Old/New Testament
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.[a]
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.[b]
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.[c] 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.[d]
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.[e] 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.
Jesus teaches people about the most important rule
28 One of the teachers of God's Law came near to the group of people. He heard Jesus speaking with the leaders. The teacher knew that Jesus had answered them well. So then the teacher asked Jesus, ‘Which rule is the most important among God's Laws?’
29 Jesus replied, ‘This rule is the most important rule: “Listen, Israel's people! The Lord alone is our God. There is no other Lord. 30 Love the Lord, your God completely. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength. Love him in everything that you think and you do.”[a] 31 The second most important rule is this: “You should love other people as much as you love yourself.” No other rules are as important as these two.’
32 The teacher of God's Law said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, you have answered well. You are right to say that the Lord is the only God. And there is no other God except him. 33 We must love him completely, with all our mind and with all our strength. We must also love other people as much as we love ourselves. This is more important than all the gifts or animals that we could offer to God.’
34 Jesus heard that the man had answered well. So Jesus said to him, ‘You are almost ready for God to rule in your life.’ After that, everybody was afraid to ask Jesus any more questions.
Jesus teaches the people about the Messiah
35 Jesus was teaching people in the yard at the temple. He said, ‘The teachers of God's Law say that the Messiah is King David's son.[b] What do you think about that? 36 The Holy Spirit helped David himself to say:[c]
“The Lord God said to my Lord:
Sit at my right side until I win against your enemies.
The you will be able to put your feet on them.”[d]
37 In these words, David himself calls the Messiah his Lord. So can you really say that the Messiah is David's son?’[e]
The large crowd liked to listen to the things that Jesus was saying. It made them happy.
38 As Jesus was teaching the people, he said, ‘Be careful not to do the same as the teachers of God's Law. They want people to think that they are important. So they walk about in beautiful long clothes. They like people to praise them in the market place. 39 They want to sit in the best seats in the meeting places. They choose the most important places at special meals. 40 But these men take things away from women after their husbands have died, even their houses. Then they pray for a long time so that other people will praise them. Because they do these things, God will punish those men much more than other people.’
Jesus talks about people who give to God
41 Many people were giving their gifts for the temple. There was a box for money there. People threw their coins into it. Jesus sat near the box and he watched them. Many rich people put a lot of money into the box. 42 But then a woman came there. Her husband had died and she was very poor. She put two small coins that had only a little value into the box.
43 Jesus asked his disciples to come to him. He said to them, ‘I tell you this: This poor woman has put a better gift into the box than all the other people have put in there. 44 All those rich people have plenty of money. They only put a small part of that into the box. But this woman has almost nothing. She put in all the money that she had. That was all the money that she needed to live.’
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