Old/New Testament
No Mixing With Idolaters
7 “When Adonai your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out many nations before you—the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you— 2 and Adonai your God gives them over to you and you strike them down, then you are to utterly destroy them. You are to make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You are not to intermarry with them—you are not to give your daughter to his son, or take his daughter for your son. 4 For he will turn your son away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of Adonai will be kindled against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. 5 Instead, you are to deal with them like this: tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to Adonai your God—from all the peoples on the face of the earth, Adonai your God has chosen you to be His treasured people.[a]
7 “It is not because you are more numerous than all the peoples that Adonai set His love on you and chose you—for you are the least of all peoples. 8 Rather, because of His love for you and His keeping the oath He swore to your fathers, Adonai brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 “Know therefore that Adonai your God, He is God—the faithful God who keeps covenant kindness for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His mitzvot, [b] 10 but repays those who hate Him to their face, to annihilate them. He will not hesitate with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. 11 Therefore you are to keep the commandment—both the statutes and the ordinances—that I am commanding you today, to do them.
Parashat Ekev
Adonai Desires to Bless
12 “Then it will happen, as a result of your listening to these ordinances, when you keep and do them, that Adonai your God will keep with you the covenant kindness that He swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, bless you and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your soil, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 From all peoples, you will be blessed—there will not be male or female barren among you or your livestock. 15 Adonai will remove all sickness from you, and He will not inflict on you any of the terrible diseases of Egypt that you knew, but will inflict them on all who hate you.
16 “You will devour all the peoples Adonai your God gives over to you. Your eye is not to pity them. You are not to serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17 Suppose you say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I—how can I drive them out?’ 18 You are not to be afraid of them. You are to be sure to remember what Adonai your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm[c] by which Adonai your God brought you out. So will Adonai your God do to all the peoples you fear.
20 “Moreover, Adonai your God will send the hornet against them, until the survivors and those in hiding perish before you. 21 You should not be terrified of them, since Adonai your God is in your midst—a great and awesome God. 22 Adonai your God will drive away those nations before you little by little—you will not be able to put an end to them all at once, or else the beasts of the field will multiply on you. 23 But Adonai your God will give them over to you, and He will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will hand over their kings to you, and you will blot out their name from under the heavens. No man will stand up to you, until you have destroyed them all.
25 “The carved images of their gods you are to burn with fire. You are not to covet the silver or gold on them or take it for yourself—or you could be snared by it, for it is an abomination to Adonai your God. 26 You are not to bring an abomination into your house—for you, like it, will be a banned thing. You must utterly detest and utterly abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.
Not By Bread Alone
8 “You are to take care to do the whole mitzvah that I am commanding you today, so that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that Adonai swore to your fathers. 2 You are to remember all the way that Adonai your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness—in order to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His mitzvot or not. 3 He afflicted you and let you hunger, then He fed you manna—which neither you nor your fathers had known—in order to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of Adonai. 4 Neither did your clothing wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. 5 Now you know in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Adonai your God disciplines you. 6 So you are to keep the mitzvot of Adonai your God—to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land—a land of wadis with water, of springs and fountains flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, 9 a land where you will eat bread with no poverty, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 So you will eat and be full, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land He has given you.
11 “Take care that you do not forget Adonai your God by not keeping His mitzvot, ordinances and statutes that I am commanding you today. 12 Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply, and silver and gold multiplies for you and all that is yours multiplies, 14 then your heart will be haughty and you will forget Adonai your God. He brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 He led you through the great and terrible wilderness—fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water. He brought forth water for you from the flinty rock. 16 He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, in order to afflict you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 You may say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand has made me this wealth.’ 18 Rather you are to remember Adonai your God, for it is He who gives you power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant that He swore to your fathers—as it is this day.
19 “Now if you do forget Adonai your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you will certainly perish. 20 Like the nations Adonai makes perish before you, so you will perish, since you would not listen to the voice of Adonai your God.
Who Brings Down Giants?
9 “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself—cities great and fortified up to the heavens. 2 The people are great and tall, sons of the Anakim. You know them, and you yourselves have heard, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” 3 But you will know today that Adonai your God is the One who is crossing over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them, and He will bring them down before you, so that you may drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Adonai has promised you.
4 “After Adonai your God has driven them out from before you, do not say in your heart, ‘It is because of my righteousness that Adonai has brought me in to possess this land.’ It is because of the wickedness of these nations that Adonai is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not by your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land. Rather, because of the wickedness of these nations, Adonai your God is driving them out from before you, and in order to keep the word Adonai swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6 So you should understand that it is not because of your righteousness that Adonai your God is giving you this good land to possess—for you are a stiff-necked people.
What Happened to the Tablets?
7 “Remember, never forget, how you provoked Adonai your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Adonai. 8 At Horeb you provoked Adonai to wrath, and Adonai was angry with you—enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that Adonai cut with you, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights; I did not eat bread or drink water. 10 Adonai gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God. Moreover, on them were all the words that Adonai had spoken with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
11 “Now at the end of 40 days and 40 nights, Adonai gave me the two tablets of stone—the tablets of the covenant. 12 Adonai said to me, ‘Get up! Go quickly down from here, for your people whom you brought out from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them; they have made a molten image for themselves.’ 13 Furthermore Adonai spoke to me saying, ‘I have seen this people, and it is indeed a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they.’
15 “So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire. Now the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against Adonai your God—you had made yourselves a metal calf. So quickly you had turned aside from the way Adonai had commanded you! 17 So I took hold of the two tablets, threw them out of my two hands, and smashed them before your eyes.
18 “Then I fell down before Adonai like the first time, for 40 days and 40 nights. I did not eat bread or drink water—because of all your sin that you committed, doing evil in Adonai’s sight, provoking Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the fierce wrath and fury which Adonai bore toward you—to destroy you.[d] But Adonai listened to me that time also. 20 Adonai was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 I took your sin—the calf you had made—and burned it in the fire. I crushed it, grinding it up so well that it was as fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the wadi flowing down from the mountain.
22 “Again at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked Adonai to wrath. 23 When Adonai sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of Adonai your God and didn’t believe Him or listen to His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against Adonai from the day that I knew you.
25 “So I threw myself down before Adonai those 40 days and 40 nights, because Adonai had said He would destroy you. 26 I prayed to Adonai and said, ‘O Lord, Adonai, do not destroy Your people—Your inheritance that You have redeemed through Your greatness and brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people or to their wickedness or their sin. 28 Otherwise the land from which You brought us out may say, “Because Adonai was not able to bring them into the land that He spoke of to them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” 29 Yet they are Your people—Your inheritance that You brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.’
19 Whenever evening came, Yeshua and His disciples would leave the city.
20 As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree shriveled from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Yeshua, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree You cursed has shriveled up!”
22 And Yeshua answered, saying to them, “Have faith in God! 23 Amen, I tell you, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but trusts that what he says is happening, so shall it be for him. 24 For this reason I say to you, whatever you pray and ask, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your transgressions.” (26) [a]
A Question for a Question
27 Again they come to Jerusalem. While Yeshua was walking in the Temple, the ruling kohanim, Torah scholars, and elders come up to Him. 28 And they start saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things? Who gave You this authority to do these things?”
29 Yeshua said to them, “I will put one question to you. Answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 The immersion of John—was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me!”
31 They began to dialogue among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘From men’. . .?” They were afraid of the crowd, for all held that John really was a prophet. 33 So answering Yeshua, they say, “We don’t know.”
And Yeshua tells them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.