Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹“Set aside the month of Abib and observe the Passover to the LORD your God, because the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night in the month of Abib.

²Sacrifice to the LORD your God a Passover animal from the herd or flock in the place where the LORD chooses to have his name dwell.

³Do not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of hardship — because you left the land of Egypt in a hurry  — so that you may remember for the rest of your life the day you left the land of Egypt.

⁴No yeast is to be found anywhere in your territory for seven days, and none of the meat you sacrifice in the evening of the first day is to remain until morning.

⁵You are not to sacrifice the Passover animal in any of the towns the LORD your God is giving you.

⁶Sacrifice the Passover animal only at the place where the LORD your God chooses to have his name dwell. Do this in the evening as the sun sets at the same time of day you departed from Egypt.

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

⁸Eat unleavened bread for six days. On the seventh day there is to be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God; do not do any work.

⁹“You are to count seven weeks, counting the weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.

¹⁰You are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the LORD your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the LORD your God has blessed you.

¹¹Rejoice before the LORD your God in the place where he chooses to have his name dwell — you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite within your city gates, as well as the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow among you.

¹²Remember that you were slaves in Egypt; carefully follow these statutes.

¹³“You are to celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days when you have gathered in everything from your threshing floor and winepress.

¹⁴Rejoice during your festival — you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, as well as the Levite, the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow within your city gates.

¹⁵You are to hold a seven-day festival for the LORD your God in the place he chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy.

¹⁶“All your males are to appear three times a year before the LORD your God in the place he chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters. No one is to appear before the LORD empty-handed.

¹⁷Everyone must appear with a gift suited to his means, according to the blessing the LORD your God has given you.

¹⁸“Appoint judges and officials for your tribes in all your towns the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

¹⁹Do not deny justice or show partiality to anyone. Do not accept a bribe, for it blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

²⁰Pursue justice and justice alone, so that you will live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you.

²¹“Do not set up an Asherah of any kind of wood next to the altar you will build for the LORD your God,

²²and do not set up a sacred pillar; the LORD your God hates them.

¹“Do not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or sheep with a defect or any serious flaw, for that is detestable to the LORD your God.

²“If a man or woman among you in one of your towns that the LORD your God will give you is discovered doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and violating his covenant

³and has gone to serve other gods by bowing in worship to the sun, moon, or all the stars in the sky  — which I have forbidden  —

⁴and if you are told or hear about it, then investigate it thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable act has been done in Israel,

⁵you are to bring out to your city gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and stone them to death.

⁶The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.

⁷The witnesses’ hands are to be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from you.

⁸“If a case is too difficult for you — concerning bloodshed, lawsuits, or assaults  — cases disputed at your city gates, then go up to the place the LORD your God chooses.

⁹You are to go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who presides at that time. Ask, and they will give you a verdict in the case.

¹⁰You must abide by the verdict they give you at the place the LORD chooses. Be careful to do exactly as they instruct you.

¹¹You must abide by the instruction they give you and the verdict they announce to you. Do not turn to the right or the left from the decision they declare to you.

¹²The person who acts arrogantly, refusing to listen either to the priest who stands there serving the LORD your God or to the judge, must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

¹³Then all the people will hear about it, be afraid, and no longer behave arrogantly.

¹⁴“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,’

¹⁵you are to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people.

¹⁶However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the LORD has told you, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

¹⁷He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won’t go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

¹⁹It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes.

²⁰Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left, and he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.

¹“The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, will have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They will eat the LORD’s fire offerings; that is their inheritance.

²Although Levi has no inheritance among his brothers, the LORD is his inheritance, as he promised him.

³This is the priests’ share from the people who offer a sacrifice, whether it is an ox, a sheep, or a goat; the priests are to be given the shoulder, jaws, and stomach.

⁴You are to give him the firstfruits of your grain, new wine, and fresh oil, and the first sheared wool of your flock.

⁵For the LORD your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes to stand and minister in his name from now on.

⁶When a Levite leaves one of your towns in Israel where he was staying and wants to go to the place the LORD chooses,

⁷he may serve in the name of the LORD his God like all his fellow Levites who minister there in the presence of the LORD.

⁸They will eat equal portions besides what he has received from the sale of the family estate.

⁹“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations.

¹⁰No one among you is to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire, practice divination, tell fortunes, interpret omens, practice sorcery,

¹¹cast spells, consult a medium or a spiritist, or inquire of the dead.

¹²Everyone who does these acts is detestable to the LORD, and the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you because of these detestable acts.

¹³You must be blameless before the LORD your God.

¹⁴Though these nations you are about to drive out listen to fortune-tellers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do this.

¹⁵“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.

¹⁶This is what you requested from the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not continue to hear the voice of the LORD our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!’

¹⁷Then the LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well.

¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

¹⁹I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name.

²⁰But the prophet who presumes to speak a message in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods — that prophet must die.’

²¹You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a message the LORD has not spoken?’

²²When a prophet speaks in the LORD’s name, and the message does not come true or is not fulfilled, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

¹“When the LORD your God annihilates the nations whose land he is giving you, so that you drive them out and live in their cities and houses,

²you are to set apart three cities for yourselves within the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

³You are to determine the distances and divide the land the LORD your God is granting you as an inheritance into three regions, so that anyone who commits manslaughter can flee to these cities.

⁴“Here is the law concerning a case of someone who kills a person and flees there to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him:

⁵If, for example, he goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings the ax to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, that person may flee to one of these cities and live.

⁶Otherwise, the avenger of blood in the heat of his anger might pursue the one who committed manslaughter, overtake him because the distance is great, and strike him dead. Yet he did not deserve to die, since he did not previously hate his neighbor.

⁷This is why I am commanding you to set apart three cities for yourselves.

⁸If the LORD your God enlarges your territory as he swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land he promised to give them —

⁹provided you keep every one of these commands I am giving you today and follow them, loving the LORD your God and walking in his ways at all times — you are to add three more cities to these three.

¹⁰In this way, innocent blood will not be shed, and you will not become guilty of bloodshed in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

¹¹But if someone hates his neighbor, lies in ambush for him, attacks him, and strikes him fatally, and flees to one of these cities,

¹²the elders of his city are to send for him, take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood and he will die.

¹³Do not look on him with pity but purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, and you will prosper.

¹⁴“Do not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, established at the start in the inheritance you will receive in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵“One witness cannot establish any iniquity or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

¹⁶“If a malicious witness testifies against someone accusing him of a crime,

¹⁷the two people in the dispute are to stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and judges in authority at that time.

¹⁸The judges are to make a careful investigation, and if the witness turns out to be a liar who has falsely accused his brother,

¹⁹you must do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from you.

²⁰Then everyone else will hear and be afraid, and they will never again do anything evil like this among you.

²¹Do not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.

¹“When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

²When you are about to engage in battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army.

³He is to say to them: ‘Listen, Israel: Today you are about to engage in battle with your enemies. Do not be cowardly. Do not be afraid, alarmed, or terrified because of them.

⁴For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.’

⁵“The officers are to address the army, ‘Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise, he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.

⁶Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit.

⁷Has any man become engaged to a woman and not married her? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise he may die in battle and another man marry her.’

⁸The officers will continue to address the army and say, ‘Is there any man who is afraid or cowardly? Let him leave and return home, so that his brothers won’t lose heart as he did.’

⁹When the officers have finished addressing the army, they will appoint military commanders to lead it.

¹⁰“When you approach a city to fight against it, make an offer of peace.

¹¹If it accepts your offer of peace and opens its gates to you, all the people found in it will become forced laborers for you and serve you.

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

¹³When the LORD your God hands it over to you, strike down all its males with the sword.

¹⁴But you may take the women, dependents, animals, and whatever else is in the city — all its spoil — as plunder. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

¹⁵This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and are not among the cities of these nations.

¹⁶However, you must not let any living thing survive among the cities of these people the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

¹⁷You must completely destroy them — the Hethite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite — as the LORD your God has commanded you,

¹⁸so that they won’t teach you to do all the detestable acts they do for their gods, and you sin against the LORD your God.

¹⁹“When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it in order to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can get food from them. Do not cut them down. Are trees of the field human, to come under siege by you?

²⁰But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce food. You may cut them down to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

¹“If a murder victim is found lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,

²your elders and judges are to come out and measure the distance from the victim to the nearby cities.

³The elders of the city nearest to the victim are to get a young cow that has not been yoked or used for work.

⁴The elders of that city will bring the cow down to a continually flowing stream, to a place not tilled or sown, and they will break its neck there by the stream.

⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, will come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve him and pronounce blessings in his name, and they are to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault.

⁶All the elders of the city nearest to the victim will wash their hands by the stream over the young cow whose neck has been broken.

⁷They will declare, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood; our eyes did not see it.

⁸LORD, wipe away the guilt of your people Israel whom you redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.’ Then the responsibility for bloodshed will be wiped away from them.

⁹You must purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, for you will be doing what is right in the LORD’s sight.

¹⁰“When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take some of them prisoner, and

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

¹²you are to bring her into your house. She is to shave her head, trim her nails,

¹³remove the clothes she was wearing when she was taken prisoner, live in your house, and mourn for her father and mother a full month. After that, you may have sexual relations with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife.

¹⁴Then if you are not satisfied with her, you are to let her go where she wants, but you must not sell her or treat her as merchandise, because you have humiliated her.

¹⁵“If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved bear him sons, and if the unloved wife has the firstborn son,

¹⁶when that man gives what he has to his sons as an inheritance, he is not to show favoritism to the son of the loved wife as his firstborn over the firstborn of the unloved wife.

¹⁷He must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved wife, by giving him two shares of his estate, for he is the firstfruits of his virility; he has the rights of the firstborn.

¹⁸“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or mother and doesn’t listen to them even after they discipline him,

¹⁹his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown.

²⁰They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he doesn’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunkard.’

²¹Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

²²“If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree,

²³you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

¹“If you see your brother Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it; make sure you return it to your brother.

²If your brother does not live near you or you don’t know him, you are to bring the animal to your home to remain with you until your brother comes looking for it; then you can return it to him.

³Do the same for his donkey, his garment, or anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it.

⁴If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen down on the road, do not ignore it; help him lift it up.

⁵“A woman is not to wear male clothing, and a man is not to put on a woman’s garment, for everyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD your God.

⁶“If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, do not take the mother along with the young.

⁷You may take the young for yourself, but be sure to let the mother go free, so that you may prosper and live long.

⁸If you build a new house, make a railing around your roof, so that you don’t bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it.

⁹Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; otherwise, the entire harvest, both the crop you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled.

¹⁰Do not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

¹¹Do not wear clothes made of both wool and linen.

¹²Make tassels on the four corners of the outer garment you wear.

¹³“If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, and comes to hate her,

¹⁴and accuses her of shameful conduct, and gives her a bad name, saying, ‘I married this woman and was intimate with her, but I didn’t find any evidence of her virginity,’

¹⁵the young woman’s father and mother will take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the city elders at the city gate.

¹⁶The young woman’s father will say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her.

¹⁷He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying: “I didn’t find any evidence of your daughter’s virginity,” but here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ They will spread out the cloth before the city elders.

¹⁸Then the elders of that city will take the man and punish him.

¹⁹They will also fine him a hundred silver shekels and give them to the young woman’s father, because that man gave an Israelite virgin a bad name. She will remain his wife; he cannot divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰But if this accusation is true and no evidence of the young woman’s virginity is found,

²¹they will bring the woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from you.

²²“If a man is discovered having sexual relations with another man’s wife, both the man who had sex with the woman and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

²³If there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her,

²⁴take the two of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death — the young woman because she did not cry out in the city and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s fiancée. You must purge the evil from you.

²⁵But if the man encounters an engaged woman in the open country, and he seizes and rapes her, only the man who raped her must die.

²⁶Do nothing to the young woman, because she is not guilty of an offense deserving death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

²⁷When he found her in the field, the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her.

²⁸If a man encounters a young woman, a virgin who is not engaged, takes hold of her and rapes her, and they are discovered,

²⁹the man who raped her is to give the young woman’s father fifty silver shekels, and she will become his wife because he violated her. He cannot divorce her as long as he lives.

³⁰“A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not violate his father’s marriage bed.

¹“No man whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may enter the LORD’s assembly.

²No one of illegitimate birth may enter the LORD’s assembly; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, may enter the LORD’s assembly.

³No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the LORD’s assembly; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, may ever enter the LORD’s assembly.

⁴This is because they did not meet you with food and water on the journey after you came out of Egypt, and because Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim was hired to curse you.

⁵Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, but he turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you.

⁶Never pursue their welfare or prosperity as long as you live.

⁷Do not despise an Edomite, because he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you were a resident alien in his land.

⁸The children born to them in the third generation may enter the LORD’s assembly.

⁹“When you are encamped against your enemies, be careful to avoid anything offensive.

¹⁰If there is a man among you who is unclean because of a bodily emission during the night, he must go outside the camp; he may not come anywhere inside the camp.

¹¹When evening approaches, he is to wash with water, and when the sun sets he may come inside the camp.

¹²You are to have a place outside the camp and go there to relieve yourself.

¹³You are to have a digging tool in your equipment; when you relieve yourself, dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement.

¹⁴For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you; so your encampments must be holy. He must not see anything indecent among you or he will turn away from you.

¹⁵“Do not return a slave to his master when he has escaped from his master to you.

¹⁶Let him live among you wherever he wants within your city gates. Do not mistreat him.

¹⁷“No Israelite woman is to be a cult prostitute, and no Israelite man is to be a cult prostitute.

¹⁸Do not bring a female prostitute’s wages or a male prostitute’s earnings into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.

¹⁹“Do not charge your brother interest on silver, food, or anything that can earn interest.

²⁰You may charge a foreigner interest, but you must not charge your brother Israelite interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you do in the land you are entering to possess.

²¹“If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because he will require it of you, and it will be counted against you as sin.

²²But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be counted against you as sin.

²³Be careful to do whatever comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed what you promised to the LORD your God.

²⁴“When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you want until you are full, but do not put any in your container.

²⁵When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck heads of grain with your hand, but do not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

¹“If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, he may write her a divorce certificate, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.

²If after leaving his house she goes and becomes another man’s wife,

³and the second man hates her, writes her a divorce certificate, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house or if he dies,

⁴the first husband who sent her away may not marry her again after she has been defiled, because that would be detestable to the LORD. You must not bring guilt on the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

⁵“When a man takes a bride, he must not go out with the army or be liable for any duty. He is free to stay at home for one year, so that he can bring joy to the wife he has married.

⁶“Do not take a pair of grindstones or even the upper millstone as security for a debt, because that is like taking a life as security.

⁷“If a man is discovered kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from you.

⁸“Be careful with a person who has a case of serious skin disease, following carefully everything the Levitical priests instruct you to do. Be careful to do as I have commanded them.

⁹Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you left Egypt.

¹⁰“When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect what he offers as security.

¹¹Stand outside while the man you are making the loan to brings the security out to you.

¹²If he is a poor man, do not sleep with the garment he has given as security.

¹³Be sure to return it to him at sunset. Then he will sleep in it and bless you, and this will be counted as righteousness to you before the LORD your God.

¹⁴“Do not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether one of your Israelite brothers or one of the resident aliens in a town in your land.

¹⁵You are to pay him his wages each day before the sun sets, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be held guilty.

¹⁶“Fathers are not to be put to death for their children, and children are not to be put to death for their fathers; each person will be put to death for his own sin.

¹⁷Do not deny justice to a resident alien or fatherless child, and do not take a widow’s garment as security.

¹⁸Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

¹⁹“When you reap the harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰When you knock down the fruit from your olive tree, do not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow.

²¹When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left. What remains will be for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow.

²²Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

¹“If there is a dispute between men, they are to go to court, and the judges will hear their case. They will clear the innocent and condemn the guilty.

²If the guilty party deserves to be flogged, the judge will make him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes appropriate for his crime.

³He may be flogged with forty lashes, but no more. Otherwise, if he is flogged with more lashes than these, your brother will be degraded in your sight.

⁴“Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain.

⁵“When brothers live on the same property and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the dead man may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to take her as his wife, have sexual relations with her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

⁶The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

⁷But if the man doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He isn’t willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.’

⁸The elders of his city will summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’

⁹then his sister-in-law will go up to him in the sight of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she will declare, ‘This is what is done to a man who will not build up his brother’s house.’

¹⁰And his family name in Israel will be ‘The house of the man whose sandal was removed.’

¹¹“If two men are fighting with each other, and the wife of one steps in to rescue her husband from the one striking him, and she puts out her hand and grabs his genitals,

¹²you are to cut off her hand. Do not show pity.

¹³“Do not have differing weights in your bag, one heavy and one light.

¹⁴Do not have differing dry measures in your house, a larger and a smaller.

¹⁵You must have a full and honest weight, a full and honest dry measure, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

¹⁶For everyone who does such things and acts unfairly is detestable to the LORD your God.

¹⁷“Remember what the Amalekites did to you on the journey after you left Egypt.

¹⁸They met you along the way and attacked all your stragglers from behind when you were tired and weary. They did not fear God.

¹⁹When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven. Do not forget.

¹“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and live in it,

²take some of the first of all the land’s produce that you harvest from the land the LORD your God is giving you and put it in a basket. Then go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to have his name dwell.

³When you come before the priest who is serving at that time, say to him, ‘Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have entered the land the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’

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

⁵You are to respond by saying in the presence of the LORD your God: My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with a few people and resided there as an alien. There he became a great, powerful, and populous nation.

⁶But the Egyptians mistreated and oppressed us, and forced us to do hard labor.

⁷So we called out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our cry and saw our misery, hardship, and oppression.

⁸Then the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with terrifying power, and with signs and wonders.

⁹He led us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰I have now brought the first of the land’s produce that you, LORD, have given me. You will then place the container before the LORD your God and bow down to him.

¹¹You, the Levites, and the resident aliens among you will rejoice in all the good things the LORD your God has given you and your household.

¹²“When you have finished paying all the tenth of your produce in the third year, the year of the tenth, you are to give it to the Levites, resident aliens, fatherless children and widows, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

¹³Then you will say in the presence of the LORD your God: I have taken the consecrated portion out of my house; I have also given it to the Levites, resident aliens, fatherless children, and widows, according to all the commands you gave me. I have not violated or forgotten your commands.

¹⁴I have not eaten any of it while in mourning, or removed any of it while unclean, or offered any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the LORD my God; I have done all you commanded me.

¹⁵Look down from your holy dwelling, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁶“The LORD your God is commanding you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. Follow them carefully with all your heart and all your soul.

¹⁷Today you have affirmed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commands, and ordinances, and obey him.

¹⁸And today the LORD has affirmed that you are his own possession as he promised you, that you are to keep all his commands,

¹⁹that he will elevate you to praise, fame, and glory above all the nations he has made, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God as he promised.”

¹Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, “Keep every command I am giving you today.

²When you cross the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up large stones and cover them with plaster.

³Write all the words of this law on the stones after you cross to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

⁴When you have crossed the Jordan, you are to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am commanding you today, and you are to cover them with plaster.

⁵Build an altar of stones there to the LORD your God — do not use any iron tool on them.

⁶Use uncut stones to build the altar of the LORD your God and offer burnt offerings to the LORD your God on it.

⁷There you are to sacrifice fellowship offerings, eat, and rejoice in the presence of the LORD your God.

⁸Write clearly all the words of this law on the plastered stones.”

⁹Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel, “Be silent, Israel, and listen! This day you have become the people of the LORD your God.

¹⁰Obey the LORD your God and follow his commands and statutes I am giving you today.”

¹¹On that day Moses commanded the people,

¹²“When you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

¹³And these tribes will stand on Mount Ebal to deliver the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

¹⁴The Levites will proclaim in a loud voice to every Israelite:

¹⁵‘The person who makes a carved idol or cast image, which is detestable to the LORD, the work of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret is cursed.’ And all the people will reply, ‘Amen!’

¹⁶‘The one who dishonors his father or mother is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

¹⁷‘The one who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

¹⁸‘The one who leads a blind person astray on the road is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

¹⁹‘The one who denies justice to a resident alien, a fatherless child, or a widow is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²⁰‘The one who sleeps with his father’s wife is cursed, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²¹‘The one who has sexual intercourse with any animal is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²²‘The one who sleeps with his sister, whether his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²³‘The one who sleeps with his mother-in-law is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²⁴‘The one who secretly kills his neighbor is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²⁵‘The one who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

²⁶‘Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

¹“Now if you faithfully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all his commands I am giving you today, the LORD your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth.

²All these blessings will come and overtake you, because you obey the LORD your God:

³You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

⁴Your offspring will be blessed, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks.

⁵Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

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

⁷“The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but flee from you in seven directions.

⁸The LORD will grant you a blessing on your barns and on everything you do; he will bless you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

⁹The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he swore to you, if you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.

¹⁰Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you bear the LORD’s name, and they will stand in awe of you.

¹¹The LORD will make you prosper abundantly with offspring, the offspring of your livestock, and your land’s produce in the land the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

¹²The LORD will open for you his abundant storehouse, the sky, to give your land rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

¹³The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward if you listen to the LORD your God’s commands I am giving you today and are careful to follow them.

¹⁴Do not turn aside to the right or the left from all the things I am commanding you today, and do not follow other gods to worship them.

¹⁵“But if you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all his commands and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁷Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

¹⁸Your offspring will be cursed, and your land’s produce, the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks.

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

²⁰The LORD will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you do until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the wickedness of your actions in abandoning me.

²¹The LORD will make pestilence cling to you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering to possess.

²²The LORD will afflict you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

²³The sky above you will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

²⁴The LORD will turn the rain of your land into falling dust; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

²⁵The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

²⁶Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

²⁷“The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, a festering rash, and scabies, from which you cannot be cured.

²⁸The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and mental confusion,

²⁹so that at noon you will grope as a blind person gropes in the dark. You will not be successful in anything you do. You will only be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will help you.

³⁰You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.

³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will help you.

³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes grow weary looking for them every day. But you will be powerless to do anything.

³³A people you don’t know will eat your land’s produce and everything you have labored for. You will only be oppressed and crushed continually.

³⁴You will be driven mad by what you see.

³⁵The LORD will afflict you with painful and incurable boils on your knees and thighs — from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

³⁶“The LORD will bring you and your king that you have appointed to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone.

³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.

³⁸“You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because locusts will devour it.

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

⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your territory but not moisten your skin with oil, because your olives will drop off.

⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will be taken prisoner.

⁴²Buzzing insects will take possession of all your trees and your land’s produce.

⁴³The resident alien among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower.

⁴⁴He will lend to you, but you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵“All these curses will come, pursue, and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commands and statutes he gave you.

⁴⁶These curses will be a sign and a wonder against you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, even though you had an abundance of everything,

⁴⁸you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

⁴⁹The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you won’t understand,

⁵⁰a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young.

⁵¹They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, fresh oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish.

⁵²They will besiege you within all your city gates until your high and fortified walls, that you trust in, come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout the land the LORD your God has given you.

⁵³“You will eat your offspring, the flesh of your sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you.

⁵⁴The most sensitive and refined man among you will look grudgingly at his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children,

⁵⁵refusing to share with any of them his children’s flesh that he will eat because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you in all your towns.

⁵⁶The most sensitive and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her refinement and sensitivity, will begrudge the husband she embraces, her son, and her daughter,

⁵⁷the afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you within your city gates.

⁵⁸“If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law, which are written in this scroll, by fearing this glorious and awe-inspiring name — the LORD, your God —

⁵⁹he will bring wondrous plagues on you and your descendants, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.

⁶⁰He will afflict you again with all the diseases of Egypt, which you dreaded, and they will cling to you.

⁶¹The LORD will also afflict you with every sickness and plague not recorded in the book of this law, until you are destroyed.

⁶²Though you were as numerous as the stars of the sky, you will be left with only a few people, because you did not obey the LORD your God.

⁶³Just as the LORD was glad to cause you to prosper and to multiply you, so he will also be glad to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be ripped out of the land you are entering to possess.

⁶⁴Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵You will find no peace among those nations, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despondent spirit.

⁶⁶Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be in dread night and day, never certain of survival.

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ — because of the dread you will have in your heart and because of what you will see.

⁶⁸The LORD will take you back in ships to Egypt by a route that I said you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

¹These are the words of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

²Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to his entire land.

³You saw with your own eyes the great trials and those great signs and wonders.

⁴Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

⁵I led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes and the sandals on your feet did not wear out;

⁶you did not eat food or drink wine or beer — so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.

⁷When you reached this place, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we defeated them.

⁸We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh.

⁹Therefore, observe the words of this covenant and follow them, so that you will succeed in everything you do.

¹⁰“All of you are standing today before the LORD your God — your leaders, tribes, elders, officials, all the men of Israel,

¹¹your dependents, your wives, and the resident aliens in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water —

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

¹³and so that he may establish you today as his people and he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you,

¹⁵but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God and with those who are not here today.

¹⁶“Indeed, you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and passed through the nations where you traveled.

¹⁷You saw their abhorrent images and idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them.

¹⁸Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.

¹⁹When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt, thinking, ‘I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.’ This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land.

²⁰The LORD will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The LORD will blot out his name under heaven,

²¹and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

²²“Future generations of your children who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant country will see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it.

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD demolished in his fierce anger.

²⁴All the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this intense outburst of anger?’

²⁵Then people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁶They began to serve other gods, bowing in worship to gods they had not known  — gods that the LORD had not permitted them to worship.

²⁷Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, and he brought every curse written in this book on it.

²⁸The LORD uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’

²⁹The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.