Exodus 22-24

New King James Version

Responsibility for Property

22 “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall ^(A)restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. ²If the thief is found ^(B)breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be ^(C)no guilt for his bloodshed. ³If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be ^(D)sold^[a] for his theft. ⁴If the theft is certainly ^(E)found alive in his hand, whether it is an ox or donkey or sheep, he shall ^(F)restore double.

⁵“If a man causes a field or vineyard to be grazed, and lets loose his animal, and it feeds in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard.

⁶“If fire breaks out and catches in thorns, so that stacked grain, standing grain, or the field is consumed, he who kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

⁷“If a man ^(G)delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it is stolen out of the man’s house, ^(H)if the thief is found, he shall pay double. ⁸If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the ^(I)judges to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods.

⁹“For any kind of trespass, whether it concerns an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or clothing, or for any kind of lost thing which another claims to be his, the ^(J)cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whomever the judges condemn shall pay double to his neighbor. ¹⁰If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep, and it dies, is hurt, or driven away, no one seeing it, ¹¹then an ^(K)oath of the Lord shall be between them both, that he has not put his hand into his neighbor’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept that, and he shall not make it good. ¹²But ^(L)if, in fact, it is stolen from him, he shall make restitution to the owner of it. ¹³If it is ^(M)torn to pieces by a beast, then he shall bring it as evidence, and he shall not make good what was torn.

¹⁴“And if a man borrows anything from his neighbor, and it becomes injured or dies, the owner of it not being with it, he shall surely make it good. ¹⁵If its owner was with it, he shall not make it good; if it was hired, it came for its hire.

Moral and Ceremonial Principles

¹⁶^(N)“If a man entices a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall surely pay the bride-price for her to be his wife. ¹⁷If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the ^(O)bride-price of virgins.

¹⁸^(P)“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.

¹⁹^(Q)“Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death.

²⁰^(R)“He who sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

²¹^(S)“You shall neither mistreat a ^[b]stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²²^(T)“You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. ²³If you afflict them in any way, and they ^(U)cry at all to Me, I will surely ^(V)hear their cry; ²⁴and My ^(W)wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; ^(X)your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

²⁵^(Y)“If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him ^(Z)interest. ²⁶^(AA)If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. ²⁷For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am ^(AB)gracious.

²⁸^(AC)“You shall not revile God, nor curse a ^(AD)ruler of your people.

²⁹“You shall not delay to offer ^(AE)the first of your ripe produce and your juices. ^(AF)The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. ³⁰^(AG)Likewise you shall do with your oxen and your sheep. It shall be with its mother ^(AH)seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me.

³¹“And you shall be ^(AI)holy men to Me: ^(AJ)you shall not eat meat torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.

Justice for All

23 “You ^(AK)shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an ^(AL)unrighteous witness. ²^(AM)You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; ^(AN)nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. ³You shall not show partiality to a ^(AO)poor man in his dispute.

⁴^(AP)“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. ⁵^(AQ)If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.

⁶^(AR)“You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. ⁷^(AS)Keep yourself far from a false matter; ^(AT)do not kill the innocent and righteous. For ^(AU)I will not justify the wicked. ⁸And ^(AV)you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.

⁹“Also ^(AW)you shall not oppress a ^[c]stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

The Law of Sabbaths

¹⁰^(AX)“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, ¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your ^[d]olive grove. ¹²^(AY)Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.

¹³“And in all that I have said to you, ^(AZ)be circumspect and ^(BA)make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.

Three Annual Feasts^(BB)

¹⁴^(BC)“Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: ¹⁵^(BD)You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; ^(BE)none shall appear before Me empty); ¹⁶^(BF)and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and ^(BG)the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.

¹⁷^(BH)“Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord ^[e]God.

¹⁸^(BI)“You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened ^(BJ)bread; nor shall the fat of My ^[f]sacrifice remain until morning. ¹⁹^(BK)The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. ^(BL)You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

The Angel and the Promises

²⁰^(BM)“Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. ²¹Beware of Him and obey His voice; ^(BN)do not provoke Him, for He will ^(BO)not pardon your transgressions; for ^(BP)My name is in Him. ²²But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then ^(BQ)I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. ²³^(BR)For My Angel will go before you and ^(BS)bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will ^[g]cut them off. ²⁴You shall not ^(BT)bow down to their gods, nor serve them, ^(BU)nor do according to their works; ^(BV)but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.

²⁵“So you shall ^(BW)serve the Lord your God, and ^(BX)He will bless your bread and your water. And ^(BY)I will take sickness away from the midst of you. ²⁶^(BZ)No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will ^(CA)fulfill the number of your days.

²⁷“I will send ^(CB)My fear before you, I will ^(CC)cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸And ^(CD)I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. ²⁹^(CE)I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. ³¹And ^(CF)I will set your ^[h]bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the ^[i]River. For I will ^(CG)deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. ³²^(CH)You shall make no ^[j]covenant with them, nor with their gods. ³³They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, ^(CI)it will surely be a snare to you.”

Israel Affirms the Covenant

24 Now He said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, ^(CJ)Nadab and Abihu, ^(CK)and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. ²And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near; nor shall the people go up with him.”

³So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ^[k]judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ^(CL)“All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” ⁴And Moses ^(CM)wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve ^(CN)pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered ^(CO)burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. ⁶And Moses ^(CP)took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷Then he ^(CQ)took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.” ⁸And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is ^(CR)the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.”

On the Mountain with God

⁹Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, ¹⁰and they ^(CS)saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of ^(CT)sapphire stone, and it was like the ^(CU)very^[l] heavens in its clarity. ¹¹But on the nobles of the children of Israel He ^(CV)did not ^[m]lay His hand. So ^(CW)they saw God, and they ^(CX)ate and drank.

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses, ^(CY)“Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you ^(CZ)tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.”

¹³So Moses arose with ^(DA)his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. ¹⁴And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and ^(DB)Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.” ¹⁵Then Moses went up into the mountain, and ^(DC)a cloud covered the mountain.

¹⁶Now ^(DD)the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷The sight of the glory of the Lord was like ^(DE)a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. ¹⁸So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And ^(DF)Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Footnotes

Exodus 22:3 Sold as a slave
Exodus 22:21 sojourner
Exodus 23:9 sojourner
Exodus 23:11 olive yards
Exodus 23:17 Heb. YHWH, usually translated Lord
Exodus 23:18 feast
Exodus 23:23 annihilate them
Exodus 23:31 boundaries
Exodus 23:31 Heb. Nahar, the Euphrates
Exodus 23:32 treaty
Exodus 24:3 ordinances
Exodus 24:10 Lit. substance of heaven
Exodus 24:11 stretch out His

Psalm 109

New King James Version

Plea for Judgment of False Accusers

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

109 Do^(A) not keep silent,
O God of my praise!
²For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful
Have opened against me;
They have spoken against me with a ^(B)lying tongue.
³They have also surrounded me with words of hatred,
And fought against me ^(C)without a cause.
⁴In return for my love they are my accusers,
But I give myself to prayer.
⁵Thus ^(D)they have rewarded me evil for good,
And hatred for my love.

⁶Set a wicked man over him,
And let ^(E)an ^[a]accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
And ^(F)let his prayer become sin.
⁸Let his days be ^(G)few,
And ^(H)let another take his office.
⁹^(I)Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
¹⁰Let his children ^[b]continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them ^[c]seek their bread also from their desolate places.
¹¹^(J)Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
¹²Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
¹³^(K)Let his ^[d]posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their ^(L)name be blotted out.

¹⁴^(M)Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
And let not the sin of his mother ^(N)be blotted out.
¹⁵Let them be continually before the Lord,
That He may ^(O)cut off the memory of them from the earth;
¹⁶Because he did not remember to show mercy,
But persecuted the poor and needy man,
That he might even slay the ^(P)broken in heart.
¹⁷^(Q)As he loved cursing, so let it come to him;
As he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him.
¹⁸As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment,
So let it ^(R)enter his body like water,
And like oil into his bones.
¹⁹Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,
And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.
²⁰Let this be the Lord’s reward to my accusers,
And to those who speak evil against my person.

²¹But You, O God the Lord,
Deal with me for Your name’s sake;
Because Your mercy is good, deliver me.
²²For I am poor and needy,
And my heart is wounded within me.
²³I am gone ^(S)like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like a locust.
²⁴My ^(T)knees are weak through fasting,
And my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.
²⁵I also have become ^(U)a reproach to them;
When they look at me, ^(V)they shake their heads.

²⁶Help me, O Lord my God!
Oh, save me according to Your mercy,
²⁷^(W)That they may know that this is Your hand—
That You, Lord, have done it!
²⁸^(X)Let them curse, but You bless;
When they arise, let them be ashamed,
But let ^(Y)Your servant rejoice.
²⁹^(Z)Let my accusers be clothed with shame,
And let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle.

³⁰I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
Yes, ^(AA)I will praise Him among the multitude.
³¹For ^(AB)He shall stand at the right hand of the poor,
To save him from those ^[e]who condemn him.

Footnotes

Psalm 109:6 Heb. satan
Psalm 109:10 wander continuously
Psalm 109:10 So with MT, Tg.; LXX, Vg. be cast out
Psalm 109:13 descendants be destroyed
Psalm 109:31 Lit. judging his soul

Matthew 12:22-50

New King James Version

A House Divided Cannot Stand^(A)

²²^(B)Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the ^[a]blind and mute man both spoke and saw. ²³And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the ^(C)Son of David?”

²⁴^(D)Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by ^[b]Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

²⁵But Jesus ^(E)knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. ²⁶If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? ²⁷And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. ²⁸But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, ^(F)surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. ²⁹^(G)Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. ³⁰He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

The Unpardonable Sin^(H)

³¹“Therefore I say to you, ^(I)every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, ^(J)but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. ³²Anyone who ^(K)speaks a word against the Son of Man, ^(L)it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

A Tree Known by Its Fruit^(M)

³³“Either make the tree good and ^(N)its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. ³⁴^(O)Brood^[c] of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? ^(P)For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. ³⁵A good man out of the good treasure ^[d]of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. ³⁶But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. ³⁷For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The Scribes and Pharisees Ask for a Sign^(Q)

³⁸^(R)Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

³⁹But He answered and said to them, “An evil and ^(S)adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰^(T)For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹^(U)The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and ^(V)condemn it, ^(W)because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. ⁴²^(X)The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

An Unclean Spirit Returns^(Y)

⁴³^(Z)“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, ^(AA)he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. ⁴⁴Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. ⁴⁵Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; ^(AB)and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Send for Him^(AC)

⁴⁶While He was still talking to the multitudes, ^(AD)behold, His mother and ^(AE)brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. ⁴⁷Then one said to Him, “Look, ^(AF)Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.”

⁴⁸But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” ⁴⁹And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My ^(AG)brothers! ⁵⁰For ^(AH)whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”