Bible in 90 Days

The Lord takes care of his people

8 Be careful to obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. If you do that, you will continue to live, and you will have many children. You will go into the land that the Lord your God promised to your ancestors. It will become your home. ² Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way across the desert. He took care of you for 40 years. He caused many troubles to come and to test you. He did that to see if you would trust him. He wanted to know whether you would continue to obey his commands. ³ He caused you to become hungry and then he fed you with manna.^[a] Neither you nor your ancestors had ever seen this food before. In this way, he taught you that food alone cannot cause people to live. They need to hear every word that the Lord speaks. That is what gives them true life.

⁴ During those 40 years in the desert, your clothes did not spoil. Your feet did not become big with pain. ⁵ You should realize that the Lord your God wants you to learn what is right. When he punishes you, he is warning you. That is what a parent does to teach his child. ⁶ So obey the Lord's commands. Live in a way that pleases him. Respect him with fear.

⁷ Remember that the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. It is a land that has many streams, pools and springs of water. There is water that runs in the valleys and in the hills. ^8-9 It is a land where you will have plenty of food to eat. There is wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey. You will have everything that you need. The rocks have iron in them. You can dig copper out of the hills. ¹⁰ You can eat all the food that you want. Then remember to thank the Lord your God for the good land that he has given to you.

Remember that God has blessed you

¹¹ Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God. Always remember to obey his commands, rules and laws that I am telling you today. ¹² When you are living in the land, you will have plenty of food to eat. You will build beautiful houses to live in. ¹³ You will have many cows, sheep and goats. You will have plenty of gold and silver. You will have many more things than you have now. ¹⁴ Then be careful! Do not become proud. Never forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. He rescued you from the place where you were slaves. ¹⁵ He led you through the large and terrible desert where there were dangerous snakes and scorpions. It was very hot and dry. There was no water there for you to drink. But the Lord made water pour out of a hard rock for you. ¹⁶ In the desert, he gave you manna to eat. That was food that your ancestors had never seen. He tested you, to see if you would trust him. He did that to help you enjoy good things in the end.

¹⁷ You must never say to yourself, ‘I have got all these valuable things because I am strong and clever!’ ¹⁸ Instead, you must always remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you the strength to get good things. He does that to show that his covenant still has authority today. That is the covenant that he promised to your ancestors. ¹⁹ But if you forget the Lord your God, he will destroy you. If you turn to other gods and you worship them, I warn you now: God will certainly destroy you! ²⁰ The Lord will do the same thing to you as he does to your enemies. Like those nations, he will completely destroy you if you do not obey him.

Why God helps his people

9 Moses said:

Listen, Israelites! You will soon go across the Jordan River. You will chase away the people who live there in large cities with very high walls around them. Those nations of people are greater and stronger than you are. ² You know about the Anakites who live there. They are strong and tall. You have heard people say, ‘No one can fight against the Anakites and win.’

³ But you must understand this: The Lord your God is leading you across the river. He is like a fire that destroys everything! He will win against your enemies. He will give you power over them. Then you will chase them away and remove them quickly. The Lord has promised you that this will happen.

⁴ The Lord your God will chase them away. After he has done that, be careful! Do not say to yourselves, ‘The Lord has brought us into this land because we do right things.’

No! It is because these nations are doing wicked things. That is why the Lord is chasing them out of the land so that you can live there. ⁵ It is not because you are doing right things. It is not because you are good, honest people. That is not the reason that you will take their land for yourselves. Instead, it is because these nations are wicked people. That is why the Lord your God will chase them away as you move in there. He will do what he promised to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ⁶ You must understand this. The Lord your God is not giving you this good land to live in because you are doing right things. No! You are proud people who do not want to obey me.

The gold calf

⁷ Remember how you made the Lord your God angry when you were in the desert. Never forget that! Since you left Egypt, you have always turned against the Lord your God. You have continued to make him angry all the time until you arrived here. ⁸ When you were at Sinai you made him angry enough to destroy you. ⁹ I climbed the mountain to meet with the Lord. I received the two flat stones with the covenant that he had made with you. I stayed there for 40 days and nights. During that time, I did not eat or drink anything. ¹⁰ Then the Lord gave the two flat stones to me. He had written all his commands on the stones with his own finger. The Lord spoke those commands to you from middle of the fire. That was on the day when you all came together at the mountain.

¹¹ After those 40 days and nights, the Lord gave me the two flat stones. They had his covenant on them. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Now go down the mountain! The people that you led out of Egypt have done something very bad. They have already refused to obey my commands. They have used gold to make an idol for themselves.’

¹³ The Lord also said to me, ‘I know what these people are like! They are proud people who do not want to obey me. ¹⁴ Keep away from me! I will now destroy them! Then no one on the earth will remember them at all. Instead, Moses, I will make your descendants into a nation that is stronger and larger than they are.’

¹⁵ So I turned and I went down the mountain. It was still burning with fire. I held the two stones with the covenant on them in my hands. ¹⁶ When I looked, I saw that you had made an image of a calf as your idol. You really had done a very bad thing. You had quickly stopped doing the things that the Lord your God had commanded you to do. ¹⁷ When I saw that, I threw the two flat stones down onto the ground. I broke them into pieces while you watched.

¹⁸ Then I again fell down with my face on the ground, to pray to the Lord. I did that for 40 days and nights. I did not eat or drink anything. You had done an evil thing which caused the Lord to be very angry. ¹⁹ I prayed, because the Lord had said that he would destroy you. He was so angry with you that I was very afraid. But the Lord listened to me this time too.

²⁰ The Lord was also angry with my brother Aaron. He wanted to kill Aaron. But at that time, I prayed for Aaron too.

²¹ When you made that idol, it was a sin that you did. So I took that gold calf and I burned it in the fire. Then I beat it into powder, like dust. I threw the powder into a stream that ran down from the mountain.

²² After that, you also caused the Lord to be angry with you at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth-Hattaavah. ²³ When the Lord sent you out from Kadesh-Barnea, he said, ‘Go into the land that I have given to you and live there.’ But you turned against the Lord your God. You refused to trust him or obey him. ²⁴ You have refused to obey the Lord ever since I have known you.

²⁵ So I lay down on the ground for those 40 days and nights. I prayed to the Lord because he had said that he would destroy you.

²⁶ I prayed this prayer: ‘Almighty Lord, do not destroy your people! They belong to you as your special people. You used your great power and strength to rescue them from Egypt. ²⁷ Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do not think about these proud people who are so wicked. Please forgive their sins. ²⁸ If you destroy your people, the Egyptians will say, “The Lord could not take them into the land that he promised to give to them. Instead, he took them into the desert so that he could kill them there. He did this because he hated them!”

²⁹ Please remember that they belong to you as your own special people. You used your strength and your power to rescue them.’

Moses speaks about the new stones

10 At that time, the Lord said to me, ‘Cut out two new flat stones that are like the first stones. Then bring them up to me, on the mountain. You must also use some wood to make a big box. ² I will write on the new stones the same words that I wrote on the first stones. You broke those stones. But you must put the new stones into the wooden box.’

³ So I used acacia wood to make a box. I also cut two new flat stones that were like the first stones. Then I carried the two new stones up the mountain in my hands. ⁴ The Lord wrote on the stones the same words that he had written before. Those were the ten special commands that he had told you before. He spoke those commands from the middle of the fire on the mountain, when you came together there. Then the Lord gave the stones to me. ⁵ I came down from the mountain. I put the stones into the box that I had made, as the Lord had told me to do. The stones are still there now.

⁶ (At that time, the Israelites travelled to Moserah from the wells that belonged to Jaakan's descendants. Aaron died there and they buried him. His son Eleazar became priest instead. ⁷ Then they travelled to Gudgodah. From there they travelled to Jotbathah, a place where there are many streams of water. ⁸ At that time, the Lord chose the tribe of Levi to carry the Lord's Covenant Box. He chose them to be his special servants. They had to pray for the Lord to bless his people. They still do these things today. ⁹ That is why the Levites did not receive any land for themselves, as the other tribes did. The Lord himself would give them everything that they needed, as he had promised.)

¹⁰ I stayed on the mountain for 40 days and nights, as I did the first time. The Lord listened to my prayer. He decided that he would not destroy you. ¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go now! Lead the people on their journey. Then they can go into the land and take it for themselves. It is the land that I promised to their ancestors that I would give to them.’

Love the Lord and serve him

¹² So, people of Israel, this is what the Lord your God wants you to do: You should respect him with fear. You should live in a way that pleases him. Love him and serve him in everything that you think and in everything that you do. ¹³ Obey the Lord's commands and rules that I am giving to you today. If you do these things, you will have a happy life.

¹⁴ The whole sky and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God. The earth and everything that is in it also belong to him. ¹⁵ But the Lord chose to love your ancestors with a faithful love. You are their descendants. He has chosen you from among all the people of the world. You can see that this is true today!

¹⁶ So remember that you belong to the Lord. Live to please him! Do not refuse to obey him. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God rules all other gods. He is the Lord over all other lords. He is great and powerful. We should respect him and obey him. He is fair to everyone. He will not accept any bribes! ¹⁸ He brings justice to widows and to children who have no family. He loves the foreign people who live among you. He gives them food to eat and clothes to wear. ¹⁹ You too must love the foreign people who live among you. Remember that you also lived as foreigners in Egypt at one time.

²⁰ Respect and obey the Lord your God. Serve him faithfully. If you make a promise, only use his name to do that. ²¹ He is the one that you should praise. He is the God that you worship. He has done great and powerful things to help you, and you saw him do them. ²² When your ancestors went to Egypt, they were only 70 people. Now the Lord your God has caused you to become very many people. You are as many as the stars in the sky!^[b]

Love and obey the Lord

11 Love the Lord your God. Do what he tells you to do. Always obey his rules, his laws and his commands. ² Remember that today I am speaking to you who have seen his powerful acts! Your children did not see the great things that the Lord your God did to teach you. You saw for yourselves how great, strong and powerful he is. ³ But your children did not see the great miracles that he did in Egypt. He punished Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his people. ⁴ You saw how God destroyed Egypt's army, with all their horses and chariots. They were chasing after you to catch you. But God caused the water of the Red Sea to cover them, so that they drowned. ⁵ Your children did not see all the things that the Lord did in the desert as he brought you here. ⁶ They did not see how he punished Dathan and Abiram, Eliab's sons, from Reuben's tribe. God caused the earth to open up in the middle of the Israelites' camp. These men fell down into the hole and they disappeared. Their families, their tents and everything that they had all disappeared in the hole. ⁷ Remember that I am speaking to you, the people who have seen the Lord's powerful acts.

God's blessings in Canaan

⁸ So you must obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. If you do that, you will be able to go across the Jordan River into Canaan. You will be strong enough to take the land for yourselves and live there. ⁹ Then you will enjoy a long life in that land. It is the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and to their descendants. It is a land where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone.

¹⁰ The land that you are going into is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted seeds, you had to take water to them. It was like a garden where you grow vegetables. ¹¹ But now you are going across the Jordan River into a different kind of land. It has hills and valleys. Rain falls from the sky and makes the ground wet. ¹² The Lord your God takes care of the land there. He watches over it every day, through the whole year.

¹³ So listen carefully to the commands that I am giving to you today. Love the Lord your God and serve him in everything that you think and in everything that you do. ¹⁴ If you do that, he makes this promise to you: ‘I will send rain on your land at the right time each year. There will be rain in autumn and rain in spring.^[c] Then your crops will give you food. You will also have grapes to make wine and olives to make oil. ¹⁵ I will make grass grow in your fields for your animals to eat. You will have as much food as you want to eat.’

¹⁶ But be careful! Do not turn away from the Lord so that you worship other gods. Do not let those things deceive you. ¹⁷ If you do that, the Lord will be very angry with you. He will not send rain down from the sky. The land will no longer give you food to eat. Then you will soon die. You will no longer be able to live in the good land that the Lord is giving to you.

¹⁸ Continue to think carefully about these commands in everything that you do. Tie them as signs onto your hands so that you remember them. Also tie them around your heads. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you sit together at home. Talk about them as you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the wood beside the doors of your houses and on your gates. ²¹ Do these things so that you and your descendants will live long lives in the land. It is the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors. You will continue to live there while there is still a sky above the earth.

²² Be careful to obey these commands that I am giving to you. Love the Lord your God. Live in a way that pleases him. Be faithful to him.

²³ If you do that, the Lord will chase out all those nations as you move into the land. They are greater and stronger than you are, but you will take the land from them. ²⁴ Every piece of ground that you walk on will belong to you. The borders of your land will go from the desert in the south as far as Lebanon in the north. They will go from the Euphrates river in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ²⁵ Nobody will be able to stop you. The Lord your God will cause everyone in the other nations to be afraid of you. They will shake with fear. He has promised to do that, everywhere that you go in the land.

²⁶ Today I am telling you to choose. Do you want God to bless you? Or do you want God to curse you? ²⁷ The Lord your God will bless you if you obey his commands that I am giving to you today. ²⁸ But he will curse you if you refuse to obey his commands. If you turn away from him and you serve other gods that are new to you, he will curse you! ²⁹ When the Lord brings you into the land where you will live, do this: Speak aloud God's blessings from Mount Gerizim. Speak his curses from Mount Ebal. ³⁰ You know where these mountains are. They are west of the Jordan River, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are near Gilgal town, where the oak trees of Moreh are.

³¹ Soon you will go across the Jordan River. You will take for yourselves the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. It will belong to you as your home. ³² When you are there, be careful to obey his laws and his teaching that I am giving to you today.

One special place to worship the Lord

12 These are the laws and the rules that you must obey. Be careful to obey them when you live in the land that the Lord your God has given to you. He is the God that your ancestors worshipped. Obey these laws all the time that you live in that land.

² You will chase out the nations who live there. Then you must destroy completely all the places where those people worship their gods. Those places are on the tops of mountains and hills, and under big green trees. ³ You must break into pieces their altars and stone pillars. Burn their Asherah poles. Knock down the images of their gods. Destroy those places so that nobody remembers the false gods.

⁴ Do not worship the Lord your God in the same way that those people worship their gods. ⁵ The Lord will choose one place from the land where all your tribes live. That is the place where people must go to worship him. That is his special home. ⁶ That is where you must take your burnt offerings and other sacrifices to offer to the Lord. Take your tithes and offerings to him there. Take the gifts that you have promised to give, and the gifts that you choose to give. Take the firstborn animals from your cows, sheep and goats. ⁷ You and your families will go there to meet with the Lord your God. You will be happy as you eat together there. You will enjoy the results of all your work, because the Lord has blessed you.

⁸ At this time, all of you now do what you think is right. But when you are in the land, you must worship God in a different way. ⁹ You have not yet reached the place where you can rest. That is in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you as your home. ¹⁰ But when you go across the Jordan River, that land will become your home. The Lord will protect you from all the enemies who are around you. You will live safely. ¹¹ At that time, the Lord your God will choose one special place for his people to worship him. You must take there everything that I have told you. Take your burnt offerings and other sacrifices to offer to the Lord. Take your tithes and special offerings. Take the special gifts that you have promised to give to him. Take everything to the place that God will choose. ¹² Go there to enjoy time with the Lord your God. Take with you your children and your servants. Also take with you the Levites who live in your towns. Remember that they have not received any land for themselves, as you have.

¹³ So be careful! Do not offer your burnt offerings in any place that you choose for yourself. ¹⁴ Only make offerings to the Lord in the place that he chooses. That will be in the land that belongs to one of your tribes. It is the place where you must do all the things that I am commanding you to do.

¹⁵ But you may kill your animals and eat the meat in any of the towns where you live. When the Lord your God blesses you and he gives you animals, you may eat them as often as you want. It is the same as if you are eating meat from deer. Anyone may eat it. That includes people who are clean and people who are unclean. ¹⁶ But you must not eat the blood of any animal. You must pour it on the ground like water. ¹⁷ Do not eat any of your offerings to the Lord in the places where you live. Do not eat the tithes that you have taken from your grain, your new wine or your olive oil. Do not eat at home the firstborn animals from your cows, sheep or goats. Do not eat the gifts that you have promised, the gifts that you choose to give or any other special gifts. ¹⁸ You may only eat these offerings in the place that the Lord will choose as his special home. That is true for you, your children, your servants and the Levites who live in your towns. At that place, you should meet with the Lord your God and you should enjoy the results of all your work. ¹⁹ As long as you live in the land, be careful to take care of the Levites.^[d]

²⁰ The Lord your God has promised to give you more and more land. When he does that, perhaps you will say, ‘I would like to eat some meat.’ Then you may eat as much meat as you like. ²¹ The place that God chooses as his special home may be far away from you. If it is, you may kill any of the animals that the Lord has given to you. You may eat the meat at your own town, in the way that I have told you. ²² You should eat them in the same way that you eat deer. People who are unclean may eat them, as well as people who are clean. ²³ But never eat the blood. The blood of an animal gives it life. You must not eat the life together with the meat! ²⁴ You must not eat the blood. You must pour it on the ground like water. ²⁵ Do not eat it! Then you will be doing what the Lord says is right. You will enjoy a happy life and so will your children.

²⁶ It is only the holy things that you must take to the place that the Lord will choose for himself. Those are the gifts and sacrifices that you are offering to him. ²⁷ Offer the meat and the blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. For the other sacrifices, you must pour out the blood beside the altar. But you may eat the meat. ²⁸ Be careful to obey all these commands that I am giving to you. Then you will be doing things that the Lord your God says are good and right. You and your children will enjoy a happy life.

²⁹ When you go into the land where the other nations live, the Lord your God will remove them. You will take their land and you will live on it. ³⁰ But after the Lord has destroyed them, be careful! Do not do the same wrong things as they do. Do not try to worship their gods. Do not say, ‘How do the people of these nations worship their gods? I would like to do the same thing!’

³¹ No! You must not worship the Lord your God in the same way that those people worship their gods. When they worship, they do wicked things that the Lord hates. They even burn their children with fire, to make sacrifices to their gods.

³² Be careful to do everything that I am telling you. Do not add anything to these commands. Do not remove anything from them.

False prophets

13 One day, you may have a prophet among you who tells you what will happen in the future. He may have dreams about what will happen. He may promise to do miracles to show that he is right. ² He may say that you should start to worship other gods that you did not know about before. The miracles may happen, as he promised, ³ but do not listen to that prophet's message. The Lord your God is using this person to test your thoughts. He wants to know if you really love him in everything that you think and everything that you do. ⁴ You must serve only the Lord your God and respect him with fear. You must obey his commands and serve him faithfully. ⁵ You must punish that false prophet with death. He has told you to turn against the Lord your God. The Lord rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves. But the false prophet has tried to turn you away from the way of life that the Lord your God has commanded. So you must remove all evil things like that from among you.

⁶ Even someone in your own family may try to turn you away from the Lord. It may be your own brother, your son or your daughter. It may be your wife whom you love. It may be a friend that you like very much. They may say to you secretly, ‘We should worship other gods.’ Those are gods that you and your ancestors never knew about before. ⁷ They are gods that people who live around you may worship. They may be gods of people who live near to you. They may be gods of people who live anywhere on the earth. ⁸ But never agree with anyone who says that you should worship those gods. Do not even listen to him! Do not feel sorry for him. Do not try to protect him from punishment. ⁹ Instead, you must certainly kill him! You must be the first person to throw stones to kill him. Then everyone else must do the same thing. ¹⁰ You must throw stones at him until he dies. He tried to turn you away from the Lord your God. It was the Lord who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves. ¹¹ When you punish the false prophet with death, all Israel's people will hear about it. They will be afraid. No one will do evil things like that again.

¹² The Lord your God will give you towns to live in. When you are there, you may hear news of people who are causing trouble. ¹³ They may be turning the other people in their town away from the Lord. They may be saying, ‘We should worship other gods!’ Those are gods that you never knew about before.

¹⁴ Then you must check carefully that the news is true. You must discover whether people really have done this wicked thing in one of your towns. ¹⁵ If the news is true, you must attack that town. You must completely destroy it. Kill all the people and the animals. ¹⁶ You must put all the valuable things in a heap in the town's public place. Then burn down the whole town as an offering to the Lord your God. Leave the town as a heap of stones. Nobody must ever build it again. ¹⁷ You must not keep any of the valuable things for yourselves. They have been given to the Lord. If you destroy the whole town, the Lord will stop being angry. He will be kind to you and he will forgive you. He will cause you to grow into a big nation, as he promised your ancestors.

¹⁸ The Lord your God will bless you if you listen to what he says. You must obey all his commands that I am giving you today. You must do the things that he says are right.

Rules about food

14 You are people who belong to the Lord your God. When someone dies, you are sad. But do not cut your bodies. Do not cut off all the hair from the front of your head.^[e]

² You are the Lord's own special people. He has chosen you to belong to him. You are much more valuable to him than any other people in the whole earth.

³ Do not eat anything that God says is unclean. ⁴ You may eat the meat of these animals: cows, sheep, goats, ⁵ deer, wild goats, mountain goats, antelopes and wild sheep. ⁶ You may eat any animal with feet that have two separate parts. They must also bring their food back into their mouths and eat it again.^[f]

⁷ But you must not eat these animals: camels, wild rabbits and rock badgers. They eat their food a second time, but they do not have feet with two separate parts. For this reason they are unclean food for you. ⁸ You may not eat pigs, either. They have feet in two parts but they do not eat their food a second time. You must not eat any meat from these animals. You must not even touch their dead bodies.

⁹ You may eat any fish that has fins and scales.^{[g] 10} But other things that live in the water do not have fins or scales. Those are not clean food for you. Do not eat them.

¹¹ You may eat any clean bird. ^12-18 But these birds you must not eat: eagles, vultures, kites, owls, hawks, falcons, buzzards, ostriches, seagulls, storks, herons, pelicans, cormorants, hoopoes and bats.^[h]

¹⁹ Some insects have wings but they walk on the ground. Insects like that are unclean food for you. You must not eat them. ²⁰ But you may eat any clean insect that has wings.

²¹ You must not eat anything that you find dead already. You may give it to a foreign person who lives in any of your towns. He may eat it. You may give it to him or sell it to him. But you yourselves are special people who belong to the Lord your God.

You must not cook a young goat in the milk from its mother.

Regular gifts to the Lord

²² You must keep safe a tenth part of all the crops that grow in your fields. You must be careful to do this every year. ²³ Then take your tithe to the place that the Lord your God will choose as his special home. It will be a tenth part of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil and the firstborn animals from your cows, sheep and goats. Eat them there, at the Lord's special home. Then you will learn to respect the Lord your God always.

²⁴ But the Lord's special place may be a long way from your home. If he has blessed you with a lot of things, they may be too heavy for you to carry all that way. ²⁵ If that is true, you may sell your tithe. Then you may take the money carefully to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ²⁶ When you arrive there, you can use the money to buy any food that you choose: cows, sheep, wine, beer or anything else. Then you and your family should eat it there. You should enjoy your time together at the Lord's special home. ²⁷ Do not forget to help the Levites who live in your towns. Remember that they have not received any land as you have.

²⁸ Every third year, take the tithe of the food that you have grown in your fields that year. Store it in your town or your village. ²⁹ Keep this food for the Levites, who have no land of their own. It is also for the foreign people, the widows, and the children who have no family. These people in your town can eat as much as they want. If you do that, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work.

The year to forgive debts

15 At the end of every seven years you must remove the debts of people that you have lent money to. ² This is how you must do it:

Every person who has lent money to someone must remove that debt. He must not demand to get his money back from any other Israelite. It is the Lord's time to remove debts. ³ You can demand to get your money back from a foreign person. But if you have lent money to another Israelite, you must forgive the debt.

⁴ The Lord will bless you in the land that he is giving you to live in. So there should be no poor people among you. ⁵ But you must always obey him completely. So be careful to obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you, as he has promised to do. You will lend money to the people of many other nations, but you will not borrow money from them. You will rule over many other nations, but they will not rule over you.

⁷ The Lord your God will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. But perhaps there will be a poor person among the Israelites in one of your towns. Then do not refuse to help him. Do not think only about yourself. ⁸ Instead, be generous.^[i] Lend him the money that he needs.

⁹ Be careful not to think this wicked thought: ‘The seventh year will happen soon. That is the year when I must forgive people's debts. So I will not lend money to people at this time.’ Do not be cruel like that to another Israelite who is poor. Do not refuse to lend him anything. He might complain about you to the Lord. Then the Lord would say that you are guilty of a sin. ¹⁰ Instead, you should certainly lend money to him. Do not feel upset about it. If you are generous, the Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

¹¹ There will always be some poor people among you in the land where you are going. So I command you to be generous to other Israelites who are poor. Help them with the things that they need.

Slaves

¹² You may buy another Israelite to be your servant, a man or a woman. Let that servant work for you for six years. Then in the seventh year, you must let him go free. ¹³ When you let him go, you must not send him away with nothing to take with him. ¹⁴ Give him gifts of sheep, grain and wine. Be generous! Give him many good things, as the Lord has blessed you with good things. ¹⁵ Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt. But the Lord your God rescued you from there. This is why I am giving you this command today.

¹⁶ But perhaps your servant will say to you, ‘I do not want to leave you!’ He may say that because he loves you and your family. He enjoys his life with you. ¹⁷ If he says that, you must take a tool with a sharp point. Push it through his ear, into your door. After that, he will be your servant for his whole life. Do the same thing for any female servant who wants to stay with you.

¹⁸ Do not think that it will be difficult for you if he goes free. Remember that he has served you well for six years. He has been worth twice as much as a servant that you pay to do your work. The Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

The first animals that are born

¹⁹ You must keep separate every firstborn male animal that is born from your cows, sheep or goats. They belong to the Lord your God. Do not make these firstborn animals do any work for you. Do not cut off the wool from your firstborn sheep. ²⁰ Each year, you and your family must take these animals to the place that the Lord your God will choose. Eat them there, at the Lord's special home. ²¹ But if a firstborn animal is not perfect, you must not offer it as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. It must not be blind or have weak legs. It must not have anything wrong with it. ²² You may eat animals like that at home. It is the same as if you are eating meat from deer. Anyone may eat it. That includes people who are clean and people who are unclean. ²³ But you must not eat the animal's blood. You must pour it on the ground like water.

The Passover Festival^[j]

16 The month Abib is a special month for you.^[k] In this month, you must eat a meal to remember the Passover. Remember what the Lord your God did for you. In that month, he brought you out of Egypt during the night. ² You must go to the special place that the Lord will choose for his people to worship him. There you must kill one of your animals as a sacrifice to remember the Passover. You may kill one of your cows or sheep. ³ At this feast, eat bread that you make without any yeast. For seven days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. You ate that kind of bread when you had much trouble in Egypt. You had to leave Egypt in a hurry that night. You must eat that bread each year. Then you will always remember the day when you left Egypt. ⁴ During those seven days, no one may keep any yeast in their house. There must not be any yeast in the whole land. On the first day, you will kill your animal to eat in the evening. You must eat all the meat that same night, so that there is no meat left in the morning.

⁵ You must not kill the animal for the Passover sacrifice in any of the towns that the Lord your God gives to you. ⁶ You must go to the place that he will choose as his special home. You must kill the animal there, at sunset. That was the time of day when you came out of Egypt. ⁷ Cook the meat and eat it in the place that the Lord your God will choose. The next morning, you may return to your tents. ⁸ For the next six days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. On the seventh day, you must all come together to worship the Lord your God. You must not do any work on that day.

The Festival of Weeks^[l]

⁹ Count seven weeks from the first day that you bring in crops of grain from your fields. ¹⁰ Then eat the Feast of Weeks to worship the Lord your God. Bring the gifts that you want to offer to him. Bring gifts that show how much he has blessed you. ¹¹ You and your family will be happy to worship the Lord your God, at the special place that he chooses. Enjoy time together with your children, your servants and the Levites who live in your town. Also join with the foreign people who live among you, with widows, and children who have no family. Worship God happily together. ¹² Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt. So be careful to obey these commands.

The Festival of Huts^[m]

¹³ When you have prepared the grain and the grapes from your fields, eat the Feast of Huts for seven days. ¹⁴ Enjoy your feast with your children, your servants and the Levites. Join with the foreign people who live among you, and also with the widows and the children who have no family. ¹⁵ Eat this feast to worship the Lord your God at the special place that he chooses. Do it for seven days. He will bless you in everything that you do, so that you grow plenty of food. So you should all enjoy this feast!

¹⁶ Three times in every year, all your men must go to the place that the Lord your God will choose. They must go there for the Passover festival, the festival of Weeks and the festival of Huts. Each man must bring with him gifts to offer to the Lord. ¹⁷ Give to the Lord as much as you are able to. Your gifts may be large or small, as much as the Lord has blessed you.

Judges

¹⁸ Each tribe must choose judges and officers in every town that the Lord gives you. They must judge the people in a way that is fair. ¹⁹ Judges must do what is right for every person, rich or poor. They must not accept any bribes. A bribe may hide the truth even from a wise man. It can make honest people tell lies. ²⁰ Make sure that there is justice for everyone in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. Then the land will belong to you and you will enjoy life in it.

Do not worship other gods

²¹ When you build an altar to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God, do not put any Asherah pole there. ²² Do not put up any stone pillar as an idol. The Lord your God hates everything like that.^[n]

Animals for sacrifice

17 When you offer an animal as a sacrifice to the Lord your God, it must be perfect. Do not bring any sheep or bull that has something wrong with it. The Lord hates any gift like that.

Justice

² The Lord your God will give you towns to live in. You may hear that a man or a woman who lives in one of your towns has done a bad thing. He has done a sin that is against the covenant of the Lord your God. ³ He may have started to worship false gods that I have commanded you not to worship. Perhaps he worships the sun, the moon or the stars. ⁴ If you hear news like that, you must check the report carefully. If it is true that a wicked thing like that has happened in Israel, ⁵ you must punish that person. Take the man or woman who has done that wicked thing to the gate of the town. Then you must throw stones at that person to kill them. ⁶ But two or three people must agree about what the person has done. You must never kill anyone because of the words of only one person. ⁷ The people who saw the wicked act must throw the first stones to kill the person. Then everyone else must also throw stones. In that way, you must remove evil acts from among you.

⁸ It may be difficult for the judges in your towns to decide what is true. This may happen when one person has attacked or killed another person. It may happen when people cannot agree about some land. It may be anything that people in your towns are arguing about. If you do not know who is right, you must take those people to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ You must go to the Levite priests and to the judge who has authority at that time. Ask them to decide what is right and true. ¹⁰ When they decide, you must do what they tell you to do. ¹¹ Accept their teaching. Agree with what they have decided is right. Obey their words completely. Do not try to do anything that is different. ¹² Someone might be too proud to obey the priest who has authority as the Lord's servant. He may not agree with what the judge says is right. You must punish any proud person like that with death. In that way you will remove evil things from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people will hear what has happened. They will be afraid. They will no longer be too proud to obey the judge.

Rules for a king

¹⁴ You are going into the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. You will take it for yourselves to be your home. Then you may say, ‘The other nations around us have kings. We must also have a king to rule us.’ ¹⁵ If that happens, you must only accept a king that the Lord your God chooses. Choose a king from among your own people. Do not choose anyone who is not an Israelite.

¹⁶ A king must not get a lot of horses for himself. He must not send his people back to Egypt to buy more horses. The Lord has said to you, ‘Never return to Egypt for any reason!’

¹⁷ A king must not marry many wives. They may turn his thoughts away from the Lord. He must not store a lot of silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸ When anyone starts to rule as king, he must copy this Law of God on a scroll. The scroll will be a copy of the one that belongs to the Levite priests. ¹⁹ He must keep this scroll with him all the time. He must continue to read it every day of his life. If he does that, he will learn to respect the Lord his God. He will learn to obey all the rules and commands of this Law. ²⁰ If he does that, he will not become proud. He will not think that he is better than other Israelites. He will continue to obey the Lord's commands. Then he and his descendants will rule Israel as kings for many years.

Priests and Levites^[o]

18 The priests and the whole tribe of Levi will have no land for themselves, as the other Israelite tribes do. Instead, they may eat the meat from the sacrifices that belong to the Lord. ² They will receive no land among the other Israelites. The Lord himself is the one who gives them everything that they need. He has promised to do that for them.

³ When you bring a bull or a sheep as a sacrifice to the Lord, give the priests their part. You must give them the animal's shoulder, the meat from its face, and its stomach. ⁴ You must also give them the first part of your grain, your wine and your olive oil. Give them the first wool that you cut from your sheep. ⁵ Do this because the Lord your God has chosen the Levites to serve him from among all your tribes. He wants them and their descendants to be ready to serve him at all times, for ever.

⁶ Any Levite may choose to go to the place that the Lord will choose. He can leave the town where he lives, wherever it is in Israel. ⁷ He may go to serve the Lord his God. He may join the other Levites who are ready to serve the Lord at his special place. ⁸ A Levite may have sold some of his family's valuable things. He may keep that money and he may receive the same amount of food as the other Levites.

Evil acts

⁹ When you go into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, be careful! Do not learn to do the evil things that the nations who live there are doing. ¹⁰ Nobody among you must ever burn your child in a fire, as an offering. Nobody must use magic or other things to learn about future times. There must not be any magicians or diviners. ¹¹ Never use magic to curse anyone. Never try to speak to the spirits of dead people or other spirits. ¹² The Lord hates anyone who does these things. It is because of those evil things that the Lord will chase the other nations out of the land as you move in. ¹³ You must live in a completely right way that pleases the Lord your God. ¹⁴ The people of the nations that you will chase away get help from magicians and diviners. But the Lord your God has commanded you not to do those things.

Moses speaks about a future prophet

¹⁵ One day, the Lord your God will send to you a prophet like me. He will come from among your own people. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ Remember what happened when you all met together at Sinai mountain. You said to the Lord your God, ‘Please do not let us hear your voice again. Do not let us see this great fire again. If we do, we will die!’

¹⁷ Then the Lord said to me, ‘The people have said the right thing. ¹⁸ I will send them a prophet who will be like you. He will be an Israelite. I will tell him what to say. Then he will tell the people everything that I command him to say. ¹⁹ He will speak on my behalf, so I myself will punish anyone who does not listen to his message.

²⁰ A false prophet may say that he speaks with my authority when that is not true. Or he may say that he has a message from another god. You must punish a false prophet with death.’

²¹ You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not come from the Lord?’ ²² A prophet may say that he speaks with my authority, and he may say what will happen. But if it does not happen, you will know that his message has not come from me. He has not spoken my message. That prophet has spoken his own ideas. So do not be afraid of him!

Rules about safe cities

19 The Lord your God will destroy the nations who now live in the land that he is giving to you. You will chase them out and you will live in their cities and in their houses. ^2-3 Make the land into three separate regions. Then choose three special cities, one city in each region.^[p] Build good roads to each city so that people can easily travel to them. Then anyone who kills a person can run to one of these cities to be safe.

⁴ This is the rule when anyone has killed another person: If it was a mistake, he can run to a safe city. He can do that if he has killed someone that he did not already hate. ⁵ For example, two men may go to the forest to cut wood. As one man cuts wood with his axe, the metal part of the axe flies off. It hits the other man and it kills him. Then the killer can run to the nearest of the three cities. He will be safe there.

⁶ If there was no safe city near enough, the killer might not escape safely. The dead person's relative might chase him, catch him and kill him.^[q] But the killer did not deserve to die. He had made a mistake. He had killed someone that he did not already hate. ⁷ So I command you to choose three cities to be safe cities for yourselves.^[r]

⁸ The Lord your God promised your ancestors to give you more land to live in. When all that land belongs to you, ⁹ you must continue to obey all the commands that I am giving you today. You must continue to love the Lord your God and live in a way that pleases him. Then, when your land becomes bigger, you must choose three more cities to be safe cities. ¹⁰ You must not punish with death people who are not guilty. That would make you guilty yourselves. That must not happen in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

¹¹ But perhaps somebody does hate another person. He may hide himself so that he can catch his enemy. Then he may attack him and kill him. After that, he may run to one of the safe cities. ¹² If he does that, the leaders of his own town must fetch him back. They must bring him to the dead person's relative. He must die as his punishment. ¹³ Do not be sorry for him. You must punish murderers with death. Then Israel will not be guilty of evil acts. If you do that, everything will be well for you.

More rules

¹⁴ When you go to live in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you, each family will receive their piece of land. You must never move the stones that show the edge of your neighbour's land. It has always belonged to them.

¹⁵ If only one person says that he has seen someone do something wrong, that is not enough. There must be at least two or three people who saw the sin. Then the judge may say that the person is guilty.

¹⁶ Somebody may accuse another person because he wants to hurt him. He tells lies against him. ¹⁷ Then both of them must stand in front of the judges that the Lord has chosen. Those are the priests and the judges who have authority at that time. ¹⁸ The judges must be careful to discover who is telling the truth. The person may be speaking lies against another Israelite to accuse him. ¹⁹ If he is telling lies, you must punish him in the same way that he wanted to punish the other Israelite. You must remove evil things like this from among yourselves. ²⁰ Then everyone else will hear what has happened. They will be afraid to do any more evil things like that. ²¹ Do not be sorry for people who are guilty. Punish people as they deserve: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.^[s]

Rules for war

20 Do not be afraid when you go out to fight a war against your enemies. You may see that their armies have more horses, chariots and soldiers than you have. Do not be afraid of them! Remember that the Lord your God is with you. He rescued you from Egypt. ² As you prepare to fight a battle, the priest must come to speak to your soldiers. ³ He must say, ‘Israelites, listen to me! Today you will fight against your enemies. Do not be afraid. Be brave! Do not shake with fear because your enemy is so strong. ⁴ The Lord your God is going into battle with you. He will fight for you against your enemies. He will cause you to win.’

⁵ Then the officers must say to the soldiers, ‘Has any of you built a new house but he has not yet asked God to bless it? If so, he may go home. If he does not, he may die in the battle. Then someone else will ask God to bless his home. ⁶ Has anyone planted a field with grapes but he has not yet picked any fruit? He also may go home. If he does not, he may die in the battle. Then someone else will enjoy the fruit. ⁷ Has anyone promised to marry a woman? If he has not married her yet, he may go home too. If not, he may die in the battle. Then another man will marry her.’

⁸ Then the officers must also say to the soldiers, ‘Is any of you afraid? Does anyone not feel brave? He may go home. Then he will not cause other men to be afraid like him.’

⁹ When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they must choose other officers to lead the groups of soldiers.

¹⁰ Before you start to attack a city, you must offer peace to the people who live there. Tell them what they must do to stop you attacking them. ¹¹ If they agree, they will open the city's gates to let you go in. Then all the people in the city will become your slaves, to do hard work for you. ¹² But they may refuse to agree. They may start to fight against you. If they do that, you must put your soldiers all around the city. ¹³ The Lord your God will give the city to you. Then you must kill all the men there. ¹⁴ But you can take for yourselves the women, the children, the animals and other valuable things in the city. You can take all these things from your enemies that God gives to you. ¹⁵ You must do this to all the cities that are far away from you. But it is different for the cities that belong to the nations of Canaan where you will live.

¹⁶ You will take for yourselves the cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you as your home. In those cities, you must kill everything that is alive, people and animals. ¹⁷ You must completely destroy all the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. The Lord your God has commanded you to do this to the people of those nations.^{[t] 18} If not, they would teach you all the evil things that they do to worship their gods. They would cause you to do bad things against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ Perhaps you are preparing to attack a city. Your soldiers may have their camp around the city for a long time. If so, you must not cut down the fruit trees. Then you can eat the fruit from them. These trees are not people, like your enemies! So do not attack them! ²⁰ But you can cut down the other trees that do not provide any food. You can use the wood to make things that will help you to attack the city. You can do this until you go into the city and you take it for yourselves.

Rules about murder

21 In the land that the Lord your God is giving to you, you may find someone's dead body lying in a field. Someone has killed him but you do not know who the murderer is. ² Your leaders and your judges must then go to the field. They must measure how far the place is from the nearest towns. ³ Then the leaders from the town that is nearest to the body must take a young cow that has never done work on a farm. ⁴ They must lead the cow down to a valley where no one has ploughed the ground or planted seed. There must be a stream of water in the valley. There they must break the cow's neck.

⁵ The Levite priests must go there too. The Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to ask him to bless his people. They also decide as judges what is right. ⁶ After the leaders of the town have broken the cow's neck, they must wash their hands over it.^[u]

⁷ Then they will say, ‘We did not kill this person. We did not see who killed him. ⁸ Please Lord, accept this animal from your people, Israel, that you have rescued. Do not say that we are guilty of this murder. This person did not deserve to die like this.’

When they do that, the Lord will accept their gift and he will forgive you. ⁹ In this way, you will not be guilty of the murder. You will remove this evil act from among you. You must do what the Lord says is right.

Marriage

¹⁰ When you go to fight a battle against your enemies, the Lord your God will give you power over them. You will take some of them as prisoners. ¹¹ You may see among them a beautiful woman that you want to take as your wife. ¹² Then you must bring her into your home. She must cut the hair off her head. She must cut her fingernails.^{[v] 13} She must change the clothes that she was wearing when you found her. Let her live in your house and weep for her parents for a whole month. Then you may have sex with her. You will be her husband and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ Later, you may not be pleased with her. If so, you must let her go wherever she wants. You must never sell her or make her become a slave. You must not do that, because you have made her have sex with you, as your wife.

Firstborn sons

¹⁵ A man may have two wives, but he may love only one of them. Each wife may give birth to a son. The firstborn son may be the son of the wife that he does not love. ¹⁶ But when the man shares his things with his children, he must promise this: After his death, the firstborn son will receive what he should have. The man may not choose to give the double share of his things to the son of the wife that he loves. ¹⁷ He must recognize that his firstborn son is the son of the wife that he does not love. This son was the first son born to that man. So he must receive the double share of his father's things. That is what God's Law says must happen.^[w]

A son who turns against his parents

¹⁸ Perhaps a man has a son who refuses to obey his parents. They punish him to teach him what is right, but he refuses to listen to them. ¹⁹ If so, his parents must take their son to the leaders at the city gate. ²⁰ They must say to the leaders, ‘This is our son. He refuses to obey us. He does not do what we tell him. He only wants to do what will please himself. He drinks too much and he becomes drunk.’

²¹ Then all the men of the city must throw stones at the son until he is dead. In this way, you must remove all evil things like that from among you. Then all Israel's people will hear about what has happened. They will be afraid.

²² A person may do an evil thing so that you punish him with death. If you have hung his dead body on a tree, ²³ you must not leave it there during the night. Be careful to bury it on the same day that he died. If someone's body is hanging on a tree, it shows that God has cursed him. So do not leave it there. The Lord your God is giving the land to you so that it belongs to you. So do not let evil things spoil your land.

Other rules

22 You may see your neighbour's cow or sheep that has become lost. If so, do not look the other way. You must catch the animal. You must take it back to your neighbour. ² Perhaps the man does not live near you. Perhaps you do not know who the animal belongs to. If so, take the animal to your own home and keep it safe there. When the man comes to look for his animal, give it to him. ³ You must do the same thing if you find someone's donkey or clothes or anything else. You must not refuse to help.

⁴ Perhaps your neighbour's donkey or his cow has fallen on the road. If you see it lying there, do not look the other way. You must help the man to lift the animal so that it can stand.

⁵ A woman must not wear the same clothes that men wear. A man must not wear clothes that make him look like a woman. The Lord your God hates people who do this.

⁶ You may find a bird's nest beside the road. It may be in a tree or on the ground. If the mother bird is sitting on eggs or on young birds, you must not take the mother away from them. ⁷ You may take the young birds for yourself. But you must let the mother bird go free. If you do that, everything will be well with you. You will have a long life.

⁸ If you build a new house, you must make a wall around the edge of the flat roof. Then if someone falls off the roof and dies, you will not be guilty for his death.

⁹ You must not plant any other crops between the vines in your vineyard. If you do that, none of the food or the grapes will belong to you.

¹⁰ You must not tie an ox and a donkey together to pull a plough.

¹¹ You must not mix wool and linen together to make your clothes.

¹² You must fix tassels on the four corners of your coat.

Rules for marriage

¹³ Perhaps a man will marry a woman, and he has sex with her. Later he decides he no longer wants her to be his wife. ¹⁴ He may then tell lies against her to say that she is bad. He may say, ‘I married this woman, and I had sex with her. Then I discovered that she had already had sex before I married her.’

¹⁵ If that happens, the woman's parents must bring the cloth that she slept on with her husband. They must take it to the leaders of the town to show them. ¹⁶ The woman's father must say to the leaders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife. But now he does not like her. ¹⁷ He accuses her that she is bad. He says, “I discovered that your daughter had sex before I married her.” But look at her cloth. This shows that she had never had sex before.’ Then her parents must hold the cloth in front of the leaders of the town. ¹⁸ The leaders must then take hold of the man. They must punish him. ¹⁹ They must make the man pay 100 pieces of silver to the young woman's father. The man has told lies. He has accused a pure Israelite girl to say that she is bad. After that, she will continue to be his wife. He may never send her away as long as he lives.

²⁰ But perhaps the husband has spoken the truth. Perhaps his new wife cannot show that she had not had sex before. ²¹ If so, the leaders must take her to the entrance of her father's house. The men of the town must throw stones at her there, until she dies. She has done a very bad thing that brings shame on Israel. She has had sex like a prostitute while she lived in her father's house. You must remove evil acts like this from among you.

²² You may discover a man who is having sex with another man's wife. If so, you must punish both the man and the woman with death. In this way, you will remove such evil acts from Israel.

²³ Perhaps a man may meet a young woman in a town. She has already promised to marry another man, but the man has sex with her. ²⁴ If so, you must take both of them to the gate of that town. You must throw stones at both of them there, until they die. The young woman is guilty because she did not shout aloud for help. They were in the town, so someone would have heard her. The man is guilty because he had sex with the future wife of another man. In this way, you will remove evil acts from among you.

²⁵ But perhaps a man may meet a young woman in a field in the country. She has already promised to marry another man. But the man is stronger than her and he has sex with her. If that happens, only the man must die. ²⁶ Do not punish the young woman. She does not deserve to die. The man's act is like a man who attacks and murders another person. ²⁷ The man met the young woman in a field. When she shouted for help, nobody heard her because it happened in the country. There was no one there to rescue her.

²⁸ Perhaps a man may meet a girl who has not had sex with anyone before. She has not yet promised to marry anyone. The man may be too strong and he has sex with her. ²⁹ If that happens, the man must pay 50 pieces of silver to the girl's father. He must also marry the girl because he has had sex with her. He may never send her away as long as he lives.

³⁰ A man must not marry a woman who was his father's wife. That would bring shame on his father.

Meetings to worship God

23 Perhaps a man has sex parts that someone has destroyed or spoiled. That man cannot join with the Lord's people when they meet together. ² If someone was born when his parents were not properly married, he cannot join with the Lord's people. His descendants may not meet with the Lord's people to worship the Lord either. That will continue to the tenth generation of the man's descendants.

³ Ammonite and Moabite people also cannot join with the Lord's people when they come together to worship him. Even the tenth generation of their descendants can never do this. ⁴ The people of those nations refused to help you when you were leaving Egypt. They did not give you food or water. Also, they paid Beor's son Balaam to curse you. He came from Pethor in Mesopotamia. ⁵ But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam. He refused to curse you. Instead, he blessed you. The Lord your God did that because he loves you. ⁶ You must never do anything to help these two nations. Do not let them live in peace.

⁷ But do not hate anyone from Edom. The Edomites have the same ancestor as you. Do not hate an Egyptian person. You once lived as foreigners in Egypt. ⁸ The third generation of their descendants can join with the Lord's people when they meet together to worship him.

Keep the camp clean

⁹ Your soldiers may be living in tents while they fight against your enemies. They must keep away from anything that makes them unclean. ¹⁰ While a man is asleep, semen may come from his sex part. That makes him unclean so he must go outside the camp. He must stay there all day. ¹¹ In the evening, he must wash himself. At sunset he can return into the camp.