Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹"Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

²You shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] to the LORD your God from the flock or the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

³You shall not eat leavened bread with it; instead, for seven days you shall eat the Passover with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction (for you left the land of Egypt in haste); [do this] so that all the days of your life you may remember [thoughtfully] the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

⁴For seven days no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory, and none of the meat which you sacrificed the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning.

⁵You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover [lamb] in any of your cities which the LORD your God is giving you;

⁶but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence), you shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt.

⁷You shall cook and eat it in the place which the LORD your God chooses. In the morning you are to return to your tents.

⁸For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a celebration to the LORD your God; so you shall do no work [on that day].

⁹"You shall count seven weeks for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

¹⁰Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with a tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give [to Him] just as the LORD your God blesses you;

¹¹and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is within your [city] gates, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are among you, at the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

¹²You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to obey these statutes.

¹³"You shall celebrate the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) seven days, when you have gathered in [the grain] from your threshing floor and [the wine] from your wine vat.

¹⁴You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are within your city.

¹⁵Seven days you shall celebrate a 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 will be altogether joyful.

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 (Passover) and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.

¹⁷Every man shall give as he is able, in accordance with the blessing which the LORD your God has given you.

¹⁸"You shall appoint judges and officers in all your cities (gates) which the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

¹⁹You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.

²⁰You shall pursue justice, and only justice [that which is uncompromisingly righteous], so that you may live and take possession of the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

²¹"You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree or wood beside the altar of the LORD your God, which you shall make.

²²You shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which the LORD your God hates.

¹"You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or sheep with a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.

²"If there is discovered among you, within any of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does evil in the sight of the LORD your God, by transgressing (violating) His covenant,

³and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, [doing these things] which I have commanded not to do,

⁴and if it is told to you and you hear about it, then you shall investigate thoroughly [all the charges]. If it is confirmed beyond doubt that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,

⁵then you shall bring that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to the gates [of your city] and you shall stone the man or the woman to death.

⁶On the evidence of two or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of [only] one witness.

⁷The hand of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

⁸"If any case is too difficult for you to judge—between one kind of homicide and another, between one kind of lawsuit and another, between one kind of assault and another, being controversial issues in your courts—then you shall arise and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses.

⁹So you shall come to the Levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time, and you shall consult them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case.

¹⁰You shall act in accordance with the terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the LORD chooses. You shall be careful to act in accordance with all of their instructions.

¹¹"You shall act in accordance with the law which they teach you and the judgment which they tell you. You shall not turn aside from their verdict, to the right or to the left.

¹²The man who acts presumptuously and insolently by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the LORD your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall remove the evil from Israel.

¹³Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act presumptuously again.

¹⁴"When you enter the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and you take possession of it and live there, and you say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,'

¹⁵you shall most certainly set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses. You shall set a king over you from among your countrymen (brothers); you may not choose a foreigner [to rule] over you who is not your countryman.

¹⁶Further, he shall not acquire many [war] horses for himself, nor make the people return to Egypt in order to acquire horses [to expand his military power], since the LORD said to you, 'You shall never return that way again.'

¹⁷He shall not acquire multiple wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away [from God]; nor [for the same reason] shall he acquire great amounts of silver and gold.

¹⁸"Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

¹⁹And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear [and worship] the LORD his God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], by carefully obeying (keeping foremost in his thoughts and actively doing) all the words of this law and these statutes,

²⁰so that his heart will not be lifted up above his countrymen [by a false sense of self-importance and self-reliance] and that he will not turn away (deviate) from the commandment, to the right or to the left, so that he and his sons may continue [to reign] for a long time in his kingdom in Israel.

¹"The Levitical priests, the entire tribe of Levi, shall own [privately] no portion [of land] or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the Lord's offerings by fire and His portion.

²They shall have no inheritance [of land] among their countrymen (brothers, brethren); the LORD is their inheritance, as He promised them.

³"Now this shall be the priests' portion from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, either an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.

⁴You shall also give him the first fruits of your grain, your new wine [the first of the season], and your [olive] oil, and the first sheared fleece of your sheep.

⁵For the LORD your God has chosen him, him and his sons from all your tribes, to stand and serve in the name of the LORD forever.

⁶"Now if a Levite comes from any of your cities throughout Israel where he resides, and comes whenever he wishes to [the sanctuary] the place which the LORD chooses;

⁷then he shall serve in the name of the LORD his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the LORD.

⁸They shall have equal portions to eat, except what they receive from the sale of their fathers' estates.

⁹"When you enter the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable (repulsive) practices of those nations.

¹⁰There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire [as a sacrifice], one who uses divination and fortune-telling, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,

¹¹or one who casts a charm or spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or a necromancer [who seeks the dead].

¹²For everyone who does these things is utterly repulsive to the LORD; and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

¹³You shall be blameless (complete, perfect) before the LORD your God.

¹⁴For these nations which you shall dispossess listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners and fortune-tellers, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so.

¹⁵"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your countrymen (brothers, brethren). You shall listen to him.

¹⁶This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai) on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear the voice of the LORD my God again, nor see this great fire anymore, so that I will not die.'

¹⁷The LORD said to me, 'They have spoken well.

¹⁸I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

¹⁹It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him [and there will be consequences].

²⁰But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.'

²¹If you say in your heart, 'How will we know and recognize the word which the LORD has not spoken?'

²²When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

¹"When the LORD your God cuts off (destroys) the nations whose land He is giving you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and in their houses,

²you shall designate three cities for yourself in the central area of the land, which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

³You shall prepare and maintain for yourself the roads [to these cities], and divide the territory of your land into three parts, so that anyone who kills another unintentionally may escape there [for asylum].

⁴"Now this is the case of the offender (manslayer) who may escape there and live [protected from vengeance]: when he kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him previously—

⁵as [for example] when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, but the iron head slips off the wooden handle and hits his companion and he dies—the offender may escape to one of these cities and live;

⁶otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the offender in the heat of anger, and overtake him, because it is a long way, and take his life, even though he did not deserve to die, since he did not hate his neighbor beforehand.

⁷Therefore, I command you, saying, 'You shall set aside three cities [of refuge] for yourself.'

⁸"If the LORD your God enlarges your border, as He has sworn to your fathers to do, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers—

⁹if you keep and carefully observe all these commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk [that is, to live each and every day] always in His ways—then you shall add three more cities [of refuge] for yourself, besides these three,

¹⁰so that innocent blood will not be shed [by blood avengers] in your land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and blood guilt will not be on you [for the death of an innocent man].

¹¹"But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait and ambush for him and attacks him and strikes him down so that he dies, and the assailant escapes to one of these cities,

¹²then the elders of his own city shall send for him and have him taken back from there and turn him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may be put to death.

¹³You shall not pity him [the guilty one], but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁴"You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the forefathers [who first divided the territory] have set, in the land which you will inherit in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵"A single witness shall not appear in a trial against a man for any wrong or any sin which he has committed; [only] on the testimony or evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be confirmed.

¹⁶If a malicious witness rises up against a man to [falsely] accuse him of wrongdoing,

¹⁷then both parties to the controversy shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office at that time.

¹⁸The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness, and he has accused his brother falsely,

¹⁹then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²⁰Those who remain will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you.

²¹You shall not show pity [to the guilty one]: it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

¹"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, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.

²When you approach the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people,

³and shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel: you are advancing today to battle against your enemies. Do not lack courage. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble [in terror] before them,

⁴for the LORD your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.'

⁵The officers shall also speak to the soldiers, saying, 'What man is there who has built a new house and has not yet dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would dedicate it.

⁶What man has planted a vineyard and has not put it to use [harvesting its fruit]? Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would begin to use its fruit.

⁷And who is the man who is engaged (legally promised) to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would marry her.'

⁸Then the officers shall speak further to the soldiers and say, 'Who is the man who is afraid and lacks courage? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not cause his brothers' courage to fail like his own.'

⁹And it shall be when the officers have finished speaking to the soldiers, they shall appoint commanders of armies over them.

¹⁰"When you advance to a city to fight against it, you shall [first] offer it terms of peace.

¹¹If that city accepts your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you.

¹²However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall lay siege to it.

¹³When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike down all the men in it with the edge of the sword.

¹⁴Only the women and the children and the animals and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you.

¹⁵That is what you shall do to all the cities that are very far away from you, which are not among the cities of these nations nearby [which you are to dispossess].

¹⁶Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.

¹⁷But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you,

¹⁸so that they will not teach you to act in accordance with all the detestable practices which they have done [in worship and service] for their gods, and in this way cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

¹⁹"When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

²⁰Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

¹"If someone is found slain, lying in the field, in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has killed him,

²then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the dead person.

³It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd, one which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke;

⁴and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a [river] valley with running water, which has not been plowed or planted, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.

⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall approach, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the Name (Presence) of the LORD; and every dispute and every assault (violent crime) shall be settled by them.

⁶All the elders of that city nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

⁷and they shall respond, and say, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.

⁸Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O LORD, and do not put the guilt of innocent blood among Your people Israel.' And the guilt of blood shall be forgiven them.

⁹So shall you remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.

¹⁰"When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you lead them away captive,

¹¹and you see a beautiful woman among the captives, and desire her and would take her as your wife,

¹²then you shall bring her [home] to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails [in preparation for mourning].

¹³She shall take off the clothes of her captivity and remain in your house, and weep (mourn) for 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.

¹⁴But it shall be that if you have no delight and take no pleasure in her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes. You certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave or mistreat her, because you have humbled her [by forced marriage].

¹⁵"If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved wife,

¹⁶then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he cannot treat the son of his loved wife as firstborn in place of the son of the unloved wife—the [actual] firstborn.

¹⁷Instead he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved as the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he was the beginning of his strength (generative power); to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

¹⁸"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them,

¹⁹then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

²⁰"They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

²¹Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

²²"And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death and [ afterward] you hang him on a tree [as a public example],

²³his body shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall most certainly bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is cursed by God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.

¹"You shall not see your countryman's ox or his sheep straying away or being stolen, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly take them back to him.

²If your countryman is not nearby or you do not know him, you shall bring the animal to your house, and it shall stay with you until he searches for it; then you shall return it to him.

³You shall do this with his donkey or with his garment or with anything that your countryman has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to ignore [your duty to help] them.

⁴You shall not see your countryman's donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly help him lift it up.

⁵"A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is utterly repulsive to the LORD your God.

⁶"If you happen to come upon a bird's nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.

⁷You shall certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

⁸"When you build a new house, you shall make a railing (parapet) around your [flat] roof, so that you do not bring the guilt of [innocent] blood on your house if someone falls from it.

⁹"You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or everything produced by the seed which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard will become defiled [and banned for use].

¹⁰"You shall not plow with an ox [a clean animal] and a donkey [an unclean animal] together.

¹¹"You shall not wear a fabric made of wool and linen blended together [a fabric pagans believed to be magical].

¹²"You shall make tassels for yourself on the four corners of your outer garment with which you cover yourself.

¹³"If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then scorns and hates her,

¹⁴and charges her [without cause] with shameful behavior and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,'

¹⁵then the young woman's father and her mother shall get and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate [where court is held].

¹⁶The father of the young woman shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her and has turned against her;

¹⁷and behold, he has made baseless charges against her, saying, "I did not find in your daughter the evidence of her virginity." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city.

¹⁸"Then the elders of that city shall take the man and reprimand him,

¹⁹and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father of the young woman, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰"But if this charge is true that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,

²¹then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father's house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²²"If a man is intimate with a woman who is another man's wife, they shall both be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

²³"If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged (legally betrothed) to a man, and another man finds her in the city and is intimate with her,

²⁴then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor's [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²⁵"However, if the man finds the girl who is engaged (legally betrothed) in the [open] field, and seizes her and is intimate with her [by force], then only the man who lies with her shall be put to death.

²⁶But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin worthy of death, for this is the same as when a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

²⁷When he found her in the [open] field, the engaged girl [may have] cried out for help, but there was no one to [hear and] save her.

²⁸"If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and is intimate with her and they are discovered,

²⁹then the man who was intimate with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the girl's father, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he can never divorce her.

³⁰" A man shall not take his father's [former] wife, so that he will not expose his father's wife.

¹"He who has been castrated by having his testicles crushed or his male organ cut off shall not enter the congregation of the LORD.

²A person of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.

³An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD,

⁴because they did not meet you with bread (food) and water on the road as you came out of Egypt, and because they hired [to act] against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

⁵Nevertheless, the LORD your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God has loved you.

⁶You shall never seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days.

⁷"You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother [Esau's descendant]. You shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were a stranger (resident alien, foreigner) in his land.

⁸Their children of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.

⁹"When you go out as an army [to fight] against your enemies, you shall keep yourselves from every evil [thing].

¹⁰"If there is any man among you who is [ceremonially] unclean because of nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he shall not come back to the camp.

¹¹But when evening comes, he shall bathe in water, and at sundown he may return to the camp.

¹²"You shall also have a place outside the camp to which you may go,

¹³and you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you [prepare to] sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and shall turn and cover up your waste.

¹⁴Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

¹⁵"You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you.

¹⁶He shall live among you, in the place he chooses in one of your cities where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat or oppress him.

¹⁷"There shall be no cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a cult prostitute (a sodomite) among the sons of Israel.

¹⁸You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute or the price of a dog [that is, a male prostitute] into the house of the LORD your God as payment for any vow, for both of these [the gift and the giver] are utterly repulsive to the LORD your God.

¹⁹"You shall not charge interest to your fellow Israelite—interest on money, food or anything that may be loaned for interest.

²⁰You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your fellow Israelite you shall not charge interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

²¹"When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for He will most certainly require it of you, and a delay would cause you to sin.

²²But if you refrain from making a vow, that would not be [counted as] sin in you.

²³You shall be careful to perform that [vow] which passes your lips, just as you have made a voluntary vow to the LORD your God, just as you have promised with your own words (mouth).

²⁴"When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you please, but you shall not put any in your basket [to take with you].

²⁵"When you come into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears of grain with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor's standing grain [to harvest it].

¹"When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she loses his favor because he has found something indecent or unacceptable about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house,

²and after she leaves his house, she goes and becomes another man's wife,

³and if the latter husband turns against 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,

⁴then her former husband who [first] sent her away may not take her again as his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an outrage before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.

⁵"When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out [to fight] with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home for one year and shall bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken.

⁶"No one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone [used to grind grain into bread] as security [for a debt], for he would be taking a [person's] life in pledge.

⁷"If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen from the sons of Israel, and he treats him violently or sells him [as a slave], then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

⁸"Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; just as I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.

⁹Remember [with thoughtful concern] what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the road as you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰"When you lend your neighbor anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge (security deposit).

¹¹You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you.

¹²If the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight.

¹³You shall certainly restore the pledge (security deposit) to him at sunset, so that he may sleep in his garment and bless you; and it will be credited to you as righteousness (right standing) before the LORD your God.

¹⁴"You shall not take advantage of a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether [he is] one of your countrymen or one of the strangers (resident aliens, foreigners) who is in your land inside your cities.

¹⁵You shall give him his wages on the day that he earns them before the sun sets—for he is poor and is counting on it—so that he does not cry out to the LORD against you, and it becomes a sin for you.

¹⁶"The fathers shall not be put to death for [the sins of] their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; [only] for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

¹⁷"You shall not pervert the justice due a stranger or an orphan, nor seize (impound) a widow's garment as security [for a loan].

¹⁸But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹" When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf [of grain] in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰When you beat [the olives off of] your olive tree, do not search through the branches again; [whatever is left] shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow.

²¹"When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow.

²²You shall [thoughtfully] remember [the fact] that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹"If there is a controversy between men, and they go to court, and the judges decide [the issue] between them, and they judge in favor of the innocent and condemn the guilty,

²then it shall be that if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with a [certain] number of stripes in proportion to his offense.

³He may have him beaten forty times, but no more. He is not to be beaten with more stripes than these and he is not to be degraded [that is, treated like an animal] in your sight.

⁴"You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing [to prevent him from eating any of the grain].

⁵"If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, the widow of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall be intimate with her after taking her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

⁶It shall be that her firstborn [son] will be given the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out of Israel.

⁷But if the man does not want to marry his brother's [widowed] wife, then she shall go up to the gate [of the city, where court is held] to the elders, and say, 'My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother's name in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother.'

⁸Then the elders of his city will summon him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and says, 'I do not want to marry her,'

⁹then his brother's widow shall approach 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 it is done to that man who does not build up his brother's household.'

¹⁰In Israel his [family] name shall be, 'The house of him whose sandal was removed.'

¹¹"If [two] men, a man and his countryman, are fighting and the wife of one approaches to rescue her husband from the man who is striking him, and she reaches out with her hand and grabs the aggressor's genitals,

¹²then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity [for her].

¹³"You shall not have in your bag inaccurate weights, a heavy and a light [so you can cheat others].

¹⁴You shall not have in your house inaccurate measures, a large and a small.

¹⁵You shall have a perfect (full) and just weight, and a perfect and just measure, so that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

¹⁶For everyone who does such things, everyone who acts unjustly [without personal integrity] is utterly repulsive to the LORD your God.

¹⁷"Remember what Amalek did to you along the road when you came from Egypt,

¹⁸how he met you along the road and attacked all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God.

¹⁹Therefore when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.

¹"Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and live in it,

²that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

³You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, 'I declare this day to the LORD my God that I have entered the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.'

⁴Then the priest will take the basket from you and place it before the altar of the LORD your God.

⁵And you shall say before the LORD your God, 'My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean, and he [along with his family] went down to Egypt and lived there [as strangers], few in number; but while there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.

⁶And the Egyptians treated us badly and oppressed us, and imposed hard labor on us.

⁷Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers for help, and He heard our voice and saw our suffering and our labor and our [cruel] oppression;

⁸and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror [suffered by the Egyptians] and with signs and with wonders;

⁹and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰And now, look, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O LORD, have given me.' And you shall place it before the LORD your God, and shall worship before the LORD your God;

¹¹and you and the Levite and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) among you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given you and your household.

¹²"When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce the third year, [which is] the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, so that they may eat within the gates of your cities and be satisfied.

¹³"You shall say before the LORD your God, 'I have removed the sacred portion (the tithe) from my house and also have given it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, in accordance with all that You have commanded me. I have not transgressed or forgotten any of Your commandments.

¹⁴I have not eaten from the tithe while mourning, nor have I removed any of it when I was [ceremonially] unclean [making the tithe ceremonially unclean], nor offered any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the LORD my God; I have done everything in accordance with all that You have commanded me.

¹⁵Look down from Your holy dwelling above, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given us, as You have sworn to our fathers, a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey.'

¹⁶"This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and judgments (precepts). Therefore, you shall be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul (your entire being).

¹⁷Today you have [openly] declared the LORD to be your God, and that you will walk [that is, live each and every day] in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments (precepts), and listen to His voice.

¹⁸Today the LORD has declared that you are His people, His treasured possession, just as He promised you, and that you are to keep all His commandments;

¹⁹and that He will set you high above all the nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor: and that you shall be a holy people [set apart and consecrated] to the LORD your God, just as He has spoken."

¹Then Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, "Keep (remember, obey) all the commandments which I am commanding you today.

²So it shall be on the day when you cross the Jordan to [enter] the land which the LORD your God gives you, that you shall set up for yourself large stones and coat them with plaster (lime, whitewash).

³You shall write on the stones all the words of this law when you cross over, so that you may go into the land which the LORD your God gives you, a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers has promised you.

⁴Now when you cross the Jordan you shall set up these stones on Mount Ebal, just as I am commanding you today and coat them with plaster.

⁵There you shall build an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them.

⁶You shall build the altar of the LORD your God with whole [uncut] stones, and offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God;

⁷and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and shall rejoice before the LORD your God.

⁸And you shall write very clearly on the stones all the words of this law."

⁹Then Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, "Be silent and listen, O Israel! This day you have become a people for the LORD your God.

¹⁰So you shall obey the voice of the LORD your God, and do His commandments and statutes which I am commanding you today."

¹¹Moses also commanded the people that day, saying,

¹²"These [tribes] shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you have crossed the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

¹³These [tribes] shall stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce the curse [for disobedience]: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

¹⁴The Levites shall answer with a loud voice to all the men of Israel:

¹⁵'Cursed is the man who makes a carved or cast image (idol), a repulsive thing to the LORD, the work of the hands of the artisan, and sets it up in secret.' All the people shall answer and say, 'Amen.'

¹⁶'Cursed is he who dishonors (treats with contempt) his father or his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

¹⁷'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

¹⁸'Cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

¹⁹'Cursed is he who distorts (perverts) the justice due to a stranger, an orphan, and a widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²⁰'Cursed is he who is intimate with his father's [former] wife, because he has violated what belongs to his father.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²¹'Cursed is he who is intimate with any animal.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²²'Cursed is he who is intimate with his [half] sister, whether his father's or his mother's daughter.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²³'Cursed is he who is intimate with his mother-in-law.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²⁴'Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor in secret.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²⁵'Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

²⁶'Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them [keeping them, taking them to heart as the rule of his life].' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

¹"Now it shall be, if you diligently listen to and obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all of His commandments which I am commanding you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

²All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you pay attention to the voice of the LORD your God.

³"You will be blessed in the city, and you will be blessed in the field.

⁴"The offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your animals, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be blessed.

⁵"Your basket and your kneading bowl will be blessed.

⁶"You will be blessed when you come in and you will be blessed when you go out.

⁷"The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way, but flee before you seven ways.

⁸The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your storehouses and in all that you undertake, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

⁹The LORD will establish you as a people holy [and set apart] to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk [that is, live your life each and every day] in His ways.

¹⁰So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.

¹¹The LORD will give you great prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

¹²The LORD will open for you His good treasure house, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

¹³The LORD will make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.

¹⁴Do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to follow and serve other gods.

¹⁵"But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶"You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field.

¹⁷"Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.

¹⁸"The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be cursed.

¹⁹"You will be cursed when you come in and you will be cursed when you go out.

²⁰"The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your deeds, because you have turned away from Me.

²¹The LORD will make the pestilence and plague cling to you until He has consumed and eliminated you from the land which you are entering to possess.

²²The LORD will strike you with consumption [causing you to waste away] and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew [on your crops]; and they will pursue you until you perish.

²³The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze [giving no rain and blocking all prayers], and the earth which is under you, iron [hard to plow and yielding no produce].

²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.

²⁵"The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction].

²⁶Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

²⁷"The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and the itch that you cannot heal.

²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and mind;

²⁹and you will be groping at noon [in broad daylight], just as the blind grope in the darkness, and nothing you do will prosper; but you will only be oppressed and exploited and robbed continually, with no one to save you.

³⁰You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.

³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be torn away from you, and it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do.

³³A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually.

³⁴You shall be driven mad by the sight of the things you see.

³⁵The LORD will strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

³⁶The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone.

³⁷And you will become a horror, a proverb [a mere object lesson], and a taunt [a derisive joke] among all the people to which the LORD drives you.

³⁸"You will bring out a great quantity of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locusts will consume it.

³⁹You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them.

⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourselves with the oil, because your olives will drop off.

⁴¹You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity.

⁴²The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.

⁴³The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.

⁴⁴He will lend to you [out of his affluence], but you will not lend to him [because of your poverty]; he will be the head, and you the tail.

⁴⁵"So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.

⁴⁶They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you],

⁴⁸you will therefore serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁴⁹"The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand,

⁵⁰a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young,

⁵¹and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

⁵²They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you.

⁵³Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you.

⁵⁴The man who is most refined and well-bred among you will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,

⁵⁵so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities.

⁵⁶The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, will be cruel and hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,

⁵⁷and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.

⁵⁸"If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear and honor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God,

⁵⁹then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.

⁶⁰Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.

⁶¹Also the LORD will bring on you every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of this law, until you are destroyed.

⁶²Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number.

⁶³It shall come about that just as the LORD delighted over you to make you prosper and multiply, so the LORD will delight over you to bring you to ruin and destruction; and you will be uprooted [violently] from the land which you are entering to possess.

⁶⁴And the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

⁶⁶Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living.

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, 'I wish it were evening!' and in the evening you will say, 'I wish it were morning!'—because of the dread in your heart with which you tremble, and because of the sight of your eyes which you will see.

⁶⁸The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, 'You will never see it again!' And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no one to buy you.

¹These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He made with them at Horeb (Sinai).

²Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land;

³the great trials [of Pharaoh] which your eyes have seen, the signs and those great wonders.

⁴Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a heart and mind to understand, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.

⁵I have led you in the wilderness forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.

⁶You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, so that you might know that I am the LORD your God [on whom you must depend].

⁷When you reached this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, but we defeated them;

⁸and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁹So keep the words of this covenant and obey them, so that you may prosper and be successful in everything that you do.

¹⁰"All of you stand today before the LORD your God—your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

¹¹your little ones, your wives, and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your camps, from the one who chops and gathers your firewood to the one who draws your water—

¹²so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into His oath and agreement which the LORD your God is making with you today,

¹³so that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴"It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,

¹⁵but with those [future Israelites] who are not here with us today, as well as with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God

¹⁶(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the nations along the way;

¹⁷and you have seen their detestable acts and their [repulsive] idols of wood and stone, [lifeless images] of silver and gold, which they had with them),

¹⁸so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).

¹⁹It will happen that when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and he imagines himself as blessed, saying, 'I will have peace and safety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the watered land dwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],'

²⁰the LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him; the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.

²¹Then the LORD will single him out for disaster from all the tribes of Israel [making an example of him], according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.

²²Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it, will say,

²³'The whole land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it; it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and wrath.'

²⁴All the nations will say, 'Why has the LORD done this thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?'

²⁵Then people will say, 'It is because they abandoned (broke) the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁶For they went and served other gods and worshiped them, [false] gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted (given) to them.

²⁷So the anger of the LORD burned against this land, bringing on it every curse that is written in this book;

²⁸and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.'

²⁹"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things which are revealed and disclosed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all of the words of this law.