Cities of Refuge

19 “^(A)When the Lord your God cuts off the nations, whose land the Lord your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses, ^2 (B)you shall set aside three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the Lord your God gives you to ^[a]possess. ³ You shall prepare the ^[b]roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the Lord your God will give you as a possession, ^[c]so that any manslayer may flee there.

⁴ “^(C)Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live: when he ^[d]kills his friend ^[e]unintentionally, ^[f]not hating him previously— ⁵ as when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut wood, and his hand ^[g]swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the ^[h]handle and ^[i]strikes his friend so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live; ⁶ otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer ^[j]in the heat of his anger, and overtake him, because the way is long, and ^[k]take his life, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously. ⁷ Therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You shall set aside three cities for yourself.’

⁸ “If the Lord your God ^(D)enlarges your territory, just as He has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which He ^[l]promised to give your fathers— ⁹ if you ^[m]carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today, ^(E)to love the Lord your God, and to walk in His ways always—^(F)then you shall add three more cities for yourself, besides these three. ¹⁰ So innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and ^(G)bloodguiltiness be on you.

¹¹ “But ^(H)if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes ^[n]him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ^13 [o](I)You shall not pity him, but ^(J)you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

Laws of Landmark and Testimony

¹⁴ “^(K)You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary mark, which the ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God gives you to ^[p]possess.

¹⁵ “^(L)A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin ^[q]which he has committed; on the ^[r]evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed. ^16 (M)If a malicious witness rises up against a man to ^[s]accuse him of ^[t]wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both the men who have the dispute shall stand ^(N)before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days. ¹⁸ The judges ^(O)shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has ^[u]accused his brother falsely, ¹⁹ then ^(P)you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. ^20 (Q)The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you. ²¹ Thus ^[v](R)you shall not show pity: ^(S)life for life, ^(T)eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Laws of Warfare

20 “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see ^(U)horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, ^(V)do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. ² When you are approaching the battle, the priest shall come near and speak to the people. ³ He shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be fainthearted. ^(W)Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, ⁴ for the Lord your God ^(X)is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’ ⁵ The officers also shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Who is the man that has built a new house and has not ^(Y)dedicated it? Let him depart and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would dedicate it. ⁶ Who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not ^[w]begun to use its fruit? Let him depart and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man ^[x]would begin to use its fruit. ^7 (Z)And who is the man that is engaged to a woman and has not ^[y]married her? Let him depart and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man ^[z]would marry her.’ ⁸ Then the officers shall speak further to the people and say, ‘^(AA)Who is the man that is afraid and fainthearted? Let him depart and return to his house, so that ^[aa]he might not make his brothers’ hearts melt like his heart.’ ⁹ When the officers have finished speaking to the people, they shall appoint commanders of armies at the head of the people.

¹⁰ “When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall ^[ab]offer it terms of peace. ¹¹ If it ^[ac]agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your ^(AB)forced labor and shall serve you. ¹² However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. ¹³ When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, ^(AC)you shall strike all the ^[ad]men in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴ Only the women and the children and ^(AD)the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall ^[ae]use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations ^[af]nearby. ^16 (AE)Only 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. ¹⁷ But you shall ^[ag]utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they may not teach you to do ^(AF)according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would ^(AG)sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. ^[ah]For is the tree of the field a man, that it should ^[ai]be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees which you know ^[aj]are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down, that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

Expiation of a Crime

21 “If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land which the Lord your God gives you to ^[ak]possess, and it is not known who has struck him, ² then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. ³ It shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke; ⁴ and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then ^(AH)the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the Lord; and every dispute and every ^[al]assault ^[am]shall be settled by them. ⁶ All the elders of that city ^[an]which is nearest to the slain man shall ^(AI)wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; ⁷ and they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. ^8 [ao]Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and do not place the guilt of ^(AJ)innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be ^[ap]forgiven them. ^9 (AK)So you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Domestic Relations

¹⁰ “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and ^(AL)the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, ¹¹ and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, ¹² then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall ^(AM)shave her head and ^[aq]trim her nails. ¹³ She shall also ^[ar]remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and ^(AN)mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go ^[as]wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not ^[at]mistreat her, because you have ^(AO)humbled her.

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, the one loved and ^(AP)the other ^[au]unloved, and both the loved and the ^[av]unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the ^[aw]unloved, ¹⁶ then it shall be in the day he ^[ax]wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the ^[ay]unloved, who is the firstborn. ¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the ^[az]unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that ^[ba]he has, for he is the ^(AQ)beginning of his strength; ^(AR)to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

¹⁸ “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will ^(AS)not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city ^[bb]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.’ ^21 (AT)Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so ^(AU)you shall remove the evil from your midst, and ^(AV)all Israel will hear of it and fear.

²² “If a man has committed a sin ^(AW)worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ^23 (AX)his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for ^(AY)he who is hanged is ^[bc]accursed of God), so that you ^(AZ)do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

14 It happened that when He went into the house of one of the ^[a]leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, ^(A)they were watching Him closely. ² And ^[b]there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. ³ And Jesus answered and spoke to the ^[c](B)lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “^(C)Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” ⁴ But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. ⁵ And He said to them, “^[d](D)Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” ^6 (E)And they could make no reply to this.

Parable of the Guests

⁷ And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how ^(F)they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, ^(G)do not ^[e]take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then ^(H)in disgrace you ^[f]proceed to occupy the last place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, ^(I)move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who ^[g]are at the table with you. ^11 (J)For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

¹² And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. ¹³ But when you give a ^[h]reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, since they ^[i]do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at ^(K)the resurrection of the righteous.”

¹⁵ When one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “^(L)Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Parable of the Dinner

¹⁶ But He said to him, “^(M)A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; ¹⁷ and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a ^[j]piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; ^[k]please consider me excused.’ ¹⁹ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; ^[l]please consider me excused.’ ²⁰ Another one said, ‘^(N)I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ ²¹ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

Discipleship Tested

²⁵ Now ^[m]large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ²⁶ “^(O)If anyone comes to Me, and does not ^[n]hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not ^(P)carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸ For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and ^(Q)consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends ^[o]a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So then, none of you can be My disciple who ^(R)does not give up all his own possessions.

³⁴ “Therefore, salt is good; but ^(S)if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? ³⁵ It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. ^(T)He who has ears to hear, ^[p]let him hear.”