet taken his wife? Let him go home right now lest he die in battle and another man take her." ⁸ The officers will then continue, "And is there a man here who is wavering in resolve and afraid? Let him go home right now so that he doesn't infect his fellows with his timidity and cowardly spirit." ⁹ When the officers have finished speaking to the troops, let them appoint commanders of the troops who shall muster them by units.

¹⁰ When you come up against a city to attack it, call out, "Peace?" ¹¹ If they answer, "Yes, peace!" and open the city to you, then everyone found there will be conscripted as forced laborers and work for you. ¹² But if they don't settle for peace and insist on war, then go ahead and attack. ¹³ God, your God, will give them to you. Kill all the men with your swords. ¹⁴ But don't kill the women and children and animals. Everything inside the town you can take as plunder for you to use and eat - God, your God, gives it to you. ¹⁵ This is the way you deal with the distant towns, the towns that don't belong to the nations at hand. ¹⁶ But with the towns of the people that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, it's different: don't leave anyone alive. ¹⁷ Consign them to holy destruction: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, obeying the command of God, your God. ¹⁸ This is so there won't be any of them left to teach you to practice the abominations that they engage in with their gods and you end up sinning against God, your God. ¹⁹ When you mount an attack on a town and the siege goes on a long time, don't start cutting down the trees, swinging your axes against them. Those trees are your future food; don't cut them down. Are trees soldiers who come against you with weapons? ²⁰ The exception can be those trees which don't produce food; you can chop them down and use the timbers to build siege engines against the town that is resisting you until it falls.

Settlement for an Unknown Murderer's Crime

21¹ If a dead body is found on the ground, this ground that God, your God, has given you, lying out in the open, and no one knows who killed him, ² your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance from the body to the nearest cities. ³ The leaders and judges of the city that is nearest the corpse will then take a heifer that has never been used for work, never had a yoke on it. ⁴ The leaders will take the heifer to a valley with a stream, a valley that has never been plowed or planted, and there break the neck of the heifer. ⁵ The Levitical priests will then step up. God has chosen them to serve him in these matters by settling legal disputes and violent crimes and by pronouncing blessings in God's name. ⁶ Finally, all the leaders of that town that is nearest the body will wash their hands over the heifer that had its neck broken at the stream ⁷ and say, "We didn't kill this man and we didn't see who did it. ⁸ Purify your people Israel whom you redeemed, O God. Clear your people Israel from any guilt in this murder." ⁹ By following these procedures you will have absolved yourselves of any part in the murder because you will have done what is right in God's sight.

Various Laws

¹⁰ When you go to war against your enemies and God, your God, gives you victory and you take prisoners, ¹¹ and then you notice among the prisoners of war a good-looking woman whom you find attractive and would like to marry, ¹² this is what you do: Take her home; have her trim her hair, cut her nails, ¹³ and discard the clothes she was wearing when captured. She is then to stay in your home for a full month, mourning her father and mother. Then you may go to bed with her as husband and wife. ¹⁴ If it turns out you don't like her, you must let her go and live wherever she wishes. But you can't sell her or use her as a slave since you've humiliated her.

¹⁵ When a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and they both give him sons, but the firstborn is from the hated wife, ¹⁶ at the time he divides the inheritance with his sons he must not treat the son of the loved wife as the firstborn, cutting out the son of the hated wife, who is the actual firstborn. ¹⁷ No, he must acknowledge the inheritance rights of the real firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double share of the inheritance: that son is the first proof of his virility; the rights of the firstborn belong to him.

¹⁸ When a man has a stubborn son, a real rebel who won't do a thing his mother and father tell him, and even though they discipline him he still won't obey, ¹⁹ his father and mother shall forcibly bring him before the leaders at the city gate ²⁰ and say to the city fathers, "This son of ours is a stubborn rebel; he won't listen to a thing we say. He's a glutton and a drunk." ²¹ Then all the men of the town are to throw rocks at him until he's dead. You will have purged the evil pollution from among you. All Israel will hear what's happened and be in awe. ²² When a man has committed a capital crime, been given the death sentence, executed and hung from a tree, ²³ don't leave his dead body hanging overnight from the tree. Give him a decent burial that same day so that you don't desecrate your God-given land - a hanged man is an insult to God.

22¹ If you see your kinsman's ox or sheep wandering off loose, don't look the other way as if you didn't see it. Return it promptly. ² If your fellow Israelite is not close by or you don't know whose it is, take the animal home with you and take care of it until your fellow asks about it. Then return it to him. ³ Do the same if it's his donkey or a piece of clothing or anything else your fellow Israelite loses. Don't look the other way as if you didn't see it. ⁴ If you see your fellow's donkey or ox injured along the road, don't look the other way. Help him get it up and on its way.

⁵ A woman must not wear a man's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing. This kind of thing is an abomination to God, your God. ⁶ When you come across a bird's nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don't take the mother with the young. ⁷ You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life. ⁸ When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn't fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death. ⁹ Don't plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard. If you do, you will forfeit what you've sown, the total production of the vineyard. ¹⁰ Don't plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. ¹¹ Don't wear clothes of mixed fabrics, wool and linen together. ¹² Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you use to cover yourself.

Laws concerning Chastity

¹³ If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns on her, ¹⁴ calling her a slut, giving her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I slept with her I discovered she wasn't a virgin," ¹⁵ then the father and mother of the girl are to take her with the proof of her virginity to the town leaders at the gate. ¹⁶ The father is to tell the leaders, "I gave my daughter to this man as wife and he turned on her, rejecting her. ¹⁷ And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn't a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." And then he is to spread out her blood-stained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination. ¹⁸ The town leaders then are to take the husband, whip him, ¹⁹ fine him a hundred pieces of silver, and give it to the father of the girl. The man gave a virgin girl of Israel a bad name. He has to keep her as his wife and can never divorce her. ²⁰ But if it turns out that the accusation is true and there is no evidence of the girl's virginity, ²¹ the men of the town are to take her to the door of her father's house and stone her to death. She acted disgracefully in Israel. She lived like a whore while still in her parents' home. Purge the evil from among you. ²² If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both must die. Purge that evil from Israel. ²³ If a man comes upon a virgin in town, a girl who is engaged to another man, and sleeps with her, ²⁴ take both of them to the town gate and stone them until they die - the girl because she didn't yell out for help in the town and the man because he raped her, violating the fiancZe of his neighbor. You must purge the evil from among you. ²⁵ But if it was out in the country that the man found the engaged girl and grabbed and raped her, only the man is to die, the man who raped her. ²⁶ Don't do anything to the girl; she did nothing wrong. This is similar to the case of a man who comes across his neighbor out in the country and murders him; ²⁷ when the engaged girl yelled out for help, there was no one around to hear or help her. ²⁸ When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, ²⁹ the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her. ³⁰ A man may not marry his father's ex-wife - that would violate his father's rights.

Those Excluded from the Congregation

23¹ No eunuch is to enter the congregation of God. ² No bastard is to enter the congregation of God, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children. ³ No Ammonite or Moabite is to enter the congregation of God, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children, ever. ⁴ Those nations didn't treat you with hospitality on your travels out of Egypt, and on top of that they also hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Mesopotamia to curse you ⁵ God, your God, refused to listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing - how God, your God, loves you! ⁶ Don't even try to get along with them or do anything for them, ever. ⁷ But don't spurn an Edomite; he's your kin. And don't spurn an Egyptian; you were a foreigner in his land. ⁸ Children born to Edomites and Egyptians may enter the congregation of God in the third generation.

Laws of Sanitation

⁹ When you are camped out, at war with your enemies, be careful to keep yourself from anything ritually defiling. ¹⁰ If one of your men has become ritually unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must go outside the camp and stay there ¹¹ until evening when he can wash himself, returning to the camp at sunset. ¹² Mark out an area outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourselves. ¹³ Along with your weapons have a stick with you. After you relieve yourself, dig a hole with the stick and cover your excrement. ¹⁴ God, your God, strolls through your camp; he's present to deliver you and give you victory over your enemies. Keep your camp holy; don't permit anything indecent or offensive in God's eyes

Laws of Human Relations

¹⁵ Don't return a runaway slave to his master; he's come to you for refuge. ¹⁶ Let him live wherever he wishes within the protective gates of your city. Don't take advantage of him. ¹⁷ No daughter of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute; and no son of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute. ¹⁸ And don't bring the fee of a sacred whore or the earnings of a priest-pimp to the house of God, your God, to pay for any vow - they are both an abomination to God, your God. ¹⁹ Don't charge interest to your kinsmen on any loan: not for money or food or clothing or anything else that could earn interest ²⁰ You may charge foreigners interest, but you may not charge your brothers interest; that way God, your God, will bless all the work that you take up and the land that you are entering to possess. ²¹ When you make a vow to God, your God, don't put off keeping it; God, your God, expects you to keep it and if you don't you're guilty ²² But if you don't make a vow in the first place, there's no sin. ²³ If you say you're going to do something, do it. Keep the vow you willingly vowed to God, your God. You promised it, so do it. ²⁴ When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want until you're full, but you may not put any in your bucket or bag. ²⁵ And when you walk through the ripe grain of your neighbor, you may pick the heads of grain, but you may not swing your sickle there.

24¹ If a man marries a woman and then it happens that he no longer likes her because he has found something wrong with her, he may give her divorce papers, put them in her hand, and send her off. ² After she leaves, if she becomes another man's wife ³ and he also comes to hate her and this second husband also gives her divorce papers, puts them in her hand, and sends her off, or if he should die, ⁴ then the first husband who divorced her can't marry her again. She has made herself ritually unclean, and her remarriage would be an abomination in the Presence of God and defile the land with sin, this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.

⁵ When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy. ⁶ Don't seize a handmill or an upper millstone as collateral for a loan. You'd be seizing someone's very life. ⁷ If a man is caught kidnapping one of his kinsmen, someone of the People of Israel, to enslave or sell him, the kidnapper must die. Purge that evil from among you. ⁸ Warning! If a serious skin disease breaks out, follow exactly the rules set down by the Levitical priests. Follow them precisely as I commanded them. ⁹ Don't forget what God, your God, did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt. ¹⁰ When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, don't enter his house to claim his pledge. ¹¹ Wait outside. Let the man to whom you made the pledge bring the pledge to you outside. ¹² And if he is destitute, don't use his cloak as a bedroll; ¹³ return it to him at nightfall so that he can sleep in his cloak and bless you. In the sight of God, your God, that will be viewed as a righteous act.

¹⁴ Don't abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite living in your land and in your city. ¹⁵ Pay him at the end of each workday; he's living from hand to mouth and needs it now. If you hold back his pay, he'll protest to God and you'll have sin on your books. ¹⁶ Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their parents. Each person shall be put to death for his own sin. ¹⁷ Make sure foreigners and orphans get their just rights. Don't take the cloak of a widow as security for a loan. ¹⁸ Don't ever forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there. I command you: Do what I'm telling you. ¹⁹ When you harvest your grain and forget a sheaf back in the field, don't go back and get it; leave it for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that God, your God, will bless you in all your work. ²⁰ When you shake the olives off your trees, don't go back over the branches and strip them bare - what's left is for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. ²¹ And when you cut the grapes in your vineyard, don't take every last grape - leave a few for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. ²² Don't ever forget that you were a slave in Egypt. I command you: Do what I'm telling you.

25¹ When men have a legal dispute, let them go to court; the judges will decide between them, declaring one innocent and the other guilty. ² If the guilty one deserves punishment, the judge will have him prostrate himself before him and lashed as many times as his crime deserves, ³ but not more than forty. If you hit him more than forty times, you will degrade him to something less than human. ⁴ Don't muzzle an ox while it is threshing.

⁵ When brothers are living together and one of them dies without having had a son, the widow of the dead brother shall not marry a stranger from outside the family; her husband's brother is to come to her and marry her and do the brother-in-law's duty by her. ⁶ The first son that she bears shall be named after her dead husband so his name won't die out in Israel. ⁷ But if the brother doesn't want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the leaders at the city gate and say, "My brother-in-law refuses to keep his brother's name alive in Israel; he won't agree to do the brother-in-law's duty by me." ⁸ Then the leaders will call for the brother and confront him. If he stands there defiant and says, "I don't want her," ⁹ his sister-in-law is to pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and say, "This is what happens to the man who refuses to build up the family of his brother ¹⁰ - his name in Israel will be Family-No-Sandal." ¹¹ When two men are in a fight and the wife of the one man, trying to rescue her husband, grabs the genitals of the man hitting him, ¹² you are to cut off her hand. Show no pity.

¹³ Don't carry around with you two weights, one heavy and the other light, ¹⁴ and don't keep two measures at hand, one large and the other small. ¹⁵ Use only one weight, a true and honest weight, and one measure, a true and honest measure, so that you will live a long time on the land that God, your God, is giving you. ¹⁶ Dishonest weights and measures are an abomination to God, your God - all this corruption in business deals!

The Command to Blot Out Amalek

¹⁷ Don't forget what Amalek did to you on the road after you left Egypt, ¹⁸ how he attacked you when you were tired, barely able to put one foot in front of another, mercilessly cut off your stragglers, and had no regard for God. ¹⁹ When God, your God, gives you rest from all the enemies that surround you in the inheritance-land God, your God, is giving you to possess, you are to wipe the name of Amalek from off the Earth. Don't forget!

The Firstfruits and the Tithe

26¹ Once you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance and take it over and settle down, ² you are to take some of all the firstfruits of what you grow in the land that God, your God, is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place God, your God, sets apart for you to worship him. ³ At that time, go to the priest who is there and say, "I announce to God, your God, today that I have entered the land that God promised our ancestors that he'd give to us." ⁴ The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar of God, your God. ⁵ And there in the Presence of God, your God, you will recite, A wandering Aramean was my father, he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many. ⁶ The Egyptians abused and battered us, in a cruel and savage slavery. ⁷ We cried out to God, the God-of-Our-Fathers: He listened to our voice, he saw our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight. ⁸ And God took us out of Egypt with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great, with signs and miracle-wonders. ⁹ And he brought us to this place, gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.

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New King James Version

The Ten Commandments

5¹ And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. ³ The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. ⁴ The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. ⁵ I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. He said:

⁶ 'I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. ⁷ 'You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁸ 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁹ you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ¹⁰ but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ¹¹ 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. ¹² 'Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. ¹⁵ And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. ¹⁶ 'Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁷ 'You shall not murder. ¹⁸ 'You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁹ 'You shall not steal. ²⁰ 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ²¹ 'You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.'

The People's Fear

²² "These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

²³ "So it was, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. ²⁴ And you said: 'Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives. ²⁵ Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die. ²⁶ For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? ²⁷ You go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say, and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.' ²⁸ Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: 'I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. ²⁹ Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever! ³⁰ Go and say to them, "Return to your tents." ³¹ But as for you, stand here by Me, and I will speak to you all the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which you shall teach them, that they may observe them in the land which I am giving them to possess.' ³² Therefore you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. ³³ You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.

The Great Commandment

6¹ "Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, ² that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. ³ Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you--'a land flowing with milk and honey.'

⁴ "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ⁶ "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Warnings against Disobedience

¹⁰ "So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, ¹¹ houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant--when you have eaten and are full-- ¹² then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¹³ You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. ¹⁴ You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you ¹⁵ (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth. ¹⁶ "You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.

¹⁷ You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you. ¹⁸ And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers, ¹⁹ to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken. ²⁰ "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?' ²¹ then you shall say to your son: 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; ²² and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. ²³ Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. ²⁴ And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. ²⁵ Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.'

Israel Warned of the Idolatry of Canaan

7¹ "When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, ² and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. ³ Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. ⁴ For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. ⁵ But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

A Holy People to the LORD

⁶ "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. ⁷ The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; ⁸ but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰ and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹² "Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. ¹³ And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. ¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. ¹⁶ And you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. ¹⁷ "If you should say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'-- ¹⁸ you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: ¹⁹ the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ²⁰ Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. ²¹ You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. ²² And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ²³ But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. ²⁴ And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵ You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.

A Good Land to Be Possessed

8¹ "Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. ² And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. ⁵ You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. ⁶ Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil 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 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

Warning against Forgetting the LORD

¹¹ "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, ¹² lest--when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; ¹⁴ when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; ¹⁵ who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you 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 that He might test you, to do you good in the end-- ¹⁷ then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.' ¹⁸ And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. ¹⁹ Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. ²⁰ As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

The LORD Will Destroy the Nations of Canaan

9¹ "Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, ² a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?' ³ Therefore understand today that the Lord your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. ⁴ Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Israel's Rebellion at Horeb

⁶ Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

⁷ "Remember. Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. ⁹ When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.' ¹³ "Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked 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 burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God--had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸ And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. ²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹ Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain. ²² "Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³ Likewise, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, 'Go up and possess the land which I have given you,' then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. ²⁵ "Thus I prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. ²⁶ Therefore I prayed to the Lord, and said: 'O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which You brought us should say, "Because the Lord was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness." ²⁹ Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.'

The Second Tablets of Stone

10¹ "At that time the Lord said to me, 'Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. ² And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.' ³ So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in 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 tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me." ⁶ (Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his stead. ⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of water. ⁸ At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear 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 nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised him.) ¹⁰ "As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you. ¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.'

What God Requires

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 and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? ¹⁴ Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. ¹⁵ The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. ¹⁶ Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. ¹⁸ He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. ²¹ He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.

The Greatness of the LORD

11¹ "Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. ² Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm-- ³ His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; ⁴ what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵ what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; ⁶ and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel-- ⁷ but your eyes have seen every great act of the Lord which He did.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸ "Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, ⁹ and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.' ¹⁰ For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; ¹¹ but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹² a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. ¹³ 'And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. ¹⁵ And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.' ¹⁶ Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, ¹⁷ lest the Lord's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸ "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ²⁰ And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. ²² "For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do--to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him-- ²³ then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. ²⁴ Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. ²⁵ No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

²⁶ "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; 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 today, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹ Now it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰ Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh? ³¹ For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. ³² And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.

Only One Place of Worship

12¹ "These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. ² You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. ³ And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. ⁴ You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things.

⁵ But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. ⁶ There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you. ⁸ You shall not at all do as we are doing here today--every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes-- ⁹ for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, ¹¹ then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice 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 male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you. ¹³ Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; ¹⁴ but in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you. ¹⁵ "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. ¹⁶ Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. ¹⁷ You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. ¹⁸ But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands. ¹⁹ Take heed to yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land. ²⁰ "When the Lord your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, 'Let me eat meat,' because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires. ²¹ If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your gates as much as your heart desires. ²² Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. ²³ Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ You shall not eat it; you shall pour it on the earth like water. ²⁵ You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. ²⁶ Only the holy things which you have, and your vowed offerings, you shall take and go to the place which the Lord chooses. ²⁷ And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the meat. ²⁸ Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, 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 from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, ³⁰ take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' ³¹ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. ³² Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

13¹ "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, '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 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 hold fast to Him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.

⁶ "If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, ⁷ of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, ⁸ you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; ⁹ but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¹¹ So all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you.

¹² "If you hear someone in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to dwell in, saying, ¹³ 'Corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods" '--which you have not known-- ¹⁴ then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination was committed among you, ¹⁵ you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword--utterly destroying it, all that is in it and its livestock, with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ And you shall gather all its plunder into the middle of the street, and completely burn with fire the city and all its plunder, for the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again. ¹⁷ So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers, ¹⁸ because you have listened to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you today, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

14¹ "You are the children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head for the dead. ² For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Clean and Unclean Food

³ "You shall not eat any detestable thing. ⁴ These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the mountain goat, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. ⁶ And you may eat every animal with cloven hooves, having the hoof split into two parts, and that chews the cud, among the animals. ⁷ Nevertheless, of those that chew the cud or have cloven hooves, you shall not eat, such as these: the camel, the hare, and the rock hyrax; for they chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves; they are unclean for you. ⁸ Also the swine is unclean for you, because it has cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud; you shall not eat their flesh or touch their dead carcasses. ⁹ "These you may eat of all that are in the waters: you may eat all that have fins and scales. ¹⁰ And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you. ¹¹ "All clean birds you may eat. ¹² But these you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, ¹³ the red kite, the falcon, and the kite after their kinds; ¹⁴ every raven after its kind; ¹⁵ the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the seagull, and the hawk after their kinds; ¹⁶ the little owl, the screech owl, the white owl, ¹⁷ the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the fisher owl, ¹⁸ the stork, the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe and the bat. ¹⁹ Also every creeping thing that flies is unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. ²⁰ You may eat all clean birds. ²¹ "You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

The Law of the Tithe

²² "You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. ²³ And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. ²⁴ But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, ²⁵ then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. ²⁶ And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. ²⁷ You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you. ²⁸ "At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. ²⁹ And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

The Year of Release

15¹ "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. ² And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord's release. ³ Of a foreigner you may require it; but you shall give up your claim to what is owed by your brother, ⁴ except when there may be no poor among you; for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance-- ⁵ only if you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe with care all these commandments which I command you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you just as He promised you; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; you shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you.

Lending to the Poor

⁷ "If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, ⁸ but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. ⁹ Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, 'The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,' and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the Lord against you, and it become sin among you. ¹⁰ You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand. ¹¹ For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.'

The Treatment of Servants

¹² "If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. ¹³ And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed; ¹⁴ you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord has blessed you with, 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 thing today. ¹⁶ And if it happens that he says to you, 'I will not go away from you,' because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, ¹⁷ then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. ¹⁸ It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you; for he has been worth a double hired servant in serving you six years. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

The Consecration of Firstlings

¹⁹ All the firstborn males that come from your herd and your flock you shall sanctify to the Lord your God; you shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. ²⁰ You and your household shall eat it before the Lord your God year by year in the place which the Lord chooses. ²¹ But if there is a defect in it, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. ²² You may eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean person alike may eat it, as if it were a gazelle or a deer. ²³ Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it on the ground like water.

The Three Appointed Feasts

16¹ "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 Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to put His name. ³ You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. ⁴ And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning. ⁵ You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you; ⁶ but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷ And you shall roast and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. ⁸ Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it. ⁹ "You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the 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 You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. ¹² And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes. ¹³ "You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. ¹⁴ And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice. ¹⁶ Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and 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.

The Administration of Justice

¹⁸ "You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. ¹⁹ You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. ²⁰ You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you. ²¹ "You shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a wooden image, near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. ²² You shall not set up a sacred pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

17¹ "You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God. ² "If there is found among you, within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing His covenant, ³ who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, ⁴ and it is told you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, ⁵ then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing, and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones. ⁶ Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

⁸ "If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses. ⁹ And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. ¹¹ According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. ¹² Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.

Instructions concerning a King

¹⁴ "When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,' ¹⁵ you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. ¹⁶ But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' ¹⁷ Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. ¹⁸ "Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. ¹⁹ And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, ²⁰ that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

The Portions of the Levites

18¹ "The priests, the Levites--all the tribe of Levi--shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and His portion. ² Therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the Lord is their inheritance, as He said to them. ³ "And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it is bull or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ The firstfruits of your grain and your new wine and 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 to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons forever. ⁶ "So if a Levite comes from any of your gates, from where he dwells among all Israel, and comes with all the desire of his mind to the place which the Lord chooses, ⁷ then he may serve in the name of the Lord his God as all his brethren the Levites do, who stand there before the Lord. ⁸ They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what comes from the sale of his inheritance.

Warning against Heathen Practices

⁹ "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. ¹² For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. ¹³ You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.

God Promises a Prophet like Moses

¹⁵ "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, ¹⁶ according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.' ¹⁷ And the Lord said to me: 'What they have spoken is good. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. ¹⁹ And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I 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 prophet shall die.' ²¹ And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?'-- ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

The Cities of Refuge

19¹ "When the Lord your God has cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, ² you shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ You shall prepare roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, that any manslayer may flee there. ⁴ "And this is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him in time past-- ⁵ as when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies--he shall flee to one of these cities and live; ⁶ lest the avenger of blood, while his anger is hot, pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and kill him, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated the victim in time past. ⁷ Therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall separate three cities for yourself.' ⁸ Now if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you the land which He promised to give to your fathers, ⁹ and if you keep all these commandments and do them, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and to walk always in His ways, then you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three, ¹⁰ lest innocent blood be shed in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus guilt of bloodshed be upon you. ¹¹ "But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his city shall send and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ¹³ Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.

¹⁴ "You shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

The Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. ¹⁶ If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. ¹⁸ And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, ¹⁹ then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. ²⁰ And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. ²¹ Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The Laws concerning War

20¹ "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. ² So it shall be, when you are on the verge of battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people. ³ And he shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel: Today you are on the verge of battle with your enemies. Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them; ⁴ for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.' ⁵ Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying: 'What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶ Also what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. ⁷ And what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man marry her.' ⁸ The officers shall speak further to the people, and say, 'What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.' ⁹ And so it shall be, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.

¹⁰ "When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. ¹¹ And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you. ¹² Now if the city will not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. ¹³ And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴ But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat the enemies' plunder which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁵ Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. ¹⁶ But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, ¹⁷ but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God. ¹⁹ "When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man's food. ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.

Settlement for an Unknown Murderer's Crime

21¹ "If anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, ² then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities. ³ And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke. ⁴ The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and they shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then 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 of the Lord; by their word every controversy 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 Then they shall answer and say, 'Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. ⁸ Provide atonement, O Lord, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.' And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood. ⁹ So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

Various Laws

¹⁰ "When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, ¹¹ and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, ¹² then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. ¹³ She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn 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 it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have humbled her.

¹⁵ "If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, ¹⁶ then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn. ¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning 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 the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, ¹⁹ then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 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.' ²¹ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. ²² "If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ²³ his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.

22¹ "You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother. ² And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him. ³ You shall do the same with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment; with any lost thing of your brother's, which he has lost and you have found, you shall do likewise; you must not hide yourself. ⁴ "You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and hide yourself from them; you shall surely help him 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 all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. ⁶ "If a bird's nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; ⁷ you shall surely let the mother go, and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days. ⁸ "When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it. ⁹ "You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. ¹⁰ "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. ¹¹ "You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together. ¹² "You shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.

Laws concerning Chastity

¹³ "If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and detests her, ¹⁴ and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, 'I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin,' ¹⁵ then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of the young woman's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. ¹⁶ And the young woman's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and he detests her. ¹⁷ Now he has charged her with shameful conduct, saying, "I found your daughter was not a virgin," and yet these are the evidences of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him; ¹⁹ and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. ²⁰ But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for 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 done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play 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 a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die--the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel. ²³ "If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, 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 you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor's wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you. ²⁵ "But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces 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; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. ²⁷ For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her. ²⁸ "If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, ²⁹ then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days. ³⁰ "A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his father's bed.

Those Excluded from the Congregation

23¹ "He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. ² "One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord. ³ "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, ⁴ because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you ⁵ Nevertheless the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶ You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. ⁷ "You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land. ⁸ The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

Laws of Sanitation

⁹ "When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. ¹⁰ If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come inside the camp. ¹¹ But it shall be, when evening comes, that he shall wash with water; and when the sun sets, he may come into the camp. ¹² Also you shall have a place outside the camp, where you may go out; ¹³ and you shall have an implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn and cover your refuse. ¹⁴ For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you

Laws of Human Relations

¹⁵ "You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your gates, where it seems best to him; you shall not oppress him. ¹⁷ "There shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel, or a perverted one of the sons of Israel. ¹⁸ You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God. ¹⁹ "You shall not charge interest to your brother--interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest ²⁰ To a foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess. ²¹ "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you ²² But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. ²³ That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. ²⁴ "When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container. ²⁵ When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain.

24¹ "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, ² when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man's wife, ³ if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, ⁴ then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

⁵ "When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business; he shall be free at home one year, and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken. ⁶ "No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge, for he takes one's living in pledge. ⁷ "If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and mistreats him or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die; and you shall put away the evil from among you. ⁸ "Take heed in an outbreak of leprosy, that you carefully observe and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you; just as I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. ⁹ Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt. ¹⁰ "When you lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge. ¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you. ¹² And if the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight. ¹³ You shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his own garment and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. ¹⁵ Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it; lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and it be sin to you. ¹⁶ Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin. ¹⁷ "You shall not pervert justice due the stranger or the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment as a pledge. ¹⁸ But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing. ¹⁹ "When you reap your harvest in your field, and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. ²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. ²² And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this thing.

25¹ "If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, ² then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with a certain number of blows. ³ Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight. ⁴ "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

⁵ "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. ⁶ And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷ But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.' ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, 'I do not want to take her,' ⁹ then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house.' ¹⁰ And his name shall be called in Israel, 'The house of him who had his sandal removed.' ¹¹ "If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, ¹² then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.

¹³ "You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God.

The Command to Blot Out Amalek

¹⁷ "Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, ¹⁸ how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. ¹⁹ Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.

The Firstfruits and the Tithe

26¹ "And it shall be, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, ² that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. ³ And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days, and say to him, 'I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.' ⁴ Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. ⁵ And you shall answer and say before the Lord your God: 'My father was a Syrian, about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. ⁶ But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us. ⁷ Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. ⁸ So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. ⁹ He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, "a land flowing with milk and honey";

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New Living Translation

The Ten Commandments

5¹ Moses called all the people of Israel together and said, "Listen carefully, Israel. Hear the decrees and regulations I am giving you today, so you may learn them and obey them! ² "The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. ³ The Lord did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with all of us who are alive today. ⁴ At the mountain the Lord spoke to you face to face from the heart of the fire. ⁵ I stood as an intermediary between you and the Lord, for you were afraid of the fire and did not want to approach the mountain. He spoke to me, and I passed his words on to you. This is what he said:

⁶ "I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. ⁷ "You must not have any other god but me. ⁸ "You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. ⁹ You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected-even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. ¹⁰ But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. ¹¹ "You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. ¹² "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³ You have six days each week for your ordinary work, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day. ¹⁶ "Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁷ "You must not murder. ¹⁸ "You must not commit adultery. ¹⁹ "You must not steal. ²⁰ "You must not testify falsely against your neighbor. ²¹ "You must not covet your neighbor's wife. You must not covet your neighbor's house or land, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

The People's Fear

²² "The Lord spoke these words to all of you assembled there at the foot of the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from the heart of the fire, surrounded by clouds and deep darkness. This was all he said at that time, and he wrote his words on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

²³ "But when you heard the voice from the heart of the darkness, while the mountain was blazing with fire, all your tribal leaders and elders came to me. ²⁴ They said, 'Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we have seen that God can speak to us humans, and yet we live! ²⁵ But now, why should we risk death again? If the Lord our God speaks to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. ²⁶ Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the fire as we did and yet survive? ²⁷ Go yourself and listen to what the Lord our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.' ²⁸ "The Lord heard the request you made to me. And he said, 'I have heard what the people said to you, and they are right. ²⁹ Oh, that they would always have hearts like this, that they might fear me and obey all my commands! If they did, they and their descendants would prosper forever. ³⁰ Go and tell them, "Return to your tents." ³¹ But you stand here with me so I can give you all my commands, decrees, and regulations. You must teach them to the people so they can obey them in the land I am giving them as their possession.'" ³² So Moses told the people, "You must be careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God, following his instructions in every detail. ³³ Stay on the path that the Lord your God has commanded you to follow. Then you will live long and prosperous lives in the land you are about to enter and occupy.

The Great Commandment

6¹ "These are the commands, decrees, and regulations that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. You must obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy, ² and you and your children and grandchildren must fear the Lord your God as long as you live. If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life. ³ Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

⁴ "Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. ⁶ And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. ⁷ Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. ⁸ Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. ⁹ Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Warnings against Disobedience

¹⁰ "The Lord your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give you when he made a vow to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a land with large, prosperous cities that you did not build. ¹¹ The houses will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce. You will draw water from cisterns you did not dig, and you will eat from vineyards and olive trees you did not plant. When you have eaten your fill in this land, ¹² be careful not to forget the Lord, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. ¹³ You must fear the Lord your God and serve him. When you take an oath, you must use only his name. ¹⁴ "You must not worship any of the gods of neighboring nations, ¹⁵ for the Lord your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you, and he will wipe you from the face of the earth. ¹⁶ You must not test the Lord your God as you did when you complained at Massah.

¹⁷ You must diligently obey the commands of the Lord your God-all the laws and decrees he has given you. ¹⁸ Do what is right and good in the Lord 's sight, so all will go well with you. Then you will enter and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to give your ancestors. ¹⁹ You will drive out all the enemies living in the land, just as the Lord said you would. ²⁰ "In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these laws, decrees, and regulations that the Lord our God has commanded us to obey?' ²¹ "Then you must tell them, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand. ²² The Lord did miraculous signs and wonders before our eyes, dealing terrifying blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people. ²³ He brought us out of Egypt so he could give us this land he had sworn to give our ancestors. ²⁴ And the Lord our God commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear him so he can continue to bless us and preserve our lives, as he has done to this day. ²⁵ For we will be counted as righteous when we obey all the commands the Lord our God has given us.'

Israel Warned of the Idolatry of Canaan

7¹ "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are greater and more numerous than you. ² When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. ³ You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters, ⁴ for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and he will quickly destroy you. ⁵ This is what you must do. You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.

A Holy People to the LORD

⁶ For you are a holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. Of all the people on earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure. ⁷ "The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! ⁸ Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you, and he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors. That is why the Lord rescued you with such a strong hand from your slavery and from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. ⁹ Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands. ¹⁰ But he does not hesitate to punish and destroy those who reject him. ¹¹ Therefore, you must obey all these commands, decrees, and regulations I am giving you today.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹² "If you listen to these regulations and faithfully obey them, the Lord your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he promised with an oath to your ancestors. ¹³ He will love you and bless you, and he will give you many children. He will give fertility to your land and your animals. When you arrive in the land he swore to give your ancestors, you will have large harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil, and great herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. ¹⁴ You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young. ¹⁵ And the Lord will protect you from all sickness. He will not let you suffer from the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all your enemies! ¹⁶ "You must destroy all the nations the Lord your God hands over to you. Show them no mercy, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you. ¹⁷ Perhaps you will think to yourselves, 'How can we ever conquer these nations that are so much more powerful than we are?' ¹⁸ But don't be afraid of them! Just remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the land of Egypt. ¹⁹ Remember the great terrors the Lord your God sent against them. You saw it all with your own eyes! And remember the miraculous signs and wonders, and the strong hand and powerful arm with which he brought you out of Egypt. The Lord your God will use this same power against all the people you fear. ²⁰ And then the Lord your God will send terror to drive out the few survivors still hiding from you! ²¹ "No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the Lord your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God. ²² The Lord your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you. ²³ But the Lord your God will hand them over to you. He will throw them into complete confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will put their kings in your power, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you, and you will destroy them all. ²⁵ "You must burn their idols in fire, and you must not covet the silver or gold that covers them. You must not take it or it will become a trap to you, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be destroyed, just like them. You must utterly detest such things, for they are set apart for destruction.

A Good Land to Be Possessed

8¹ "Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. ² Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. ³ Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord . ⁴ For all these forty years your clothes didn't wear out, and your feet didn't blister or swell. ⁵ Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good. ⁶ "So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. ⁸ It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. ⁹ It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills.

¹⁰ When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Warning against Forgetting the LORD

¹¹ "But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. ¹² For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, ¹³ and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! ¹⁴ Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. ¹⁵ Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! ¹⁶ He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. ¹⁷ He did all this so you would never say to yourself, 'I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.' ¹⁸ Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath. ¹⁹ "But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. ²⁰ Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God.

The LORD Will Destroy the Nations of Canaan

9¹ "Listen, O Israel! Today you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land belonging to nations much greater and more powerful than you. They live in cities with walls that reach to the sky! ² The people are strong and tall-descendants of the famous Anakite giants. You've heard the saying, 'Who can stand up to the Anakites?' ³ But recognize today that the Lord your God is the one who will cross over ahead of you like a devouring fire to destroy them. He will subdue them so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out, just as the Lord has promised. ⁴ "After the Lord your God has done this for you, don't say in your hearts, 'The Lord has given us this land because we are such good people!' No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way. ⁵ It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The Lord your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Israel's Rebellion at Horeb

⁶ You must recognize that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land because you are good, for you are not-you are a stubborn people.

⁷ "Remember and never forget how angry you made the Lord your God out in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until now, you have been constantly rebelling against him. ⁸ Even at Mount Sinai you made the Lord so angry he was ready to destroy you. ⁹ This happened when I was on the mountain receiving the tablets of stone inscribed with the words of the covenant that the Lord had made with you. I was there for forty days and forty nights, and all that time I ate no food and drank no water. ¹⁰ The Lord gave me the two tablets on which God had written with his own finger all the words he had spoken to you from the heart of the fire when you were assembled at the mountain. ¹¹ "At the end of the forty days and nights, the Lord handed me the two stone tablets inscribed with the words of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, 'Get up! Go down immediately, for the people you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted gold and made an idol for themselves!' ¹³ "The Lord also said to me, 'I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. ¹⁴ Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are.' ¹⁵ "So while the mountain was blazing with fire I turned and came down, holding in my hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. ¹⁶ There below me I could see that you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had melted gold and made a calf idol for yourselves. How quickly you had turned away from the path the Lord had commanded you to follow! ¹⁷ So I took the stone tablets and threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes. ¹⁸ "Then, as before, I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the Lord hated, provoking him to anger. ¹⁹ I feared that the furious anger of the Lord, which turned him against you, would drive him to destroy you. But again he listened to me. ²⁰ The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him, too. But I prayed for Aaron, and the Lord spared him. ²¹ I took your sin-the calf you had made-and I melted it down in the fire and ground it into fine dust. Then I threw the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain. ²² "You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah. ²³ And at Kadesh-barnea the Lord sent you out with this command: 'Go up and take over the land I have given you.' But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refused to put your trust in him or obey him. ²⁴ Yes, you have been rebelling against the Lord as long as I have known you. ²⁵ "That is why I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights-for the Lord said he would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed to the Lord and said, 'O Sovereign Lord, do not destroy them. They are your own people. They are your special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand. ²⁷ Please overlook the stubbornness and the awful sin of these people, and remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ²⁸ If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say, "The Israelites died because the Lord wasn't able to bring them to the land he had promised to give them." Or they might say, "He destroyed them because he hated them; he deliberately took them into the wilderness to slaughter them." ²⁹ But they are your people and your special possession, whom you brought out of Egypt by your great strength and powerful arm.'

The Second Tablets of Stone

10¹ "At that time the Lord said to me, 'Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones. Also make a wooden Ark-a sacred chest to store them in. Come up to me on the mountain, ² and I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the ones you smashed. Then place the tablets in the Ark.' ³ "So I made an Ark of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first two. Then I went up the mountain with the tablets in my hand. ⁴ Once again the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets and gave them to me. They were the same words the Lord had spoken to you from the heart of the fire on the day you were assembled at the foot of the mountain. ⁵ Then I turned and came down the mountain and placed the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, which I had made, just as the Lord commanded me. And the tablets are still there in the Ark." ⁶ (The people of Israel set out from the wells of the people of Jaakan and traveled to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried. His son Eleazar ministered as high priest in his place. ⁷ Then they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from there to Jotbathah, a land with many brooks and streams. ⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Lord 's Covenant, and to stand before the Lord as his ministers, and to pronounce blessings in his name. These are their duties to this day. ⁹ That is why the Levites have no share of property or possession of land among the other Israelite tribes. The Lord himself is their special possession, as the Lord your God told them.) ¹⁰ "As for me, I stayed on the mountain in the Lord 's presence for forty days and nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the Lord listened to my pleas and agreed not to destroy you. ¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, 'Get up and resume the journey, and lead the people to the land I swore to give to their ancestors, so they may take possession of it.'

What God Requires

¹² "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. ¹³ And you must always obey the Lord 's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good. ¹⁴ "Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belong to the Lord your God. ¹⁵ Yet the Lord chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today. ¹⁶ Therefore, change your hearts and stop being stubborn. ¹⁷ "For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed. ¹⁸ He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. ¹⁹ So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You must fear the Lord your God and worship him and cling to him. Your oaths must be in his name alone. ²¹ He alone is your God, the only one who is worthy of your praise, the one who has done these mighty miracles that you have seen with your own eyes. ²² When your ancestors went down into Egypt, there were only seventy of them. But now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky!

The Greatness of the LORD

11¹ "You must love the Lord your God and always obey his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands. ² Keep in mind that I am not talking now to your children, who have never experienced the discipline of the Lord your God or seen his greatness and his strong hand and powerful arm. ³ They didn't see the miraculous signs and wonders he performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land. ⁴ They didn't see what the Lord did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots-how he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. He destroyed them, and they have not recovered to this very day! ⁵ "Your children didn't see how the Lord cared for you in the wilderness until you arrived here. ⁶ They didn't see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben) when the earth opened its mouth in the Israelite camp and swallowed them, along with their households and tents and every living thing that belonged to them. ⁷ But you have seen the Lord perform all these mighty deeds with your own eyes!

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸ "Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. ⁹ If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants-a land flowing with milk and honey! ¹⁰ For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain- ¹² a land that the Lord your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year! ¹³ "If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and soul, ¹⁴ then he will send the rains in their proper seasons-the early and late rains-so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil. ¹⁵ He will give you lush pastureland for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat. ¹⁶ "But be careful. Don't let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods. ¹⁷ If you do, the Lord 's anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸ "So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. ²⁰ Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. ²² "Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you. Show love to the Lord your God by walking in his ways and holding tightly to him. ²³ Then the Lord will drive out all the nations ahead of you, though they are much greater and stronger than you, and you will take over their land. ²⁴ Wherever you set foot, that land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ²⁵ No one will be able to stand against you, for the Lord your God will cause the people to fear and dread you, as he promised, wherever you go in the whole land.

²⁶ "Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and 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 reject the commands of the Lord your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before. ²⁹ "When the Lord your God brings you into the land and helps you take possession of it, you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal. ³⁰ (These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley, near the town of Gilgal, not far from the oaks of Moreh.) ³¹ For you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take that land and are living in it, ³² you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today.

Only One Place of Worship

12¹ "These are the decrees and regulations you must be careful to obey when you live in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must obey them as long as you live. ² "When you drive out the nations that live there, you must destroy all the places where they worship their gods-high on the mountains, up on the hills, and under every green tree. ³ Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Completely erase the names of their gods! ⁴ "Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods.

⁵ Rather, you must seek the Lord your God at the place of worship he himself will choose from among all the tribes-the place where his name will be honored. ⁶ There you will bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, your offerings to fulfill a vow, your voluntary offerings, and your offerings of the firstborn animals of your herds and flocks. ⁷ There you and your families will feast in the presence of the Lord your God, and you will rejoice in all you have accomplished because the Lord your God has blessed you. ⁸ "Your pattern of worship will change. Today all of you are doing as you please, ⁹ because you have not yet arrived at the place of rest, the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession. ¹⁰ But you will soon cross the Jordan River and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you. When he gives you rest from all your enemies and you're living safely in the land, ¹¹ you must bring everything I command you-your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, and your offerings to fulfill a vow-to the designated place of worship, the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored. ¹² "You must celebrate there in the presence of the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and all your servants. And remember to include the Levites who live in your towns, for they will receive no allotment of land among you. ¹³ Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you like. ¹⁴ You may do so only at the place the Lord will choose within one of your tribal territories. There you must offer your burnt offerings and do everything I command you. ¹⁵ "But you may butcher your animals and eat their meat in any town whenever you want. You may freely eat the animals with which the Lord your God blesses you. All of you, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you now eat gazelle and deer. ¹⁶ But you must not consume the blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ "But you may not eat your offerings in your hometown-neither the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, nor the firstborn of your flocks and herds, nor any offering to fulfill a vow, nor your voluntary offerings, nor your sacred offerings. ¹⁸ You must eat these in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose. Eat them there with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns, celebrating in the presence of the Lord your God in all you do. ¹⁹ And be very careful never to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land. ²⁰ "When the Lord your God expands your territory as he has promised, and you have the urge to eat meat, you may freely eat meat whenever you want. ²¹ It might happen that the designated place of worship-the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored-is a long way from your home. If so, you may butcher any of the cattle, sheep, or goats the Lord has given you, and you may freely eat the meat in your hometown, as I have commanded you. ²² Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you do now with gazelle and deer. ²³ But never consume the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the lifeblood with the meat. ²⁴ Instead, pour out the blood on the ground like water. ²⁵ Do not consume the blood, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what pleases the Lord . ²⁶ "Take your sacred gifts and your offerings given to fulfill a vow to the place the Lord chooses. ²⁷ You must offer the meat and blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your other sacrifices must be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. ²⁸ Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the Lord your God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹ "When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land, ³⁰ do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, 'How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.' ³¹ You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods. ³² "So be careful to obey all the commands I give you. You must not add anything to them or subtract anything from them.

13¹ "Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, ² and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, 'Come, let us worship other gods'-gods you have not known before- ³ do not listen to them. The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love him with all your heart and soul. ⁴ Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. ⁵ The false prophets or visionaries who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the Lord your God, who redeemed you from slavery and brought you out of the land of Egypt. Since they try to lead you astray from the way the Lord your God commanded you to live, you must put them to death. In this way you will purge the evil from among you.

⁶ "Suppose someone secretly entices you-even your brother, your son or daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend-and says, 'Let us go worship other gods'-gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. ⁷ They might suggest that you worship the gods of peoples who live nearby or who come from the ends of the earth. ⁸ But do not give in or listen. Have no pity, and do not spare or protect them. ⁹ You must put them to death! Strike the first blow yourself, and then all the people must join in. ¹⁰ Stone the guilty ones to death because they have tried to draw you away from the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery. ¹¹ Then all Israel will hear about it and be afraid, and no one will act so wickedly again.

¹² "When you begin living in the towns the Lord your God is giving you, you may hear ¹³ that scoundrels among you are leading their fellow citizens astray by saying, 'Let us go worship other gods'-gods you have not known before. ¹⁴ In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find that the report is true and such a detestable act has been committed among you, ¹⁵ you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. ¹⁶ Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the open square and burn it. Burn the entire town as a burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. ¹⁷ Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a large nation, just as he swore to your ancestors. ¹⁸ "The Lord your God will be merciful only if you listen to his voice and keep all his commands that I am giving you today, doing what pleases him.

14¹ "Since you are the people of the Lord your God, never cut yourselves or shave the hair above your foreheads in mourning for the dead. ² You have been set apart as holy to the Lord your God, and he has chosen you from all the nations of the earth to be his own special treasure.

Clean and Unclean Food

³ "You must not eat any detestable animals that are ceremonially unclean. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the addax, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. ⁶ "You may eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud, ⁷ but if the animal doesn't have both, it may not be eaten. So you may not eat the camel, the hare, or the hyrax. They chew the cud but do not have split hooves, so they are ceremonially unclean for you. ⁸ And you may not eat the pig. It has split hooves but does not chew the cud, so it is ceremonially unclean for you. You may not eat the meat of these animals or even touch their carcasses. ⁹ "Of all the marine animals, you may eat whatever has both fins and scales. ¹⁰ You may not, however, eat marine animals that do not have both fins and scales. They are ceremonially unclean for you. ¹¹ "You may eat any bird that is ceremonially clean. ¹² These are the birds you may not eat: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, ¹³ the kite, the falcon, buzzards of all kinds, ¹⁴ ravens of all kinds, ¹⁵ the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the seagull, hawks of all kinds, ¹⁶ the little owl, the great owl, the barn owl, ¹⁷ the desert owl, the Egyptian vulture, the cormorant, ¹⁸ the stork, herons of all kinds, the hoopoe, and the bat. ¹⁹ "All winged insects that walk along the ground are ceremonially unclean for you and may not be eaten. ²⁰ But you may eat any winged bird or insect that is ceremonially clean. ²¹ "You must not eat anything that has died a natural death. You may give it to a foreigner living in your town, or you may sell it to a stranger. But do not eat it yourselves, for you are set apart as holy to the Lord your God. "You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

The Law of the Tithe

²² "You must set aside a tithe of your crops-one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year. ²³ Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship-the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored-and eat it there in his presence. This applies to your tithes of grain, new wine, olive oil, and the firstborn males of your flocks and herds. Doing this will teach you always to fear the Lord your God. ²⁴ "Now when the Lord your God blesses you with a good harvest, the place of worship he chooses for his name to be honored might be too far for you to bring the tithe. ²⁵ If so, you may sell the tithe portion of your crops and herds, put the money in a pouch, and go to the place the Lord your God has chosen. ²⁶ When you arrive, you may use the money to buy any kind of food you want-cattle, sheep, goats, wine, or other alcoholic drink. Then feast there in the presence of the Lord your God and celebrate with your household. ²⁷ And do not neglect the Levites in your town, for they will receive no allotment of land among you. ²⁸ "At the end of every third year, bring the entire tithe of that year's harvest and store it in the nearest town. ²⁹ Give it to the Levites, who will receive no allotment of land among you, as well as to the foreigners living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they can eat and be satisfied. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all your work.

The Year of Release

15¹ "At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money. ² This is how it must be done. Everyone must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites. They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord 's time of release has arrived. ³ This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites-not to the foreigners living among you. ⁴ "There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. ⁵ You will receive this blessing if you are careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.

Lending to the Poor

⁷ "But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. ⁸ Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. ⁹ Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year for canceling debts is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. ¹¹ There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.

The Treatment of Servants

¹² "If a fellow Hebrew sells himself or herself to be your servant and serves you for six years, in the seventh year you must set that servant free. ¹³ "When you release a male servant, do not send him away empty-handed. ¹⁴ Give him a generous farewell gift from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. Share with him some of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were once slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you! That is why I am giving you this command. ¹⁶ "But suppose your servant says, 'I will not leave you,' because he loves you and your family, and he has done well with you. ¹⁷ In that case, take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door. After that, he will be your servant for life. And do the same for your female servants. ¹⁸ "You must not consider it a hardship when you release your servants. Remember that for six years they have given you services worth double the wages of hired workers, and the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.

The Consecration of Firstlings

¹⁹ "You must set aside for the Lord your God all the firstborn males from your flocks and herds. Do not use the firstborn of your herds to work your fields, and do not shear the firstborn of your flocks. ²⁰ Instead, you and your family must eat these animals in the presence of the Lord your God each year at the place he chooses. ²¹ But if this firstborn animal has any defect, such as lameness or blindness, or if anything else is wrong with it, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. ²² Instead, use it for food for your family in your hometown. Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat it, just as anyone may eat a gazelle or deer. ²³ But you must not consume the blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.

The Three Appointed Feasts

16¹ "In honor of the Lord your God, celebrate the Passover each year in the early spring, in the month of Abib, for that was the month in which the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. ² Your Passover sacrifice may be from either the flock or the herd, and it must be sacrificed to the Lord your God at the designated place of worship-the place he chooses for his name to be honored. ³ Eat it with bread made without yeast. For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, as when you escaped from Egypt in such a hurry. Eat this bread-the bread of suffering-so that as long as you live you will remember the day you departed from Egypt. ⁴ Let no yeast be found in any house throughout your land for those seven days. And when you sacrifice the Passover lamb on the evening of the first day, do not let any of the meat remain until the next morning. ⁵ "You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you. ⁶ You must offer it only at the designated place of worship-the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored. Sacrifice it there in the evening as the sun goes down on the anniversary of your exodus from Egypt. ⁷ Roast the lamb and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses. Then you may go back to your tents the next morning. ⁸ For the next six days you may not eat any bread made with yeast. On the seventh day proclaim another holy day in honor of the Lord your God, and no work may be done on that day. ⁹ "Count off seven weeks from when you first begin to cut the grain at the time of harvest. ¹⁰ Then celebrate the Festival of Harvest to honor the Lord your God. Bring him a voluntary offering in proportion to the blessings you have received from him. ¹¹ This is a time to celebrate before the Lord your God at the designated place of worship he will choose for his name to be honored. Celebrate with your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites from your towns, and the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live among you. ¹² Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, so be careful to obey all these decrees. ¹³ "You must observe the Festival of Shelters for seven days at the end of the harvest season, after the grain has been threshed and the grapes have been pressed. ¹⁴ This festival will be a happy time of celebrating with your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows from your towns. ¹⁵ For seven days you must celebrate this festival to honor the Lord your God at the place he chooses, for it is he who blesses you with bountiful harvests and gives you success in all your work. This festival will be a time of great joy for all. ¹⁶ "Each year every man in Israel must celebrate these three festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Harvest, and the Festival of Shelters. On each of these occasions, all men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he chooses, but they must not appear before the Lord without a gift for him. ¹⁷ All must give as they are able, according to the blessings given to them by the Lord your God.

The Administration of Justice

¹⁸ "Appoint judges and officials for yourselves from each of your tribes in all the towns the Lord your God is giving you. They must judge the people fairly. ¹⁹ You must never twist justice or show partiality. Never accept a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and corrupt the decisions of the godly. ²⁰ Let true justice prevail, so you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ²¹ "You must never set up a wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build for the Lord your God. ²² And never set up sacred pillars for worship, for the Lord your God hates them.

17¹ "Never sacrifice sick or defective cattle, sheep, or goats to the Lord your God, for he detests such gifts. ² "When you begin living in the towns the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman among you might do evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violate the covenant. ³ For instance, they might serve other gods or worship the sun, the moon, or any of the stars-the forces of heaven-which I have strictly forbidden. ⁴ When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, ⁵ then the man or woman who has committed such an evil act must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death. ⁶ But never put a person to death on the testimony of only one witness. There must always be two or three witnesses. ⁷ The witnesses must throw the first stones, and then all the people may join in. In this way, you will purge the evil from among you.

⁸ "Suppose a case arises in a local court that is too hard for you to decide-for instance, whether someone is guilty of murder or only of manslaughter, or a difficult lawsuit, or a case involving different kinds of assault. Take such legal cases to the place the Lord your God will choose, ⁹ and present them to the Levitical priests or the judge on duty at that time. They will hear the case and declare the verdict. ¹⁰ You must carry out the verdict they announce and the sentence they prescribe at the place the Lord chooses. You must do exactly what they say. ¹¹ After they have interpreted the law and declared their verdict, the sentence they impose must be fully executed; do not modify it in any way. ¹² Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the Lord your God must die. In this way you will purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ Then everyone else will hear about it and be afraid to act so arrogantly.

Instructions concerning a King

¹⁴ "You are about to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and settle there, you may think, 'We should select a king to rule over us like the other nations around us.' ¹⁵ If this happens, be sure to select as king the man the Lord your God chooses. You must appoint a fellow Israelite; he may not be a foreigner. ¹⁶ "The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you, 'You must never return to Egypt.' ¹⁷ The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord . And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself. ¹⁸ "When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. ¹⁹ He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees. ²⁰ This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way. And it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel.

The Portions of the Levites

18¹ "Remember that the Levitical priests-that is, the whole of the tribe of Levi-will receive no allotment of land among the other tribes in Israel. Instead, the priests and Levites will eat from the special gifts given to the Lord, for that is their share. ² They will have no land of their own among the Israelites. The Lord himself is their special possession, just as he promised them. ³ "These are the parts the priests may claim as their share from the cattle, sheep, and goats that the people bring as offerings: the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ You must also give to the priests the first share of the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, and the wool at shearing time. ⁵ For the Lord your God chose the tribe of Levi out of all your tribes to minister in the Lord 's name forever. ⁶ "Suppose a Levite chooses to move from his town in Israel, wherever he is living, to the place the Lord chooses for worship. ⁷ He may minister there in the name of the Lord his God, just like all his fellow Levites who are serving the Lord there. ⁸ He may eat his share of the sacrifices and offerings, even if he also receives support from his family.

Warning against Heathen Practices

⁹ "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. ¹⁰ For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, ¹¹ or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. ¹² Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord . It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you. ¹³ But you must be blameless before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the Lord your God forbids you to do such things."

God Promises a Prophet like Moses

¹⁵ Moses continued, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ For this is what you yourselves requested of the Lord your God when you were assembled at Mount Sinai. You said, 'Don't let us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this blazing fire, for we will die.' ¹⁷ "Then the Lord said to me, 'What they have said is right. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell the people everything I command him. ¹⁹ I will personally deal with anyone who will not listen to the messages the prophet proclaims on my behalf. ²⁰ But any prophet who falsely claims to speak in my name or who speaks in the name of another god must die.' ²¹ "But you may wonder, 'How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord ?' ²² If the prophet speaks in the Lord 's name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.

The Cities of Refuge

19¹ "When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he is giving you, you will take over their land and settle in their towns and homes. ² Then you must set apart three cities of refuge in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ³ Survey the territory, and divide the land the Lord your God is giving you into three districts, with one of these cities in each district. Then anyone who has killed someone can flee to one of the cities of refuge for safety. ⁴ "If someone kills another person unintentionally, without previous hostility, the slayer may flee to any of these cities to live in safety. ⁵ For example, suppose someone goes into the forest with a neighbor to cut wood. And suppose one of them swings an ax to chop down a tree, and the ax head flies off the handle, killing the other person. In such cases, the slayer may flee to one of the cities of refuge to live in safety. ⁶ "If the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too far, an enraged avenger might be able to chase down and kill the person who caused the death. Then the slayer would die unfairly, since he had never shown hostility toward the person who died. ⁷ That is why I am commanding you to set aside three cities of refuge. ⁸ "And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors, and gives you all the land he promised them, ⁹ you must designate three additional cities of refuge. (He will give you this land if you are careful to obey all the commands I have given you-if you always love the Lord your God and walk in his ways.) ¹⁰ That way you will prevent the death of innocent people in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession. You will not be held responsible for the death of innocent people. ¹¹ "But suppose someone is hostile toward a neighbor and deliberately ambushes and murders him and then flees to one of the cities of refuge. ¹² In that case, the elders of the murderer's hometown must send agents to the city of refuge to bring him back and hand him over to the dead person's avenger to be put to death. ¹³ Do not feel sorry for that murderer! Purge from Israel the guilt of murdering innocent people; then all will go well with you.

¹⁴ "When you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession, you must never steal anyone's land by moving the boundary markers your ancestors set up to mark their property.

The Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵ "You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. ¹⁶ "If a malicious witness comes forward and accuses someone of a crime, ¹⁷ then both the accuser and accused must appear before the Lord by coming to the priests and judges in office at that time. ¹⁸ The judges must investigate the case thoroughly. If the accuser has brought false charges against his fellow Israelite, ¹⁹ you must impose on the accuser the sentence he intended for the other person. In this way, you will purge such evil from among you. ²⁰ Then the rest of the people will hear about it and be afraid to do such an evil thing. ²¹ You must show no pity for the guilty! Your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

The Laws concerning War

20¹ "When you go out to fight your enemies and you face horses and chariots and an army greater than your own, do not be afraid. The Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you! ² When you prepare for battle, the priest must come forward to speak to the troops. ³ He will say to them, 'Listen to me, all you men of Israel! Do not be afraid as you go out to fight your enemies today! Do not lose heart or panic or tremble before them. ⁴ For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!' ⁵ "Then the officers of the army must address the troops and say, 'Has anyone here just built a new house but not yet dedicated it? If so, you may go home! You might be killed in the battle, and someone else would dedicate your house. ⁶ Has anyone here just planted a vineyard but not yet eaten any of its fruit? If so, you may go home! You might die in battle, and someone else would eat the first fruit. ⁷ Has anyone here just become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? Well, you may go home and get married! You might die in the battle, and someone else would marry her.' ⁸ "Then the officers will also say, 'Is anyone here afraid or worried? If you are, you may go home before you frighten anyone else.' ⁹ When the officers have finished speaking to their troops, they will appoint the unit commanders.

¹⁰ "As you approach a town to attack it, you must first offer its people terms for peace. ¹¹ If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. ¹² But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. ¹³ When the Lord your God hands the town over to you, use your swords to kill every man in the town. ¹⁴ But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the plunder from your enemies that the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ "But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter. ¹⁶ In those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. ¹⁷ You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹⁸ This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God. ¹⁹ "When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them? ²⁰ You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food. Use them to make the equipment you need to attack the enemy town until it falls.

Settlement for an Unknown Murderer's Crime

21¹ "When you are in the land the Lord your God is giving you, someone may be found murdered in a field, and you don't know who committed the murder. ² In such a case, your elders and judges must measure the distance from the site of the crime to the nearby towns. ³ When the nearest town has been determined, that town's elders must select from the herd a heifer that has never been trained or yoked to a plow. ⁴ They must lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and that has a stream running through it. There in the valley they must break the heifer's neck. ⁵ Then the Levitical priests must step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister before him and to pronounce blessings in the Lord 's name. They are to decide all legal and criminal cases. ⁶ "The elders of the town must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken. ⁷ Then they must say, 'Our hands did not shed this person's blood, nor did we see it happen. ⁸ O Lord, forgive your people Israel whom you have redeemed. Do not charge your people with the guilt of murdering an innocent person.' Then they will be absolved of the guilt of this person's blood. ⁹ By following these instructions, you will do what is right in the Lord 's sight and will cleanse the guilt of murder from your community.

Various Laws

¹⁰ "Suppose you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you, and you take some of them as captives. ¹¹ And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. ¹² If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her head, cut her nails, ¹³ and change the clothes she was wearing when she was captured. She will stay in your home, but let her mourn for her father and mother for a full month. Then you may marry her, and you will be her husband and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ But if you marry her and she does not please you, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her.

¹⁵ "Suppose a man has two wives, but he loves one and not the other, and both have given him sons. And suppose the firstborn son is the son of the wife he does not love. ¹⁶ When the man divides his inheritance, he may not give the larger inheritance to his younger son, the son of the wife he loves, as if he were the firstborn son. ¹⁷ He must recognize the rights of his oldest son, the son of the wife he does not love, by giving him a double portion. He is the first son of his father's virility, and the rights of the firstborn belong to him.

¹⁸ "Suppose a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they discipline him. ¹⁹ In such a case, the father and mother must take the son to the elders as they hold court at the town gate. ²⁰ The parents must say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey. He is a glutton and a drunkard.' ²¹ Then all the men of his town must stone him to death. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid. ²² "If someone has committed a crime worthy of death and is executed and hung on a tree, ²³ the body must not remain hanging from the tree overnight. You must bury the body that same day, for anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God. In this way, you will prevent the defilement of the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession.

22¹ "If you see your neighbor's ox or sheep or goat wandering away, don't ignore your responsibility. Take it back to its owner. ² If its owner does not live nearby or you don't know who the owner is, take it to your place and keep it until the owner comes looking for it. Then you must return it. ³ Do the same if you find your neighbor's donkey, clothing, or anything else your neighbor loses. Don't ignore your responsibility. ⁴ "If you see that your neighbor's donkey or ox has collapsed on the road, do not look the other way. Go and help your neighbor get it back on its feet!

⁵ "A woman must not put on men's clothing, and a man must not wear women's clothing. Anyone who does this is detestable in the sight of the Lord your God. ⁶ "If you happen to find a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground, and there are young ones or eggs in it with the mother sitting in the nest, do not take the mother with the young. ⁷ You may take the young, but let the mother go, so that you may prosper and enjoy a long life. ⁸ "When you build a new house, you must build a railing around the edge of its flat roof. That way you will not be considered guilty of murder if someone falls from the roof. ⁹ "You must not plant any other crop between the rows of your vineyard. If you do, you are forbidden to use either the grapes from the vineyard or the other crop. ¹⁰ "You must not plow with an ox and a donkey harnessed together. ¹¹ "You must not wear clothing made of wool and linen woven together. ¹² "You must put four tassels on the hem of the cloak with which you cover yourself-on the front, back, and sides.

Laws concerning Chastity

¹³ "Suppose a man marries a woman, but after sleeping with her, he turns against her ¹⁴ and publicly accuses her of shameful conduct, saying, 'When I married this woman, I discovered she was not a virgin.' ¹⁵ Then the woman's father and mother must bring the proof of her virginity to the elders as they hold court at the town gate. ¹⁶ Her father must say to them, 'I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, and now he has turned against her. ¹⁷ He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, "I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin." But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity.' Then they must spread her bed sheet before the elders. ¹⁸ The elders must then take the man and punish him. ¹⁹ They must also fine him 100 pieces of silver, which he must pay to the woman's father because he publicly accused a virgin of Israel of shameful conduct. The woman will then remain the man's wife, and he may never divorce her. ²⁰ "But suppose the man's accusations are true, and he can show that she was not a virgin. ²¹ The woman must be taken to the door of her father's home, and there the men of the town must stone her to death, for she has committed a disgraceful crime in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her parents' home. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you. ²² "If a man is discovered committing adultery, both he and the woman must die. In this way, you will purge Israel of such evil. ²³ "Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, ²⁴ you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she did not scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man's wife. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you. ²⁵ "But if the man meets the engaged woman out in the country, and he rapes her, then only the man must die. ²⁶ Do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no crime worthy of death. She is as innocent as a murder victim. ²⁷ Since the man raped her out in the country, it must be assumed that she screamed, but there was no one to rescue her. ²⁸ "Suppose a man has intercourse with a young woman who is a virgin but is not engaged to be married. If they are discovered, ²⁹ he must pay her father fifty pieces of silver. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he may never divorce her as long as he lives. ³⁰ "A man must not marry his father's former wife, for this would violate his father.

Those Excluded from the Congregation

23¹ "If a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord . ² "If a person is illegitimate by birth, neither he nor his descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord . ³ "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord . ⁴ These nations did not welcome you with food and water when you came out of Egypt. Instead, they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in distant Aram-naharaim to curse you. ⁵ But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam. He turned the intended curse into a blessing because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶ As long as you live, you must never promote the welfare and prosperity of the Ammonites or Moabites. ⁷ "Do not detest the Edomites or the Egyptians, because the Edomites are your relatives and you lived as foreigners among the Egyptians. ⁸ The third generation of Edomites and Egyptians may enter the assembly of the Lord .

Laws of Sanitation

⁹ "When you go to war against your enemies, be sure to stay away from anything that is impure. ¹⁰ "Any man who becomes ceremonially defiled because of a nocturnal emission must leave the camp and stay away all day. ¹¹ Toward evening he must bathe himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp. ¹² "You must have a designated area outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. ¹³ Each of you must have a spade as part of your equipment. Whenever you relieve yourself, dig a hole with the spade and cover the excrement. ¹⁴ The camp must be holy, for the Lord your God moves around in your camp to protect you and to defeat your enemies. He must not see any shameful thing among you, or he will turn away from you.

Laws of Human Relations

¹⁵ "If slaves should escape from their masters and take refuge with you, you must not hand them over to their masters. ¹⁶ Let them live among you in any town they choose, and do not oppress them. ¹⁷ "No Israelite, whether man or woman, may become a temple prostitute. ¹⁸ When you are bringing an offering to fulfill a vow, you must not bring to the house of the Lord your God any offering from the earnings of a prostitute, whether a man or a woman, for both are detestable to the Lord your God. ¹⁹ "Do not charge interest on the loans you make to a fellow Israelite, whether you loan money, or food, or anything else. ²⁰ You may charge interest to foreigners, but you may not charge interest to Israelites, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you do in the land you are about to enter and occupy. ²¹ "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, be prompt in fulfilling whatever you promised him. For the Lord your God demands that you promptly fulfill all your vows, or you will be guilty of sin. ²² However, it is not a sin to refrain from making a vow. ²³ But once you have voluntarily made a vow, be careful to fulfill your promise to the Lord your God. ²⁴ "When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not carry any away in a basket. ²⁵ And when you enter your neighbor's field of grain, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not harvest it with a sickle.

24¹ "Suppose a man marries a woman but she does not please him. Having discovered something wrong with her, he writes a document of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house. ² When she leaves his house, she is free to marry another man. ³ But if the second husband also turns against her, writes a document of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away, or if he dies, ⁴ the first husband may not marry her again, for she has been defiled. That would be detestable to the Lord . You must not bring guilt upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession.

⁵ "A newly married man must not be drafted into the army or be given any other official responsibilities. He must be free to spend one year at home, bringing happiness to the wife he has married. ⁶ "It is wrong to take a set of millstones, or even just the upper millstone, as security for a loan, for the owner uses it to make a living. ⁷ "If anyone kidnaps a fellow Israelite and treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. In this way, you will purge the evil from among you. ⁸ "In all cases involving serious skin diseases, be careful to follow the instructions of the Levitical priests; obey all the commands I have given them. ⁹ Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam as you were coming from Egypt. ¹⁰ "If you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to pick up the item he is giving as security. ¹¹ You must wait outside while he goes in and brings it out to you. ¹² If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight. ¹³ Return the cloak to its owner by sunset so he can stay warm through the night and bless you, and the Lord your God will count you as righteous.

¹⁴ "Never take advantage of poor and destitute laborers, whether they are fellow Israelites or foreigners living in your towns. ¹⁵ You must pay them their wages each day before sunset because they are poor and are counting on it. If you don't, they might cry out to the Lord against you, and it would be counted against you as sin. ¹⁶ "Parents must not be put to death for the sins of their children, nor children for the sins of their parents. Those deserving to die must be put to death for their own crimes. ¹⁷ "True justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans, and you must never accept a widow's garment as security for her debt. ¹⁸ Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from your slavery. That is why I have given you this command. ¹⁹ "When you are harvesting your crops and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field, don't go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all you do. ²⁰ When you beat the olives from your olive trees, don't go over the boughs twice. Leave the remaining olives for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. ²¹ When you gather the grapes in your vineyard, don't glean the vines after they are picked. Leave the remaining grapes for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. ²² Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. That is why I am giving you this command.

25¹ "Suppose two people take a dispute to court, and the judges declare that one is right and the other is wrong. ² If the person in the wrong is sentenced to be flogged, the judge must command him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of lashes appropriate to the crime. ³ But never give more than forty lashes; more than forty lashes would publicly humiliate your neighbor. ⁴ "You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.

⁵ "If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband's brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. ⁶ The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. ⁷ "But if the man refuses to marry his brother's widow, she must go to the town gate and say to the elders assembled there, 'My husband's brother refuses to preserve his brother's name in Israel-he refuses to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law by marrying me.' ⁸ The elders of the town will then summon him and talk with him. If he still refuses and says, 'I don't want to marry her,' ⁹ the widow must walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she must declare, 'This is what happens to a man who refuses to provide his brother with children.' ¹⁰ Ever afterward in Israel his family will be referred to as 'the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off'! ¹¹ "If two Israelite men get into a fight and the wife of one tries to rescue her husband by grabbing the testicles of the other man, ¹² you must cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

¹³ "You must use accurate scales when you weigh out merchandise, ¹⁴ and you must use full and honest measures. ¹⁵ Yes, always use honest weights and measures, so that you may enjoy a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ All who cheat with dishonest weights and measures are detestable to the Lord your God.

The Command to Blot Out Amalek

¹⁷ "Never forget what the Amalekites did to you as you came from Egypt. ¹⁸ They attacked you when you were exhausted and weary, and they struck down those who were straggling behind. They had no fear of God. ¹⁹ Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies in the land he is giving you as a special possession, you must destroy the Amalekites and erase their memory from under heaven. Never forget this!

The Firstfruits and the Tithe

26¹ "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession and you have conquered it and settled there, ² put some of the first produce from each crop you harvest into a basket and bring it to the designated place of worship-the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored. ³ Go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, 'With this gift I acknowledge to the Lord your God that I have entered the land he swore to our ancestors he would give us.' ⁴ The priest will then take the basket from your hand and set it before the altar of the Lord your God. ⁵ "You must then say in the presence of the Lord your God, 'My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean who went to live as a foreigner in Egypt. His family arrived few in number, but in Egypt they became a large and mighty nation. ⁶ When the Egyptians oppressed and humiliated us by making us their slaves, ⁷ we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors. He heard our cries and saw our hardship, toil, and oppression. ⁸ So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and powerful arm, with overwhelming terror, and with miraculous signs and wonders. ⁹ He brought us to this place and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey!

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