Old/New Testament
Chapter 26
The Reward of Obedience. 1 [a]Do not make idols for yourselves. You shall not erect a carved image or a sacred stone for yourselves, nor shall you set up a carved stone for worship in your land;(A) for I, the Lord, am your God. 2 Keep my sabbaths,(B) and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 [b](C)If you live in accordance with my statutes and are careful to observe my commandments, 4 I will give you your rains in due season, so that the land will yield its crops, and the trees their fruit;(D) 5 your threshing will last till vintage time, and your vintage till the time for sowing, and you will eat your fill of food, and live securely in your land.(E) 6 I will establish peace in the land, and you will lie down to rest with no one to cause you anxiety. I will rid the country of ravenous beasts, and no sword shall sweep across your land. 7 You will rout your enemies, and they shall fall before your sword. 8 Five of you will put a hundred of your foes to flight, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, till your enemies fall before your sword.(F) 9 I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful and numerous,(G) as I carry out my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat the oldest stored harvest, and have to discard it to make room for the new.(H) 11 (I)I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and will not loathe you. 12 Ever present in your midst, I will be your God, and you will be my people; 13 I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, breaking the bars of your yoke and making you walk erect.(J)
The Punishment of Disobedience.[c] 14 (K)But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments, 15 if you reject my statutes and loathe my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant, 16 then I, in turn, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you—with consumption and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop. 17 I will turn against you, and you will be beaten down before your enemies(L) and your foes will lord it over you. You will flee though no one pursues you.
18 If even after this you do not obey me, I will increase the chastisement for your sins sevenfold,(M) 19 to break your proud strength. I will make the sky above you as hard as iron, and your soil as hard as bronze, 20 so that your strength will be spent in vain; your land will bear no crops, and its trees no fruit.
21 If then you continue hostile, unwilling to obey me, I will multiply my blows sevenfold, as your sins deserve. 22 I will unleash wild beasts against you, to rob you of your children and wipe out your livestock, till your population dwindles away and your roads become deserted.
23 If, with all this, you still do not accept my discipline and continue hostile to me, 24 (N)I, too, will continue to be hostile to you and I, for my part, will smite you for your sins sevenfold. 25 I will bring against you the sword, the avenger of my covenant. Though you then huddle together in your cities, I will send pestilence among you, till you are delivered to the enemy. 26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women will need but one oven for baking your bread, and they shall dole it out to you by weight;(O) and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.
27 If, despite all this, you disobey and continue hostile to me, 28 I will continue in my hostile rage toward you, and I myself will discipline you for your sins sevenfold, 29 till you begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.(P) 30 I will demolish your high places, overthrow your incense stands, and cast your corpses upon the corpses of your idols.(Q) In my loathing of you, 31 I will lay waste your cities and desolate your sanctuaries, refusing your sweet-smelling offerings. 32 So devastated will I leave the land that your enemies who come to live there will stand aghast at the sight of it.(R) 33 And you I will scatter among the nations(S) at the point of my drawn sword, leaving your countryside desolate and your cities deserted. 34 Then shall the land, during the time it lies waste, make up its lost sabbaths, while you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land have rest and make up for its sabbaths(T) 35 during all the time that it lies desolate, enjoying the rest that you would not let it have on your sabbaths when you lived there.
36 Those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies, I will make so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they shall run as if from the sword, and fall though no one pursues them; 37 stumbling over one another as if to escape a sword, while no one is after them—so helpless will you be to take a stand against your foes! 38 You shall perish among the nations, swallowed up in your enemies’ country. 39 Those of you who survive will waste away in the lands of their enemies, for their own and their ancestors’ guilt.(U)
40 [d]They will confess(V) their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors in their treachery against me and in their continued hostility toward me, 41 so that I, too, had to be hostile to them and bring them into their enemies’ land. Then, when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac; and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember.(W) The land, too, I will remember. 43 The land will be forsaken by them, that in its desolation without them, it may make up its sabbaths, and that they, too, may make good the debt of their guilt for having spurned my decrees and loathed my statutes. 44 Yet even so, even while they are in their enemies’ land, I will not reject or loathe them to the point of wiping them out, thus making void my covenant with them; for I, the Lord, am their God. 45 I will remember for them the covenant I made with their forebears, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations,(X) that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
46 These are the statutes, decrees and laws which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.(Y)
V. Redemption of Offerings
Chapter 27
Votive Offerings and Dedications. 1 The Lord said to Moses: 2 [e]Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When anyone makes a vow to the Lord(Z) with respect to the value of a human being, 3 the value for males between the ages of twenty and sixty shall be fifty silver shekels, by the sanctuary shekel; 4 and for a female, the value shall be thirty shekels. 5 For persons between the ages of five and twenty, the value for a male shall be twenty shekels, and for a female, ten shekels. 6 For persons between the ages of one month and five years, the value for a male shall be five silver shekels, and for a female, three shekels. 7 For persons of sixty or more, for a male the value shall be fifteen shekels, and ten shekels for a female. 8 However, if the one who made the vow is too poor to meet the sum,(AA) the person must be set before the priest, who shall determine a value; the priest will do this in keeping with the means of the one who made the vow.
9 If the offering vowed to the Lord is an animal that may be sacrificed, every such animal given to the Lord becomes sacred.(AB) 10 The offerer shall not substitute or exchange another for it, either a worse or a better one. If the offerer exchanges one animal in place of another, both the original and its substitute shall become sacred. 11 If any unclean animal which is unfit for sacrifice(AC) to the Lord is vowed, it must be set before the priest, 12 who shall determine its value[f] in keeping with its good or bad qualities, and the value set by the priest shall stand. 13 If the offerer wishes to redeem the animal, the person shall pay one fifth more than this valuation.(AD)
14 [g]When someone dedicates a house as sacred to the Lord,[h] the priest shall determine its value in keeping with its good or bad qualities, and the value set by the priest shall stand. 15 A person dedicating a house who then wishes to redeem it shall pay one fifth more than the price thus established, and then it will again belong to that individual.(AE)
16 If someone dedicates to the Lord a portion of hereditary land, its valuation shall be made according to the amount of seed required to sow it, the acreage sown with a homer[i] of barley seed being valued at fifty silver shekels. 17 If the dedication of a field is made at the beginning of a jubilee period, the full valuation shall hold; 18 but if it is some time after this, the priest shall estimate its money value according to the number of years left until the next jubilee year, with a corresponding reduction on the valuation.(AF) 19 A person dedicating a field who then wishes to redeem[j](AG) it shall pay one fifth more than the price thus established, and so reclaim it. 20 If, instead of redeeming such a field, one sells it[k] to another, it may no longer be redeemed; 21 but at the jubilee it shall be released(AH) as sacred[l] to the Lord; like a field that is put under the ban, it shall become priestly property.
22 If someone dedicates to the Lord a field that was purchased and was not part of hereditary property, 23 the priest shall compute its value in proportion to the number of years until the next jubilee, and on the same day the person shall pay the price thus established, a sacred donation to the Lord; 24 at the jubilee the field shall revert to the hereditary owner of this land from whom it had been purchased.[m]
25 Every valuation shall be made according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel. There are twenty gerahs to the shekel.
Irredeemable Offerings. 26 [n]Note that a firstborn animal,(AI) which as such already belongs to the Lord, may not be dedicated. Whether an ox or a sheep, it is the Lord’s. 27 But if it is an unclean animal,[o] it may be redeemed by paying one fifth more than its value. If it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at its value.
28 Note, also, that any possession which someone puts under the ban[p] for the Lord, whether it is a human being, an animal, or a hereditary field, shall be neither sold nor redeemed; everything that is put under the ban becomes most holy to the Lord.(AJ) 29 All human beings that are put under the ban cannot be redeemed; they must be put to death.(AK)
30 [q]All tithes of the land, whether in grain from the fields or in fruit from the trees, belong to the Lord; they are sacred to the Lord.(AL) 31 If someone wishes to redeem any of the tithes, the person shall pay one fifth more than their value. 32 The tithes of the herd and the flock, every tenth animal that passes under the herdsman’s rod, shall be sacred to the Lord. 33 It shall not matter whether good ones or bad ones are thus chosen, and no exchange may be made. If any exchange is made, both the original animal and its substitute become sacred and cannot be redeemed.
34 These are the commandments which the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.(AM)
Chapter 2
The Healing of a Paralytic. 1 [a]When Jesus returned to Capernaum(A) after some days, it became known that he was at home.[b] 2 Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. 5 [c]When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” 6 [d]Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves, 7 “Why does this man speak that way?[e] He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?”(B) 8 Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’? 10 [f]But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”— 11 he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” 12 He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”
The Call of Levi. 13 [g](C)Once again he went out along the sea. All the crowd came to him and he taught them. 14 (D)As he passed by,[h] he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 15 While he was at table in his house,[i] many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. 16 [j]Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 Jesus heard this and said to them [that], “Those who are well do not need a physician,[k] but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
The Question About Fasting.[l] 18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.(E) People came to him and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast[m] while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. 22 Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
The Disciples and the Sabbath.[n] 23 As he was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.(F) 24 At this the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”(G) 25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David did[o] when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? 26 How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?”(H) 27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for man,[p] not man for the sabbath.(I) 28 [q]That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.