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Atonement for Unsolved Murders
21 If someone is found slain in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has slain him, 2 then your elders and your judges are to come forth, and they must measure how far it is to the cities which are around him who was slain. 3 And it must be, that the city which is closest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city shall take a heifer which has not been worked, that has never pulled in yoke, 4 and the elders of that city must bring down the heifer to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, must come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every controversy and every assault will be settled. 6 And all the elders of that city, which is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. 7 Then they must answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it. 8 Be merciful, O Lord, to Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and lay not innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.” And the blood guilt will be forgiven them. 9 In this way you are to remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord.
Marrying Female Captives
10 When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her to have her as your wife, 12 then you are to bring her home to your house, and she is to shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She must also discard the clothing of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother for a full month. After that you may have relations with her, and be her husband, and she will be your wife. 14 It will be, if you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go wherever she pleases, but you may not sell her at all for money, nor are you to make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her.
The Right of the Firstborn
15 If a man has two wives, one beloved and another unloved, and both have borne him children, both the loved one and the unloved one, and if the firstborn son is hers that is unloved, 16 then it must be, when he gives his sons the inheritance which he has, that he may not make the firstborn son of the loved come before the son of the unloved, who was indeed the firstborn. 17 On the contrary, he must acknowledge the son of the unloved for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.
Dealing With a Rebellious Son
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have disciplined him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother are to lay hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 They shall say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not listen to us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his city must stone him with stones, until he dies. In this way you are to remove the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
Various Laws
22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, 23 then his body must not remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God) so that your land may not be defiled, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
22 You must not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You must certainly bring them back to your brother. 2 If your brother is not near you or if you do not know him, then you are to bring it to your own house, and it will be with you until your brother seeks after it. Then you must return it to him. 3 In the same way, you must do so with his donkey, with his clothing, and with anything lost by your brother which he has lost and you have found. You must not hide yourself from him.
4 You are not to see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down by the way and hide yourself from them. You certainly must help him to lift them up.
5 A woman must not wear man’s clothing, nor is a man to put on a woman’s clothing. For all that do so are abominations to the Lord your God.
6 If you happen to notice a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you are not to take the mother from the young. 7 You must certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days.
8 When you build a new house, you must make a guard rail for your roof so that you bring no blood guilt on your house, should anyone fall from there.
9 You must not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seeds, or the fruit of your seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard will be defiled.
10 You must not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
11 You must not wear clothing made of a material of wool and linen together.
12 You must make tassels on the four quarters of your clothing with which you cover yourself.
Laws About Marriage
13 If any man takes a wife and has sexual relations with her and then rejects her, 14 and accuses her of impropriety and publicly defames her, saying, “I married this woman, but when I had sexual relations with her, I found her not to be a virgin,” 15 then the father and mother of the girl must produce evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 The girl’s father must say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he has rejected her. 17 What is more, he has accused her of impropriety, saying, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ However, this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. 18 The elders of that city must take that man and punish him, 19 and they must fine him a hundred shekels[a] of silver and give them to the father of the girl, because he has publicly humiliated a virgin of Israel. Then she is to remain his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.
20 But if the accusation is true, and the evidence of virginity does not exist for the girl, 21 then they shall bring the girl out to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones until she dies, because she has brought disgrace into Israel, to act like a whore in her father’s house. In this way you may purge the evil from among you.
22 If a man is discovered lying with a married woman, then both of them must die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman. In this way you may purge the evil from Israel.
23 If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and has sexual relations with her, 24 then you must bring them both out to the gate of that city and you must stone them with stones until they die, the girl because she did not cry out even though in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. In this way you may purge the evil from among you.
25 But if a man finds an engaged girl in the field, and the man forces her and rapes her, then only the man that raped her shall die. 26 However, you are to do nothing to the girl. There is no sin worthy of death in the girl, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this matter. 27 For he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 If a man finds a girl who is a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her must give fifty shekels[b] of silver to the girl’s father, and she shall be his wife because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
30 A man must not marry his father’s wife and in this way dishonor his father.
A Samaritan Village Refuses to Receive Jesus
51 When the time came for Him to be received up, He was steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem, 52 and sent messengers ahead of Him. They went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make things ready for Him, 53 but they did not receive Him, because He was set to go to Jerusalem. 54 When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did?” 55 But He turned and rebuked them and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.
The Would-Be Followers of Jesus(A)
57 As they went along the way, a man said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
58 Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow Me.”
But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
61 Yet another said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go bid farewell to those at my house.”
62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back at things is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The Mission of the Seventy
10 After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two ahead of Him into every city and place where He Himself was about to come. 2 He said to them, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go your ways. Listen, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ 6 If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him; but if not, it will return upon you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they give, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Do not go from house to house.
8 “When you enter a city and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a city and they do not receive you, go your way out into their streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to us, we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 12 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable on that Day for Sodom than for that city.
Psalm 74
A Contemplative Maskil of Asaph.
1 O God, why have You cast us off forever?
Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
2 Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old,
the rod of Your inheritance, which You have redeemed,
this Mount Zion, where You have lived.
3 Move Your footsteps to the perpetual desolations,
to all the harm the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
4 Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place;
they set up their miracles for signs.
5 They seem like men who lift up axes
on a thicket of trees.
6 But now they strike down its carved work altogether
with axes and hammers.
7 They have cast fire into Your sanctuary;
they have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, “Let us destroy them together.”
They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
nor is there among us any who knows how long.
10 O God, how long will the adversary scorn?
Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever?
11 Why do You withdraw Your hand, Your right hand?
Draw it out of Your bosom and destroy them!
12 For God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the dragons on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan in pieces,
and gave him for food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
15 You split the fountain and the flood;
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
16 The day is Yours, the night also is Yours;
You have prepared the light and the sun.
17 You have established all the borders of the earth;
You have made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, that the enemy has scorned, O Lord,
and that the foolish people have blasphemed Your name.
19 Do not give the life of Your turtledove to a wild animal;
do not forget the life of Your poor forever.
20 Have regard for the covenant;
for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.
21 May the oppressed not return ashamed;
may the poor and needy praise Your name.
22 Arise, O God, plead Your own cause;
remember how the fool insults You daily.
23 Do not forget the voice of Your enemies,
the tumult of those who rise up against You continually.
11 He who tills his land will be satisfied with bread,
but he who follows vain persons is void of understanding.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.