Rewards for Obedience

26 You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the Lord your God. ² You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

³ If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, ⁴ I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ⁵ Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. ⁶ And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land. ⁷ You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ⁸ Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ⁹ I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. ¹¹ I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. ¹² And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ¹³ I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Penalties for Disobedience

¹⁴ But if you will not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, ¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant, ¹⁶ I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you; consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you. ¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper. ²⁰ Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

²¹ If you continue hostile to me, and will not obey me, I will continue to plague you sevenfold for your sins. ²² I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.

²³ If in spite of these punishments you have not turned back to me, but continue hostile to me, ²⁴ then I too will continue hostile to you: I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ I will bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant; and if you withdraw within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands. ²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven, and they shall dole out your bread by weight; and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

²⁷ But if, despite this, you disobey me, and continue hostile to me, ²⁸ I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you. ³¹ I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors. ³² I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it. ³³ And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation, and your cities a waste.

³⁴ Then the land shall enjoy^[a] its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and enjoy^[b] its sabbath years. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies. ³⁸ You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you. ³⁹ And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities; also they shall languish because of the iniquities of their ancestors.

⁴⁰ But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors, in that they committed treachery against me and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me— ⁴¹ so that I, in turn, continued hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³ For the land shall be deserted by them, and enjoy^[c] its sabbath years by lying desolate without them, while they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and they abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God; ⁴⁵ but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and ordinances and laws that the Lord established between himself and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses.

Votive Offerings

27 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When a person makes an explicit vow to the Lord concerning the equivalent for a human being, ³ the equivalent for a male shall be: from twenty to sixty years of age the equivalent shall be fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary shekel. ⁴ If the person is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. ⁵ If the age is from five to twenty years of age, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. ⁶ If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and for a female the equivalent is three shekels of silver. ⁷ And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the equivalent for a male is fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. ⁸ If any cannot afford the equivalent, they shall be brought before the priest and the priest shall assess them; the priest shall assess them according to what each one making a vow can afford.

⁹ If it concerns an animal that may be brought as an offering to the Lord, any such that may be given to the Lord shall be holy. ¹⁰ Another shall not be exchanged or substituted for it, either good for bad or bad for good; and if one animal is substituted for another, both that one and its substitute shall be holy. ¹¹ If it concerns any unclean animal that may not be brought as an offering to the Lord, the animal shall be presented before the priest. ¹² The priest shall assess it: whether good or bad, according to the assessment of the priest, so it shall be. ¹³ But if it is to be redeemed, one-fifth must be added to the assessment.

¹⁴ If a person consecrates a house to the Lord, the priest shall assess it: whether good or bad, as the priest assesses it, so it shall stand. ¹⁵ And if the one who consecrates the house wishes to redeem it, one-fifth shall be added to its assessed value, and it shall revert to the original owner.

¹⁶ If a person consecrates to the Lord any inherited landholding, its assessment shall be in accordance with its seed requirements: fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed. ¹⁷ If the person consecrates the field as of the year of jubilee, that assessment shall stand; ¹⁸ but if the field is consecrated after the jubilee, the priest shall compute the price for it according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and the assessment shall be reduced. ¹⁹ And if the one who consecrates the field wishes to redeem it, then one-fifth shall be added to its assessed value, and it shall revert to the original owner; ²⁰ but if the field is not redeemed, or if it has been sold to someone else, it shall no longer be redeemable. ²¹ But when the field is released in the jubilee, it shall be holy to the Lord as a devoted field; it becomes the priest’s holding. ²² If someone consecrates to the Lord a field that has been purchased, which is not a part of the inherited landholding, ²³ the priest shall compute for it the proportionate assessment up to the year of jubilee, and the assessment shall be paid as of that day, a sacred donation to the Lord. ²⁴ In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom it was bought, whose holding the land is. ²⁵ All assessments shall be by the sanctuary shekel: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

²⁶ A firstling of animals, however, which as a firstling belongs to the Lord, cannot be consecrated by anyone; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord’s. ²⁷ If it is an unclean animal, it shall be ransomed at its assessment, with one-fifth added; if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at its assessment.

²⁸ Nothing that a person owns that has been devoted to destruction for the Lord, be it human or animal, or inherited landholding, may be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. ²⁹ No human beings who have been devoted to destruction can be ransomed; they shall be put to death.

³⁰ All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord. ³¹ If persons wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them. ³² All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. ³³ Let no one inquire whether it is good or bad, or make substitution for it; if one makes substitution for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy and cannot be redeemed.

³⁴ These are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.

Psalm 69

Prayer for Deliverance from Persecution

To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David.

8 ¹ And Saul approved of their killing him.

Saul Persecutes the Church

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. ² Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. ³ But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.

Philip Preaches in Samaria

⁴ Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. ⁵ Philip went down to the city^[a] of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah^[b] to them. ⁶ The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, ⁷ for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. ⁸ So there was great joy in that city.

⁹ Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. ¹⁰ All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” ¹¹ And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. ¹² But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³ Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.

¹⁴ Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵ The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit ¹⁶ (for as yet the Spirit had not come^[c] upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). ¹⁷ Then Peter and John^[d] laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸ Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” ²⁰ But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. ²² Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. ²³ For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.” ²⁴ Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you^[e] have said may happen to me.”