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The Lord’s assembly
23 [a] No man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off can belong to the Lord’s assembly. 2 No one born of an illegitimate marriage[b] can belong to the Lord’s assembly either. Not even the tenth generation of such children can belong to the Lord’s assembly. 3 Ammonites and Moabites can’t belong to the Lord’s assembly. Not even the tenth generation of such people can belong to the Lord’s assembly, as a rule, 4 because they didn’t help you with food or water on your journey out of Egypt, and because they hired Balaam, Beor’s son, from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. 5 But the Lord your God wasn’t interested in listening to Balaam. The Lord your God turned that curse into a blessing because the Lord your God loves you. 6 So don’t be concerned with their health and well-being as long as you live.
7 Don’t detest Edomites, because they are your relatives. Don’t detest Egyptians because you were immigrants in their land. 8 Children born to them are permitted to belong to the Lord’s assembly starting with the third generation.
Rules for the war camp
9 When you are camped in battle against your enemies, guard yourself from every possible evil. 10 If an individual in the camp becomes polluted due to a nighttime emission, he must exit the camp area and not reenter. 11 When the next evening arrives, he must wash with water; and when the sun sets, he can come back to the camp.
12 The latrines[c] must be outside the camp. You will use them there, outside the camp. 13 Carry a shovel with the rest of your gear; once you have relieved yourself, use it to dig a hole, then refill it, covering your excrement.
14 Do these things because the Lord your God travels with you, right in the middle of your camp, ready to save you and to hand your enemies over to you. For this reason your camp must be holy. The Lord must not see anything indecent among you, or he will turn away from you.
Escaped slaves
15 Don’t return slaves to owners if they’ve escaped and come to you. 16 They can stay with you: in your own community or in any place they select from one of your cities, whatever seems good to them. Don’t oppress them.
Consecrated workers
17 No Israelite daughter is allowed to be a consecrated worker.[d] Neither is any Israelite son allowed to be a consecrated worker.[e] 18 Don’t bring a female prostitute’s fee or a male prostitute’s[f] payment to the Lord your God’s temple to pay a solemn promise because both of these things are detestable to the Lord your God.
Charging interest
19 Don’t charge your fellow Israelites interest—whether on money, provisions, or anything one might loan. 20 You can charge foreigners interest, but not your fellow Israelite. Do this so that the Lord your God blesses you in all your work on the land you are entering to possess.
Solemn promise
21 When you make a promise to the Lord your God, don’t put off making good on it, because the Lord your God will certainly be expecting it from you; delaying would make you guilty. 22 Now if you simply don’t make any promises, you won’t be guilty of anything. 23 But whatever you say, you should be sure to make good on, exactly according to the promise you freely made to the Lord your God because you promised it with your own mouth.
Neighbor’s goods
24 If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you can eat as many grapes as you like, until full, but don’t carry any away in a basket. 25 If you go into your neighbor’s grain field, you can pluck ears by hand, but you aren’t allowed to cut off any of your neighbor’s grain with a sickle.
Marriage and divorce
24 Let’s say a man marries a woman, but she isn’t pleasing to him because he’s discovered something inappropriate about her. So he writes up divorce papers, hands them to her, and sends her out of his house. 2 She leaves his house and ends up marrying someone else. 3 But this new husband also dislikes her, writes up divorce papers, hands them to her, and sends her out of his house (or suppose the second husband dies). 4 In this case, the first husband who originally divorced this woman is not allowed to take her back and marry her again after she has been polluted in this way because the Lord detests that. Don’t pollute the land the Lord your God is giving to you as an inheritance.
5 A newly married man doesn’t have to march in battle. Neither should any related duties be placed on him. He is to live free of such responsibilities for one year, so he can bring joy to his new wife.
Pawning
6 Millstones or even just the upper millstone must not be pawned, because that would be pawning someone’s livelihood.
Kidnapping
7 If someone is caught kidnapping their fellow Israelites, intending to enslave the Israelite or sell them, that kidnapper must die. Remove[g] such evil from your community!
Skin disease
8 Be on guard against outbreaks of skin disease[h] by being very careful about what you do. You must carefully do everything the levitical priests teach you, just as I have commanded them. 9 Remember, after all, what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your departure from Egypt!
Loans
10 When you make any type of loan to your neighbor, don’t enter their house to receive the collateral. 11 You must wait outside. The person to whom you are lending will bring the collateral to you out there. 12 Moreover, if the person is poor, you are not allowed to sleep in their pawned coat. 13 Instead, be certain to give the pawned coat back by sunset so they can sleep in their own coat. They will bless you, and you will be considered righteous before the Lord your God.
Payment for workers
14 Don’t take advantage of poor or needy workers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities. 15 Pay them their salary the same day, before the sun sets, because they are poor, and their very life depends on that pay, and so they don’t cry out against you to the Lord. That would make you guilty.
Generational punishment
16 Parents shouldn’t be executed because of what their children have done; neither should children be executed because of what their parents have done. Each person should be executed for their own guilty acts.
Rights of widows, orphans, and immigrants
17 Don’t obstruct the legal rights of an immigrant or orphan. Don’t take a widow’s coat as pledge for a loan. 18 Remember how you were a slave in Egypt but how the Lord your God saved you from that. That’s why I’m commanding you to do this thing.
19 Whenever you are reaping the harvest of your field and you leave some grain in the field, don’t go back and get it. Let it go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows so that the Lord your God blesses you in all that you do. 20 Similarly, when you beat the olives off your olive trees, don’t go back over them twice. Let the leftovers go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows. 21 Again, when you pick the grapes of your vineyard, don’t pick them over twice. Let the leftovers go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows. 22 Remember how you were a slave in Egypt. That’s why I am commanding you to do this thing.
Corporal punishment
25 Now two people have a disagreement and they enter into litigation and their case is decided, with the judges declaring one person legally right and the other legally liable. 2 If the guilty party is to be beaten, the presiding judge will have that person lie down and be punished in his presence—the number of blows in measure with the guilt determined. 3 Give no more than forty blows. If more than that is given, your fellow Israelite would be completely disgraced in your eyes.
Working oxen
4 Don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing grain.
The brother-in-law’s duty
5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not go outside the family and marry a stranger. Instead, her brother-in-law should go to her and take her as his wife. He will then consummate the marriage according to the brother-in-law’s duty. 6 The brother-in-law will name the oldest male son that she bears after his dead brother so that his brother’s legacy will not be forgotten in Israel. 7 If the brother does not want to marry his sister-in-law, she can go to the elders at the city gate, informing them: “My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother’s legacy in Israel. He’s not willing to perform the brother-in-law’s duty with me.” 8 The city’s elders will summon him and talk to him about this. If he doesn’t budge, insisting, “I don’t want to marry her,” 9 then the sister-in-law will approach him while the elders watch. She will pull the sandal off his foot and spit in his face. Then she will exclaim: “That’s what’s done to any man who won’t build up his own brother’s family!” 10 Subsequently, that man’s family will be known throughout Israel as “the house of the removed sandal.”
Improper touching
11 If two men are fighting with each other—a man and his fellow Israelite—and the wife of one of them gets into the fight, trying to save her husband from his attacker and does so by reaching out and grabbing his genitals, 12 you must cut off her hand. Show no mercy.
Honest business practices
13 Don’t have two different types of money weights in your bag, a heavy one and a light one. 14 Don’t have two different types of ephahs in your house, a large one and a small one. 15 Instead, you must have only one weight, complete and correct, and only one ephah, also complete and correct, so that your life might be long in the fertile land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 What’s more, all who do such things, all who do business dishonestly, are detestable to the Lord your God. 17 Remember, after all, what Amalek did to you on your departure from Egypt: 18 how he met up with you on the way, striking from behind those who were lagging back because you were weak and tired, and because he didn’t fear God. 19 So once the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies that surround you in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you must wipe out Amalek’s memory from under the heavens. Don’t forget this!
Judgment against cities that reject Jesus
13 “How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin. How terrible it will be for you, Bethsaida. If the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives long ago. They would have sat around in funeral clothes and ashes. 14 But Tyre and Sidon will be better off at the judgment than you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be honored by being raised up to heaven? No, you will be cast down to the place of the dead. 16 Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
The seventy-two return
17 The seventy-two returned joyously, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit themselves to us in your name.”
18 Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19 Look, I have given you authority to crush snakes and scorpions underfoot. I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. 20 Nevertheless, don’t rejoice because the spirits submit to you. Rejoice instead that your names are written in heaven.”
21 At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness. 22 My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.” 23 Turning to the disciples, he said privately, “Happy are the eyes that see what you see. 24 I assure you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.”
Loving your neighbor
25 A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”
26 Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?”
27 He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”[a]
28 Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”
29 But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. 31 Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 32 Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 33 A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. 34 The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ 36 What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?”
37 Then the legal expert said, “The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Psalm 75
For the music leader. Do not destroy. A psalm of Asaph. A song.
75 We give thanks to you, God. Yes, we give thanks!
Your name is near. Your marvelous deeds are declared.
2 God says,[a] “When I decide the time is right,
I will establish justice just so.
3 The earth and all its inhabitants will melt,
but I will keep its pillars steady.” Selah
4 I said to the arrogant,
“Don’t be arrogant!”
To the wicked I said,
“Don’t exalt your strength!
5 Don’t exalt your strength so highly.
Don’t speak so arrogantly against the rock.”[b]
6 Because what exalts someone
doesn’t come from the east or west;
it’s not from the south either.
7 Rather it is God who is the judge.
He brings this person down,
but that person he lifts up.
8 Indeed, there’s a cup in the Lord’s hand
full of foaming wine, mixed with spice.
He will pour it out,
and all of the earth’s wicked people
must drink it;
they must drink every last drop!
12 Desiring evil is a trap for the wicked,
but the root of the righteous endures.[a]
13 The wicked are trapped by the transgressions of their lips,
but the righteous escape from distress.
14 From the fruit of their speech, people are well satisfied;
their work results in reward.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible