Deuteronomy 16-18
New Life Version
The Passover
16 “Remember the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God. For the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt during the night in the month of Abib. 2 Give the Passover gift to the Lord your God from the flock and the cattle, in the place where the Lord chooses to put His name. 3 Do not eat bread made with yeast. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, the bread of sorrow, because you came out of the land of Egypt in a hurry. So all the days of your life you will remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 For seven days there is to be no yeast around in all your land. And none of the flesh you give in worship on the evening of the first day will be kept through the night until morning. 5 You are not allowed to give the Passover gift in any of your towns the Lord your God gives you. 6 But give it at the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name. You must kill the Passover gift in the evening when the sun goes down, at the time that you came out of Egypt. 7 Make it ready and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses. Then return to your tents in the morning. 8 For six days eat bread made without yeast. On the seventh day there will be a holy meeting to the Lord your God. Do no work on this day.
The Supper of Weeks
9 “Number seven weeks. Begin to number seven weeks from the time you begin to cut the standing grain. 10 Then keep the Special Supper of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a free-will gift. Give as the Lord your God has given to you. 11 Be full of joy before the Lord your God, you and your son and daughter, your men and women servants, the Levite who is in your town, the stranger, the child whose parents have died, and the woman whose husband has died. Be full of joy in the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name. 12 Remember that you were servants in Egypt. And be careful to obey these Laws.
13 “Keep the Special Supper of Tents seven days after you have gathered your grain and wine. 14 Be full of joy during your special supper, you and your son and daughter, your men and women servants, the Levite, the stranger, the child whose parents have died, and the woman whose husband has died, who are in your towns. 15 Seven days you will have a special supper to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses. You will be full of joy because the Lord your God will bring good to you in all the food you grow and in all the work you do. 16 All your males must show themselves before the Lord your God three times a year in the place He chooses, at the Special Supper of Bread Without Yeast, the Special Supper of the First Fruits of the Land, and the Special Supper of Tents. They must not show themselves before the Lord with nothing in their hands. 17 Every man should give as he is able, as the Lord your God has given to you.
Those Who Judge
18 “Choose judges and other leaders for all your towns the Lord your God is giving you, among each of your family groups. They must be wise in judging the people. 19 Be fair and do not show favor. Do not take pay in secret for doing wrong. Such pay blinds the eyes of the wise and causes them to change the words of a good man. 20 Follow what is right, and only what is right. Then you will live and receive the land the Lord your God is giving you.
21 “When you make an altar for the Lord your God, do not put beside it a wooden god like the false goddess Asherah. 22 Do not set up for yourself a pillar for worship that the Lord your God hates.
17 “Do not give to the Lord your God a bull or a sheep which is not perfect. For that is a hated thing to the Lord your God.
2 “You may find among you, within any of your towns the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who does what is sinful in the eyes of the Lord your God by sinning against the Lord’s agreement. 3 If he has served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon or the stars, which I have told him not to worship, 4 and if someone told you about this, then you should do your best to find out if it is true. If it is true that this hated thing has been done in Israel, 5 then bring that man or woman who has done this sinful act to your gates, and kill the man or woman with stones. 6 If two or three people tell what they know against this person, he who is to die must be put to death. But he should not be put to death if only one person speaks against him. 7 Those who speak against him should be first to put him to death. And then all the people should join them. You must get rid of all sin from among you.
8 “There may be a problem too hard for you to decide, between two kinds of killing, between two kinds of questions about the law, between two kinds of hurting, problems argued about in your courts. Then get up and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. 9 Go to the Levite religious leader or the judge who is at work at that time. Ask them, and they will tell you what they decide. 10 Then do what should be done by what they tell you they have decided at that place which the Lord chooses. Be careful to do all they tell you. 11 Do what they teach you about the Law and about what they decide. Do not turn aside from what they tell you to do, to the right or to the left. 12 The man must die who does foolish things and will not listen to the judge or the religious leader who serves the Lord your God. You must get rid of sin from Israel. 13 Then all the people will hear and be afraid. They will not act in a foolish way again.
A King
14 “When you go into the land the Lord your God gives you, and own it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will have a king rule over me like all the nations around me,’ 15 then you will set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. Set a king over you from among your brothers. Do not give a stranger power over you if he is not your brother. 16 He must not take many horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get many horses. Because the Lord has told you, ‘You must never again return that way.’ 17 He must not take many wives for himself or his heart may turn away. And he must not gather much silver and gold for himself.
18 “When he sits on the throne of his nation, he should write this Law for himself in a book in front of the Levite religious leaders. 19 It should be kept with him and he should read it all the days of his life. Then he will learn to fear the Lord his God, by being careful to obey all the words of these Laws. 20 And he will not think he is better than his brothers. He will not turn aside from the Law, to the right or to the left, so that he and his children may live long in his nation in Israel.
What the Religious Leaders and Levites Are to Receive
18 “The Levite religious leaders of the family group of Levi will have no share of the land given to Israel. They will live on the gifts given to the Lord by fire. 2 They will have no share of the land among their brothers. The Lord is their share, as He promised them.
3 “When the people bring their gifts, a bull or a sheep, the religious leader is to be given the shoulder, the parts of the face, and the stomach. 4 Give him the first of your grain, your wine, and your oil, and the first wool of your sheep. 5 For the Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your families, to stand and serve in the name of the Lord forever.
6 “If a Levite comes whenever he desires from any of the towns in Israel to the place the Lord chooses, 7 then he may work in the name of the Lord his God, like all his brother Levites who stand there before the Lord. 8 They will all eat the same share of food, except what they receive from what is sold of their fathers’ lands.
Stay Away from What Is Sinful
9 “When you go into the land the Lord your God gives you, do not learn to follow the hated and sinful ways of those nations. 10 There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or uses secret ways, or does witchcraft, or tells the meaning of special things, or is a witch, 11 or uses secret power on people, or helps people talk to spirits, or talks to spirits himself, or talks with the dead. 12 For the Lord hates whoever does these things. And because of these hated things, the Lord your God will drive them out from in front of you. 13 You must be without blame before the Lord your God. 14 For these nations that you are about to take listen to those who do witchcraft and use secret ways. But the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.
A Man Who Speaks for God
15 “The Lord your God will give you a man who speaks for God like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. 16 This is what you asked of the Lord your God at Sinai on the day of the meeting, when you said, ‘Do not let me hear the voice of the Lord my God again. Do not let me see this fire any more, or I will die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will give them a man who speaks for God like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth. And he will make known to them all that I tell him. 19 He will speak in My name. And I will punish whoever will not listen to him. 20 But that man of God will die who is not careful and speaks in My name what I did not tell him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods.’ 21 You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know which words the Lord has not spoken?’ 22 When a man who speaks for God speaks in the name of the Lord, and what he says does not come true, that word is not from the Lord. The man has spoken on his own. Do not be afraid of him.
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