Blessings for Obedience

26 “You shall not make ^(A)idols for yourselves or erect an ^(B)image or ^(C)pillar, and you shall not set up a ^(D)figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. ^2 (E)You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

^3 (F)“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴ then ^(G)I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ^5 (H)Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ^(I)you shall eat your bread to the full and ^(J)dwell in your land securely. ^6 (K)I will give peace in the land, and ^(L)you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And ^(M)I will remove harmful beasts from the land, ^(N)and the sword shall not go through your land. ⁷ You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ^8 (O)Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ^9 (P)I will turn to you and ^(Q)make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You shall eat ^(R)old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. ^11 (S)I will make my dwelling^[a] among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. ^12 (T)And I ^(U)will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^13 (V)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. ^(W)And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Punishment for Disobedience

^14 (X)“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but ^(Y)break my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with ^(Z)wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And ^(AA)you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ I will ^(AB)set my face against you, and ^(AC)you shall be struck down before your enemies. ^(AD)Those who hate you shall rule over you, and ^(AE)you shall flee when none pursues you. ¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again ^(AF)sevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹ and I will break ^(AG)the pride of your power, and I ^(AH)will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰ And ^(AI)your strength shall be spent in vain, for ^(AJ)your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

^21 (AK)“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. ²² And ^(AL)I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that ^(AM)your roads shall be deserted.

²³ “And ^(AN)if by this discipline you are not turned to me ^(AO)but walk contrary to me, ^24 (AP)then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And ^(AQ)I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, ^(AR)I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ^26 (AS)When I break your supply^[b] of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and ^(AT)you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷ “But ^(AU)if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you ^(AV)in fury, and I myself will discipline you ^(AW)sevenfold for your sins. ^29 (AX)You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ And ^(AY)I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^(AZ)cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ And I will ^(BA)lay your cities waste and will ^(BB)make your sanctuaries desolate, and ^(BC)I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³² And ^(BD)I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ^(BE)appalled at it. ³³ And ^(BF)I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

^34 (BG)“Then the land shall enjoy^[c] its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, ^(BH)I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ^(BI)sound of a ^(BJ)driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ^(BK)you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹ And those of you who are left shall ^(BL)rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

⁴⁰ “But if ^(BM)they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ^(BN)committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their ^(BO)uncircumcised heart is ^(BP)humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will ^(BQ)remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ^(BR)remember the land. ⁴³ But ^(BS)the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ^(BT)I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ^(BU)break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ^(BV)whom I brought out of the land of Egypt ^(BW)in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

^46 (BX)These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses ^(BY)on Mount Sinai.

Laws About Vows

27 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone ^(BZ)makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, ³ then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels^[d] of silver, according to the ^(CA)shekel of the sanctuary. ⁴ If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. ⁵ If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. ⁶ If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. ⁷ And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. ⁸ And if someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.

⁹ “If the vow^[e] is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. ^10 (CB)He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. ¹¹ And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, ¹² and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. ^13 (CC)But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a ^(CD)fifth to the valuation.

¹⁴ “When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. ^15 (CE)And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a ^(CF)fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

¹⁶ “If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer^[f] of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. ¹⁷ If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, ¹⁸ but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall ^(CG)calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. ^19 (CH)And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a ^(CI)fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. ²⁰ But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. ²¹ But the field, ^(CJ)when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been ^(CK)devoted. The priest shall be in ^(CL)possession of it. ²² If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, ^(CM)which is not a part of his possession, ^23 (CN)then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. ^24 (CO)In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. ²⁵ Every valuation shall be according to ^(CP)the shekel of the sanctuary: ^(CQ)twenty gerahs^[g] shall make a shekel.

²⁶ “But a ^(CR)firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. ²⁷ And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, ^(CS)and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

²⁸ “But ^(CT)no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. ^29 (CU)No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction^[h] from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

^30 (CV)“Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. ³¹ If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. ³² And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that ^(CW)pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord. ³³ One shall not differentiate between good or bad, ^(CX)neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

^34 (CY)These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel ^(CZ)on Mount Sinai.

Healing of a Man on the Sabbath

14 One Sabbath, ^(A)when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were ^(B)watching him carefully. ² And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. ³ And Jesus responded to ^(C)the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ^(D)“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” ⁴ But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. ⁵ And he said to them, ^(E)“Which of you, having a son^[a] or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” ^6 (F)And they could not reply to these things.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

⁷ Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed ^(G)how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, ^(H)so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. ¹¹ For ^(I)everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Parable of the Great Banquet

¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give ^(J)a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers^[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, ^(K)lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, ^(L)invite ^(M)the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid ^(N)at ^(O)the resurrection of the just.”

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, ^(P)“Blessed is everyone who will ^(Q)eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶ But he said to him, ^(R)“A man once ^(S)gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷ And at the time for the banquet he ^(T)sent his servant^[c] to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰ And another said, ^(U)‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in ^(V)the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you,^{[d] (W)}none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

The Cost of Discipleship

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ^26 (X)“If anyone comes to me and ^(Y)does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, ^(Z)yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ^27 (AA)Whoever does not ^(AB)bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not ^(AC)first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not ^(AD)sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ^33 (AE)So therefore, any one of you who ^(AF)does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Salt Without Taste Is Worthless

^34 (AG)“Salt is good, ^(AH)but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? ³⁵ It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. ^(AI)He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”