Old/New Testament

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!^[a]

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.^[b] 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.^[c]

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.

Jesus tells a story about a garden

12 Then Jesus began to speak again to the important Jews. He told them stories. He said, ‘There was a man who made a garden. He planted vines to grow grapes there. He built a wall around the garden. He dug a hole in the ground where he could make the grapes into wine. He also built a tall building to watch over the garden.^[a] He found some farmers who would work in the garden for him. Then he went away to another country.^[b]

² At the time for the harvest, the man sent a servant to speak to the farmers.^[c] He wanted them to give him some fruit from the garden. ³ But the farmers took hold of the servant and they hit him with sticks. They sent him away with nothing. ⁴ So the man sent another servant to the farmers. They also hit this servant on the head, and they did other bad things to him. ⁵ The man then sent another servant, but the farmers killed this servant. He sent many other servants to them. The farmers hit some of these servants with sticks and they killed other servants.

⁶ The man had only one person that he could still send. This was his own son. The man loved him very much.^[d] So, last of all, he sent his son to the farmers. He thought, “The farmers will surely respect my son.”

⁷ But those farmers said to each other, “This is the son of our master. The garden will belong to him when his father dies. We should kill the son and then the garden will be ours.” ⁸ So the farmers took the son and they killed him. Then they threw his dead body out of the garden.’^[e]

⁹ Jesus then asked, ‘What will the master of the garden do then? I tell you, he will come and he will kill those farmers. Then he will give the garden to other people to take care of it. ¹⁰ I am sure that you have read these words in the Bible:^[f]

¹² The Jewish leaders knew that Jesus had told this story about them. They were the bad farmers in the story. So they wanted to take hold of Jesus. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and they went away.

The Pharisees ask about the money that Caesar demanded

¹³ Then the leaders sent some Pharisees to Jesus. They also sent some men who were friends of King Herod. They tried to use Jesus' words to cause trouble for him. ¹⁴ These men came to Jesus and they said, ‘Teacher, we know that you only say true things. It does not matter to you what other people think. If someone is important, you do not change your answers to make them happy. You really do teach us what God wants us to do. Tell us, should we pay our taxes to the Roman ruler, Caesar? Is it right to give that money to him, or not?’

¹⁵ Jesus knew that those men were not honest. So he said, ‘You just ask that question to cause trouble for me. Now, bring me a coin. I want to see it.’ ¹⁶ So they brought a coin to him. Jesus asked them, ‘Whose picture is on this coin? Whose name is on it?’

They replied, ‘It is Caesar's picture and Caesar's name.’

¹⁷ Jesus then said to them, ‘So you should give to Caesar the things that belong to him. And give to God the things that belong to God.’

They were very surprised at his answer.

The Sadducees ask Jesus a question

¹⁸ Also, some Sadducees came to Jesus. Sadducees do not believe that anyone becomes alive again after they die.^[h] They wanted to ask Jesus a question.

¹⁹ ‘Teacher,’ they said to him, ‘Moses wrote these things for us in the Bible: If a man dies without children, his brother must marry the man's wife. Then their children will be called the children of the brother who died. ²⁰ But once there were seven brothers. The oldest brother married a woman. But he died before they had any children. ²¹ So the second brother married her. He also died without children. Then the third brother married this woman. ²² And the same thing happened to all seven brothers. They all died but they had no children. After all this, the woman also died. ²³ You teach that at some time dead people will become alive again. On that day, whose wife will that woman be? She had married all seven of those brothers.’

²⁴ Jesus said to the Sadducees, ‘You are very wrong. This is because you do not know the Bible. And you do not know how powerful God is. ²⁵ All people who have died will become alive again one day. But then men and women will not marry. They will not have husbands or wives. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven. ²⁶ But God does make dead people alive again! You have read what Moses wrote about the bush in the wilderness. There, God said to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. And I am the God of Jacob.”^{[i] 27} God is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive. So you see, you are very wrong.’