Old/New Testament
Passover
16 “Remember, in the month of Abib you must celebrate Passover to honor the Lord your God. It was that night in Abib when the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt. 2 You must go to the place the Lord your God will choose to be the home for his name. There you must offer the Passover sacrifice to honor the Lord. You must offer the cattle and goats. 3 Don’t eat bread that has yeast in it with this sacrifice. You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. This bread is called ‘Bread of Trouble.’ It will help you remember the troubles you had in Egypt. Remember how quickly you had to leave that country. You must remember that day as long as you live. 4 There must be no yeast in anyone’s house anywhere in the country for seven days. And all the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day must be eaten before morning.
5 “You must not sacrifice the Passover animal in any of the towns that the Lord your God gives you. 6 You must sacrifice the Passover animal only at the place that the Lord your God will choose to be the home for his name. There you must sacrifice the Passover animal in the evening when the sun goes down. This is the festival when you remember that God brought you out of Egypt. 7 You must cook the meal and eat it at the place the Lord your God will choose. The next morning you may go back home. 8 You must eat unleavened bread six days. On the seventh day you must not do any work. On this day the people will come together for a special meeting to honor the Lord your God.
Festival of Harvest
9 “You must count seven weeks from the time you begin to harvest the grain. 10 Then celebrate the Festival of Harvest for the Lord your God. Do this by bringing him some special gift you want to bring. Decide how much to give by thinking about how much the Lord your God has blessed you. 11 Go to the place the Lord will choose to be the home for his name. You and your people should enjoy yourselves together there with the Lord your God. Take all your people with you—your sons, your daughters, and all your servants. And take the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows living in your towns. 12 Remember, you were slaves in Egypt. So be sure to obey these laws.
Festival of Shelters
13 “Seven days after you have gathered your harvest in from your threshing floor and from your winepress, you should celebrate the Festival of Shelters. 14 Enjoy yourselves at this festival—you, your sons, your daughters, all your servants, and the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows living in your towns. 15 Celebrate this festival for seven days at the special place the Lord will choose. Do this to honor the Lord your God. The Lord your God blessed your harvest and all the work you did, so be very happy!
16 “Three times a year all your men must come to meet with the Lord your God at the special place he will choose. They must come for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Harvest, and the Festival of Shelters. Everyone who comes to meet with the Lord must bring a gift. 17 Each man should give as much as he can. He should decide how much to give by thinking about how much the Lord has given him.
Judges and Officers for the People
18 “Choose men to be judges and officers in every town that the Lord your God gives you. Every tribe must do this. And these men must be fair in judging the people. 19 You must always be fair. You must not favor some people over other people. You must not take money to change your mind in judgment. Money blinds the eyes of wise people and changes what a good person will say. 20 Goodness and Fairness! You must try very hard to be good and fair all the time. Then you will live and keep the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
God Hates Idols
21 “When you set up an altar for the Lord your God, you must not place beside the altar any of the wooden poles that honor the goddess Asherah. 22 You must not set up special stones for worshiping false gods. The Lord your God hates them.
Use Only Good Animals for Sacrifices
17 “You must not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or sheep that has anything wrong with it. The Lord your God would hate that.
Punishment for Worshiping Idols
2 “You might hear about an evil thing that happens in one of the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. You might hear that a man or woman in your group has sinned against the Lord your God. You might hear that they have broken his agreement or 3 that they have worshiped other gods or maybe the sun, the moon or the stars. I never told you to do that! 4 If you hear bad news like this, you must check it carefully. You must learn if it is true that this terrible thing has really happened in Israel. If you prove that it is true, 5 you must punish the person who did this evil thing. You must take that man or woman out to a public place near the city gates and kill them with stones. 6 But no one should be punished with death if only one witness says that person did that evil thing. But if two or three witnesses say it is true, the person must be killed. 7 The witnesses must throw the first stones to kill that person. Then the other people should throw stones to finish killing that person. In this way you will remove this evil from your group.
Difficult Court Decisions
8 “There might be some problems that are too hard for your courts to judge. It might be a murder case or an argument between two people. Or it might be a fight in which someone was hurt. When these cases are argued in your towns, your judges there might not be able to decide what is right. Then you must go to the special place that the Lord your God will choose. 9 You must go to the priests who are Levites and to the judge on duty at that time. They will decide what to do about that problem. 10 There at the Lord’s special place they will tell you their decision. You must do whatever they say. Be sure to do everything they tell you to do. 11 You must accept their decision and follow their instructions exactly—don’t change anything!
12 “You must punish anyone who refuses to obey the judge or the priest who is there at that time serving the Lord your God. That person must die. You must remove this evil person from Israel. 13 All the people will hear about this punishment and be afraid. Then they will not be stubborn anymore.
How to Choose a King
14 “You will enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You will take that land and live in it. Then you will say, ‘We will put a king over us, like all the nations around us.’ 15 When that happens, you must be sure to choose the king that the Lord your God chooses. The king over you must be one of your own people. You must not make a foreigner your king. 16 The king must not get more and more horses for himself. And he must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because the Lord has told you, ‘You must never go back that way.’ 17 Also, the king must not have too many wives, because that will make him turn away from the Lord. And he must not make himself rich with silver and gold.
18 “When the king begins to rule, he must write a copy of the law for himself in a book. He must make that copy from the books that the priests from the tribe of Levi keep. 19 He must keep that book with him and read from it all his life, because he must learn to respect the Lord his God. He must learn to completely obey everything the law commands. 20 Then the king will not think that he is better than any of his own people. He will not turn away from the law, but he will follow it exactly. Then he and his descendants will rule the kingdom of Israel a long time.
Supporting the Priests and Levites
18 “The tribe of Levi will not get any share of land in Israel. The priests come from that tribe and they will eat the special sacrifices that are offered as gifts to the Lord. That is the share for the people from the tribe of Levi. 2 The tribe of Levi will not get any share of land like the other tribes. Their share is the Lord himself, as he said to them.
3 “When you kill one of your sheep or cattle for a sacrifice, you must give the priests these parts: the shoulder, both cheeks, and the stomach. 4 You must give the priests the first part of your harvest. You must give them the first part of your grain, your new wine, and your oil. You must give the Levites the first wool cut from your sheep. 5 This is because the Lord your God looked at all your tribes and chose Levi and his descendants to serve him as priests forever.
6 “Any Levite living in any town anywhere in Israel may leave his home and come to the Lord’s special place. He may do this anytime he wants. 7 And this Levite may serve in the name of the Lord his God, the same as all his brother Levites who are on duty before the Lord. 8 And that Levite will get an equal share with the other Levites, in addition to the share his family normally gets.[a]
Israel Must Not Live Like Other Nations
9 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don’t learn to do the terrible things the people of the other nations there do. 10 Don’t sacrifice your sons or daughters in the fires on your altars. Don’t try to learn what will happen in the future by talking to a fortuneteller or by going to a magician, a witch, or a sorcerer. 11 Don’t let anyone try to put magic spells on other people. Don’t let any of your people become a medium or a wizard. And no one should try to talk with someone who has died. 12 The Lord hates anyone who does these things. And because these other nations do these terrible things, the Lord your God will force them out of the land as you enter it. 13 You must be faithful to the Lord your God, never doing anything he considers wrong.
The Lord’s Special Prophet
14 “You will force the other nations out of your land. They listen to people who use magic and try to tell the future. But the Lord your God will not let you do these things. 15 The Lord your God will send to you a prophet. This prophet will come from among your own people, and he will be like me. You must listen to him. 16 God will send you this prophet because that is what you asked him to do. When you were gathered together at Mount Horeb, you became frightened and said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the Lord our God again! Don’t let us see that great fire or we will die!’
17 “The Lord said to me, ‘What they ask for is good. 18 I will send them a prophet like you. This prophet will be one of their own people. I will tell him what he must say, and he will tell the people everything I command. 19 This prophet will speak for me, and I will punish anyone who refuses to listen to my commands.’
How to Know False Prophets
20 “But a prophet might say something that I did not tell him to say. And he might tell people that he is speaking for me. If this happens, that prophet must be killed. Also a prophet might come that speaks for other gods. That prophet must also be killed. 21 You might be thinking, ‘How can we know if something a prophet says is not from the Lord?’ 22 If a prophet says he is speaking for the Lord, but what he says does not happen, you will know that the Lord did not say it. You will know that this prophet was speaking his own ideas. You don’t need to be afraid of him.
Jesus Warns About the Future(A)
13 Jesus was leaving the Temple area. One of his followers said to him, “Teacher, look how big those stones are! What beautiful buildings!”
2 Jesus said, “Do you see these great buildings? They will all be destroyed. Every stone will be thrown down to the ground. Not one stone will be left on another.”
3 Later, Jesus was sitting at a place on the Mount of Olives. He was alone with Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They could all see the Temple, and they said to Jesus, 4 “Tell us when these things will happen. And what will show us it is time for them to happen?”
5 Jesus said to them, “Be careful! Don’t let anyone fool you. 6 Many people will come and use my name. They will say, ‘I am the Messiah,[a]’ and they will fool many people. 7 You will hear about wars that are being fought. And you will hear stories about other wars beginning. But don’t be afraid. These things must happen before the end comes. 8 Nations will fight against other nations. Kingdoms will fight against other kingdoms. There will be times when there is no food for people to eat. And there will be earthquakes in different places. These things are only the beginning of troubles, like the first pains of a woman giving birth.
9 “You must be careful! There are people who will arrest you and take you to be judged for being my followers. They will beat you in their synagogues. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors. You will tell them about me. 10 Before the end comes, the Good News must be told to all nations. 11 Even when you are arrested and put on trial, don’t worry about what you will say. Say whatever God tells you at the time. It will not really be you speaking. It will be the Holy Spirit.
12 “Brothers will turn against their own brothers and hand them over to be killed. Fathers will hand over their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and have them killed. 13 All people will hate you because you follow me. But those who remain faithful to the end will be saved.
14 “You will see ‘the terrible thing that causes destruction.’[b] You will see this thing standing in the place where it should not be.” (Reader, I trust you understand what this means.) “Everyone in Judea at that time should run away to the mountains. 15 They should run away without wasting time to stop for anything. If someone is on the roof of their house, they must not go down to take things out of the house. 16 If someone is in the field, they must not go back to get a coat.
17 “During that time it will be hard for women who are pregnant or have small babies. 18 Pray that these things will not happen in winter, 19 because those days will be full of trouble. There will be more trouble than has ever happened since the beginning, when God made the world. And nothing that bad will ever happen again. 20 But the Lord has decided to make that terrible time short. If it were not made short, no one could survive. But the Lord will make that time short to help the special people he has chosen.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International