Old/New Testament
Rules for justice
23 Do not make false reports. Do not tell lies in court to help wicked people.
2 Do not join a group of bad people to do evil things. When you speak in court, tell the truth so that the judges will decide what is right. Do not tell lies to agree with what everyone else says. 3 Do not speak on behalf of a poor man only because you like him.
4 Perhaps you may find your enemy's cow or his donkey when he has lost it. If so, you must give it back to him. 5 Perhaps you may see your enemy's donkey when it is carrying a heavy load. If the donkey has fallen down, do not refuse to give help. Do not leave the donkey there.
6 Always do what is right for your poor people when they stand in front of a judge. 7 Do not help anyone to use lies to accuse another person. Never punish anyone with death if they are not guilty. I will never say that a wicked person is not guilty.
8 Do not accept a bribe. A bribe will hide the truth even from honest people. It can make good people tell lies.
9 Do not be cruel to a foreign person who lives among you. You yourselves know what that feels like. Remember that you lived in Egypt as foreigners.
Rules about the Sabbath day and Feasts
10 You must plant seed in your fields for six years. Then you can bring your crops home at harvest time. 11 But in the seventh year, you must let your fields lie empty. Do not dig them and do not plant anything in them. Then poor people among you can eat the food that they find in your fields. After that, the wild animals can eat any food that still remains. Do the same thing with your vineyards and your fields of olive trees.
12 Do your work for six days each week, but do not work on the seventh day. Then your oxen and your donkeys will have time to rest. Any slave who was born in your home and any foreigner who works for you may also have time to rest. That will help them to be strong.
13 Be careful to obey everything that I have told you. Do not pray to other gods for help. Do not even speak about them.
14 Three times each year, you must eat a feast to give me honour.
15 Eat the Feast of Flat Bread every year. For seven days, you must eat bread that you have made without any yeast. I have commanded you to do this. Do it at the right time during the month Abib. It was in that month that you came out of Egypt. Nobody must come to me without an offering.
16 Eat the Feast of Harvest every year. Offer to me the first crops that you bring from your fields.[a]
At the end of each year, eat Feast of Final Harvest. Do that when you have finished bringing in all of your crops from the fields.
17 Three times each year, all your men must come to worship the Almighty Lord.
18 When you kill an animal to offer it to me as a sacrifice, do not offer it with bread that has yeast in it. Be sure to burn all the fat of the animal on the same day. Do not keep any of it until the next morning.
19 When you cut the first crops from your fields, bring the best food to the house of the Lord your God.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
God's special angel
20 Look! I will send an angel to lead you on your journey. He will keep you safe. He will take you to the place that I have prepared for you. 21 Be careful to obey him. Listen to what he says to you. Do not turn against him. If you do that, he will not forgive you. I have given him my authority. 22 So be careful to obey him. Do everything that I tell you. Then I will be the enemy of your enemies. I will fight against anyone who fights against you. 23 My angel will go in front of you. He will bring you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. I will destroy them completely. 24 Do not worship their gods. Do not serve them. Do not copy the evil things that these people do. Destroy their idols and break their special stones into pieces.
25 You must serve only me, the Lord your God. Then I will bless your food and your water. I will remove illness from among you. 26 Your women will safely give birth to babies. They will all be able to have children. Everyone will live a long life.
27 I will cause all the nations that you meet to be afraid. All the people who attack you will become confused. I will cause all your enemies to turn round and run away from you. 28 I will send great fear on the people as you move into the land.[b] That will chase out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites. 29 But I will not chase out those people in one year. If I did that, the country would become empty of people. Then there would be many wild animals that would cause trouble to you. 30 I will remove the people slowly, one group at a time. As you become strong, you will take the land as your own home.
31 I will decide where the borders of your land will be. You will have the land from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will put the people who live there under your power. As you move into the land, you will chase those people out.
32 Do not make any agreement with them or with their gods. 33 Do not let them live in your land. They would cause you to do bad things against me. If you serve their gods, you will become like their prisoners.’
God repeats his covenant
24 Then God said to Moses, ‘Come up to me, the Lord. Come with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and 70 of the leaders of Israel. Worship me, but do not come near. 2 Only Moses can come near to me, but not the others. The people must not come up the mountain with him.’
3 Moses went and he told the people all the Lord's commands and his teaching. The people answered together, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’ 4 Then Moses wrote down everything that the Lord had said.
Early the next morning, Moses built an altar at the bottom of the mountain. Then he put up 12 stone pillars. Each pillar stood there for one of Israel's 12 tribes. 5 Moses sent young Israelite men to burn animals there, as offerings to the Lord. They also killed young bulls as friendship offerings to the Lord.
6 Moses took half of the blood of these animals and he put it into some bowls. He splashed the other half of the blood over the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of God's Covenant and he read it to the people. They replied, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us. We will obey his commands.’
8 Then Moses used the blood in the bowls to splash on the people. He said, ‘This blood shows that you accept the covenant that the Lord has made with you. You agree to obey the rules of his covenant.’
9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the 70 Israelite leaders went up the mountain. 10 They saw the God of Israel there. Under his feet was something like a jewel called sapphire. It was as bright as a clear blue sky. 11 God did not hurt those Israelite leaders. They saw God. They ate a meal and they drank together.
12 The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain. Stay here. I will give you the flat stones with my Law on them. I have written on them my Law and my commands, so that you can teach them to the people.’
13 So Moses went up the mountain of God. His servant Joshua went with him. 14 Moses said to the leaders, ‘Wait here for us. We will come back to you. Aaron and Hur are here with you. If you have any arguments, they can decide who is right.’
15 When Moses went up the mountain, the cloud covered it. 16 The Lord's bright glory appeared on Sinai mountain. The cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day, the Lord called out to Moses from inside the cloud. 17 The people could see the Lord's bright glory. To them, it looked like a fire that was burning the top of the mountain. 18 Moses went up the mountain and he went into the cloud. He stayed on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights.
Jesus tells a story about some workers in a field
20 Jesus said, ‘I will tell you a story to show what the kingdom of heaven is like. There was an important man who had a field where he grew grapes. He went out early in the morning. He wanted to find some people who would work in his field. 2 The master agreed with the workers that he would pay them one silver coin for a day's work.[a] Then he sent them to work in the field.
3 The master went out again about three hours later. He saw some other men standing in the market place. They had no work to do. 4 So the master said to these men, “You also go and work in my field. I will pay you the right amount of money.” 5 So the workers went to the master's field and started to work.
The master went out again at noon, and he went again three hours after that. Both times he sent men to his field to work. 6 Two hours later, at five o'clock, he went out again. He found more men who were standing there. And they had no work to do. The master asked them, “Why are you standing here all day and you are not working?”
7 The men said to the master, “Nobody has asked us to work for him.”
So the master said to them, “You also go now and work in my field.”
8 Then the evening came. The master of the field spoke to the man who had authority over the workers. He said to him, “Tell the workers to come here. Pay them their money. Begin with the workers who started to work at the end of the day. Finish with the workers who started first.”
9 The workers who had come to work at five o'clock in the evening received one silver coin each. 10 The workers who had come to work first thought that they would receive more than the other workers. But each of them also received one silver coin. 11 When they received their money, they were not happy. They told the master that he had not been fair to them. 12 They said to him, “Some of these other workers came last and only worked for one hour. But you have paid them the same money as you paid us. And we have worked all day in the hot sun.”
13 Then the master said to one of the workers, “My friend, I am being fair to you. You agreed to work for one day and to receive one silver coin. 14 Take your money and go home. I choose to give this last man the same amount of money as I gave to you. 15 It is my money. I can choose what to do with it. I want to be kind to people and give them more than we agreed. Does that make you upset?” ’
16 Jesus then said, ‘So, one day, those people who are not important now will become the most important. Those people who are very important now will become the least important.’
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