Idolatry Forbidden

19 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

² “Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘^(A)You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. ³ Every one of you ^(B)shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep ^(C)My Sabbaths; ^(D)I am the Lord your God. ⁴ Do not turn to ^(E)idols or make for yourselves cast metal ^(F)gods; I am the Lord your God.

⁵ ‘Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. ⁶ It shall be eaten on the same day you offer it, and on the next day; but what remains until the third day shall be burned with fire. ⁷ So if it is eaten at all on the third day, it is unclean; it will not be accepted. ⁸ And everyone who eats it will bear the consequences for his guilt, because he has profaned the holy thing of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from his people.

Various Laws

⁹ ‘^(G)Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.

¹¹ ‘^(H)You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, ^(I)nor lie to one another. ¹² And ^(J)you shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to ^(K)profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.

¹³ ‘^(L)You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. ^(M)The wages of a hired worker are not to remain with you all night until morning. ¹⁴ You shall not curse a person who is deaf, nor ^(N)put a stumbling block before a person who is blind, but you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.

¹⁵ ‘^(O)You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the poor nor give preference to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. ¹⁶ You shall not go about as ^(P)a slanderer among your people; and you are not to ^[a]jeopardize the ^[b](Q)life of your neighbor. I am the Lord.

¹⁷ ‘You ^(R)shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you ^(S)may certainly rebuke your neighbor, but you are not to incur sin because of him. ^18 (T)You shall not take vengeance, ^(U)nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but ^(V)you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

¹⁹ ‘You are to keep My statutes. You shall not cross-breed two kinds of your cattle; ^(W)you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment of two kinds of material mixed together.

²⁰ ‘^(X)Now if a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free. ²¹ He shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord to the doorway of the tent of meeting, ^(Y)a ram as a guilt offering. ²² The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him.

²³ ‘Now when you enter the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as ^[c]forbidden. For three years it shall be ^[d]forbidden to you; it shall not be eaten. ²⁴ And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. ²⁵ But in the fifth year you shall eat its fruit, so that its yield may increase for you; I am the Lord your God.

²⁶ ‘You shall not eat any meat ^(Z)with the blood. You shall not practice ^(AA)divination nor soothsaying. ^27 (AB)You shall not round off the ^[e]hairline of your heads, nor trim the edges of your beard. ²⁸ You shall not make any cuts in your ^[f]body for the ^[g]dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.

²⁹ ‘^(AC)Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not fall into prostitution, and the land does not become full of outrageous sin. ³⁰ You shall ^(AD)keep My Sabbaths and ^(AE)revere My sanctuary; I am the Lord.

³¹ ‘Do not turn to ^[h](AF)mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

³² ‘^(AG)You shall stand up in the presence of the grayheaded and honor ^[i]elders, and you shall ^[j]fear your God; I am the Lord.

³³ ‘^(AH)When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not ^[k]do him wrong. ³⁴ The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and ^(AI)you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

³⁵ ‘^(AJ)You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight, or volume. ³⁶ You shall have ^(AK)accurate balances, accurate weights, an accurate ^[l]ephah, and an accurate ^[m]hin; I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt. ³⁷ So you shall keep all My statutes and all My ordinances, and do them; I am the Lord.’”

Parable of the Good Shepherd

10 “Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is ^(A)a thief and a robber. ² But the one who enters by the door is ^(B)a shepherd of the sheep. ³ To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to ^(C)his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and ^(D)leads them out. ⁴ When he puts all his own sheep outside, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know ^(E)his voice. ⁵ However, a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know ^(F)the voice of strangers.” ⁶ Jesus told them this ^(G)figure of speech, but they did not understand what the things which He was saying to them ^[a]meant.

⁷ So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly I say to you, I am ^(H)the door of the sheep. ⁸ All those who came before Me are ^(I)thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ^9 (J)I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they ^(K)would have life, and ^[b]have it abundantly.

¹¹ “^(L)I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd ^(M)lays down His life for the sheep. ¹² He who is a hired hand, and not a ^(N)shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock. ¹³ He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep. ^14 (O)I am the good shepherd, and ^(P)I know My own, and My own know Me, ¹⁵ just as ^(Q)the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and ^(R)I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶ And I have ^(S)other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become ^(T)one flock, with ^(U)one shepherd. ¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves Me, because I ^(V)lay down My life so that I may take it back. ^18 (W)No one has taken it away from Me, but I ^(X)lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back. ^(Y)This commandment I received from My Father.”

^19 (Z)Dissension occurred again among the Jews because of these words. ²⁰ Many of them were saying, “He ^(AA)has a demon and ^(AB)is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” ²¹ Others were saying, “These are not the words of one who is ^(AC)demon-possessed. ^(AD)A demon cannot open the eyes of those who are blind, can it?”

The Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee

25 The Lord then spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am going to give you, then the land shall have a Sabbath to the Lord. ³ For ^(A)six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its produce, ⁴ but during ^(B)the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. ⁵ You shall not reap your harvest’s ^[a]aftergrowth, and you shall not gather your grapes of untrimmed vines; the land shall have a sabbatical year. ^6 (C)All of you shall have the Sabbath produce of the land as food; for yourself, your male and female slaves, and your hired worker and your foreign resident, those who live as strangers among you. ⁷ Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all its produce to eat.

⁸ ‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, that is, forty-nine years. ⁹ You shall then sound a ram’s horn ^[b]abroad on ^(D)the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. ¹⁰ So you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and ^(E)proclaim ^[c]a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, ^[d]and ^(F)each of you shall return to his own property, ^[e]and each of you shall return to his family. ¹¹ You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor harvest its aftergrowth, nor gather grapes from its untrimmed vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce from the field.

¹³ ‘^(G)On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property. ¹⁴ Furthermore, if you make a sale to your friend, or buy from your friend’s hand, ^(H)you shall not ^[f]wrong one another. ¹⁵ Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your ^[g]friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops. ^16 (I)In proportion to ^[h]a greater number of years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to ^[i]fewer years you shall decrease its price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. ¹⁷ So ^(J)you shall not ^[j]wrong one another, but you shall ^[k]fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸ ‘You shall therefore ^[l]follow My statutes and keep My judgments so as to carry them out, so that ^(K)you may live securely on the land. ¹⁹ Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. ²⁰ But if you say, “^(L)What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow nor gather in our produce?” ²¹ then ^(M)I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years. ²² When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat ^(N)old things from the produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.

The Law of Redemption

²³ ‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, because ^(O)the land is Mine; for ^(P)you are only strangers and residents with Me. ²⁴ So for every ^[m]piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

Instructions to Those Who Minister

6 ^(A)All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor ^(B)so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be ^[a]spoken against. ² Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are ^(C)brothers or sisters, but must serve them all the more, because those who ^[b]partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. ^(D)Teach and ^[c]preach these principles.

³ If anyone ^(E)advocates a different doctrine and does not ^[d]agree with ^(F)sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine ^(G)conforming to godliness, ⁴ he is ^(H)conceited and understands nothing; but he ^[e]has a sick craving for ^(I)controversial questions and ^(J)disputes about words, from which come envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, ⁵ and constant friction between ^(K)people of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who ^(L)suppose that ^[f]godliness is a means of gain. ^6 (M)But godliness actually is a means of ^(N)great gain when accompanied by ^(O)contentment. ⁷ For ^(P)we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it, either. ⁸ If we ^(Q)have food and ^[g]covering, with these we shall be content. ^9 (R)But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and ^(S)a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For ^(T)the love of money is a root of all ^[h]sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have ^(U)wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many ^[i]griefs.

¹¹ But ^(V)flee from these things, you ^(W)man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, ^(X)faith, ^(Y)love, ^[j]perseverance, and gentleness. ^12 (Z)Fight the good fight of ^(AA)faith; ^(AB)take hold of the eternal life ^(AC)to which you were called, and for which you made the good ^(AD)confession in the presence of ^(AE)many witnesses. ^13 (AF)I direct you in the presence of God, who ^[k]gives life to all things, and of ^(AG)Christ Jesus, who testified the ^(AH)good confession ^(AI)before Pontius Pilate, ¹⁴ that you keep the commandment without ^[l]fault or reproach until the ^(AJ)appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ which He will ^[m]bring about at ^(AK)the proper time—He who is ^(AL)the blessed and ^(AM)only Sovereign, ^(AN)the King of ^[n]kings and ^(AO)Lord of ^[o]lords, ^16 (AP)who alone possesses immortality and ^(AQ)dwells in unapproachable light, ^(AR)whom ^[p]no one has seen or can see. ^(AS)To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.

¹⁷ Instruct those who are rich in ^(AT)this present world ^(AU)not to be conceited or to ^(AV)set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, ^(AW)who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. ¹⁸ Instruct them to do good, to be rich in ^(AX)good ^[q]works, ^(AY)to be generous and ready to share, ^19 (AZ)storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may ^(BA)take hold of that which is truly life.

^20 (BB)Timothy, protect ^(BC)what has been entrusted to you, avoiding ^(BD)worldly, empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”— ²¹ which some have professed and thereby have ^(BE)gone astray ^[r]from ^(BF)the faith.

^(BG)Grace be with you.