Blessings of Obedience

26 ‘You shall not make for yourselves ^[a](A)idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves ^(B)an image or ^(C)a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a ^(D)figured stone in your land to bow down ^[b]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 keep My commandments so as to carry them out, ⁴ then ^(G)I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. ^5 (H)Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your ^[c]food to the full and ^(I)live securely in your land. ^6 (J)I shall also grant peace in the land, so that ^(K)you may lie down with no one making you tremble. ^(L)I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and ^(M)no sword will pass through your land. ⁷ But you will chase your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword; ^8 (N)five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. ⁹ So I will turn toward you and ^(O)make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will ^(P)confirm My covenant with you. ^10 (Q)You will eat the old supply and clear out the old because of the new. ^11 (R)Moreover, I will make My ^[d]dwelling among you, and My soul will not ^[e]reject you. ^12 (S)I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. ^13 (T)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and ^(U)I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Penalties of Disobedience

¹⁴ ‘^(V)But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments, ¹⁵ if, instead, you ^(W)reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so ^(X)break My covenant, ¹⁶ I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a ^(Y)sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the ^(Z)soul to pine away; also, ^(AA)you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. ¹⁷ I will set My face against you so that you will be struck down before your enemies; and ^(AB)those who hate you will rule over you, and ^(AC)you will flee when no one is pursuing you. ¹⁸ If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you ^(AD)seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will also ^(AE)break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. ^20 (AF)Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.

²¹ ‘If then, you ^[f](AG)act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you ^(AH)seven times according to your sins. ^22 (AI)I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that ^(AJ)your roads lie deserted.

²³ ‘^(AK)And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act with hostility against Me, ²⁴ then I will ^(AL)act with hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you ^(AM)seven times for your sins. ²⁵ I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute ^(AN)vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send ^(AO)pestilence among you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands. ^26 (AP)When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread ^[g]in rationed amounts, so that you will ^(AQ)eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷ ‘Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, ²⁸ then ^(AR)I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. ²⁹ Further, ^(AS)you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. ³⁰ I then ^(AT)will destroy your high places, and cut down your ^(AU)incense altars, and heap your ^[h]remains on the ^[i]remains of your idols, for My soul shall abhor you. ³¹ I will ^[j]lay ^(AV)waste your cities as well and will make your ^(AW)sanctuaries desolate, and I will not ^(AX)smell your soothing aromas. ³² I will make ^(AY)the land desolate ^(AZ)so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. ³³ You, however, I ^(BA)will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.

³⁴ ‘^(BB)Then the land will ^[k]enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and ^[l]enjoy its sabbaths. ³⁵ All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. ³⁶ As for those of you who may be left, I will also bring ^(BC)weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will chase them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee ^[m]as though from the sword, and they will fall. ^37 (BD)They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength ^[n]to stand up before your enemies. ³⁸ But ^(BE)you will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you. ^39 (BF)So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with them.

⁴⁰ ‘^(BG)If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me— ⁴¹ I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—^(BH)or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that ^(BI)they then make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember ^(BJ)My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also ^(BK)My covenant with Isaac, and ^(BL)My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. ^43 (BM)For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, ^[o]because they rejected My ordinances and their ^(BN)soul abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so ^(BO)abhor them as ^(BP)to destroy them, ^(BQ)breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will remember for them the ^(BR)covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that ^(BS)I might be their God. I am the Lord.’”

^46 (BT)These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which the Lord established between Himself and the sons of Israel ^[p]through Moses at Mount Sinai.

Rules concerning Valuations

27 Again, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘^(BU)When a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to the Lord. ³ If your valuation is of the male from twenty years even to sixty years old, then your valuation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after ^(BV)the shekel of the sanctuary. ⁴ Or if it is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels. ⁵ If it be from five years even to twenty years old then your valuation for the male shall be twenty shekels and for the female ten shekels. ⁶ But if they are from a month even up to five years old, then your valuation shall be ^(BW)five shekels of silver for the male, and for the female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver. ⁷ If they are from sixty years old and upward, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. ⁸ But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be placed before the priest and the priest shall value him; ^(BX)according to ^[q]the means of the one who vowed, the priest shall value him.

⁹ ‘Now if it is an animal of the kind which ^[r]men can present as an offering to the Lord, any such that one gives to the Lord shall be holy. ^10 (BY)He shall not replace it or exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good; or if he does exchange animal for animal, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. ¹¹ If, however, it is any unclean animal of the kind which ^[s]men do not present as an offering to the Lord, then he shall place the animal before the priest. ¹² The priest shall value it ^[t]as either good or bad; as you, the priest, value it, so it shall be. ¹³ But if he should ever wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of it to your valuation.

¹⁴ ‘Now if a man consecrates his house as holy to the Lord, then the priest shall value it ^[u]as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. ¹⁵ Yet if the one who consecrates it should wish to redeem his house, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may be his.

¹⁶ ‘Again, if a man consecrates to the Lord part of the fields of his own property, then your valuation shall be ^[v]proportionate to the seed needed for it: a homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver. ¹⁷ If he consecrates his field as of the year of jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. ¹⁸ If he consecrates his field after the jubilee, however, then the priest shall calculate the price for ^[w]him ^[x]proportionate to the years that are left until the year of jubilee; and it shall be deducted from your valuation. ¹⁹ If the one who consecrates it should ever wish to redeem the field, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may pass to him. ²⁰ Yet if he will not redeem the field, ^[y]but has sold the field to another man, it may no longer be redeemed; ²¹ and when it ^[z]reverts in the jubilee, the field shall be holy to the Lord, like a field ^[aa]set apart; ^(BZ)it shall be for the priest as his ^[ab]property. ²² Or if he consecrates to the Lord a field which he has bought, which is not a part of the field of his own ^[ac]property, ²³ then the priest shall calculate for ^[ad]him the amount of your valuation up to the year of jubilee; and he shall on that day give your valuation as holy to the Lord. ²⁴ In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it, to whom the possession of the land belongs. ²⁵ Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be after ^(CA)the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs.

²⁶ ‘^(CB)However, a firstborn among animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may consecrate it; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord’s. ²⁷ But if it is among the unclean animals, then he shall ^[ae]redeem it according to your valuation and add to it one-fifth of it; and if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.

²⁸ ‘Nevertheless, ^(CC)anything which a man ^[af]sets apart to the Lord out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own property, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything ^[ag]devoted to destruction is most holy to the Lord. ²⁹ No ^[ah]one who may have been ^[ai]set apart among men shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

³⁰ ‘Thus ^(CD)all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. ³¹ If, therefore, a man wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he shall add to it one-fifth of it. ³² For every tenth part of herd or flock, whatever ^(CE)passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the Lord. ^33 (CF)He is not to be concerned whether it is good or bad, nor shall he exchange it; or if he does exchange it, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. It shall not be redeemed.’”

^34 (CG)These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai.

Comfort in Trouble from Recalling God’s Mighty Deeds.

For the choir director; ^[a]according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.

Jesus’ Authority Questioned

20 ^(A)On one of the days while ^(B)He was teaching the people in the temple and ^(C)preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders ^(D)confronted Him, ² and they spoke, saying to Him, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” ³ Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a ^[a]question, and you tell Me: ⁴ Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” ⁵ They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ ⁶ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a ^(E)prophet.” ⁷ So they answered that they did not know where it came from. ⁸ And Jesus said to them, “Nor ^[b]will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Parable of the Vine-growers

^9 (F)And He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to ^[c]vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time. ¹⁰ At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ¹¹ And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. ¹² And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out. ¹³ The ^[d]owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will ^(G)respect him.’ ¹⁴ But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.’ ¹⁵ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the ^[e]owner of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶ He will come and ^(H)destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard it, they said, “^(I)May it never be!” ¹⁷ But ^[f]Jesus looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

^18 (L)Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”