Old/New Testament
Three Major Festivals
16 Honor Yahweh your Elohim by celebrating Passover in the month of Abib. In the month of Abib Yahweh your Elohim brought you out of Egypt at night. 2 Slaughter an animal from your flock or herd as the Passover sacrifice to Yahweh your Elohim. Do this at the place where Yahweh will choose for his name to live. 3 Never eat leavened bread with the meat from this sacrifice. Instead, for seven days you must eat unleavened bread at this festival. (It is the bread of misery because you left Egypt in a hurry.) Eat this bread so that, as long as you live, you will remember the day you left Egypt. 4 There should be no yeast anywhere in your land for seven days. Never leave until morning any of the meat you slaughter on the evening of the first day.
5 You’re not allowed to slaughter the animals for Passover in any of the cities Yahweh your Elohim is giving you. 6 Instead, slaughter your animals for Passover in the place where Yahweh your Elohim will choose for his name to live. Do this in the evening as the sun goes down. This is the same time you did it when you left Egypt. 7 Cook the meat, and eat it at the place Yahweh your Elohim will choose. In the morning you may go back to your tents. 8 For six days eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day hold a religious assembly dedicated to Yahweh your Elohim. Don’t do any work that day.
9 Count seven weeks from the time you start harvesting grain. 10 Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to Yahweh your Elohim. Bring a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings Yahweh your Elohim has given you. 11 Enjoy yourselves in the presence of Yahweh your Elohim along with your sons, daughters, male and female slaves, the Levites who live in your cities, the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live among you. Enjoy yourselves at the place Yahweh your Elohim will choose for his name to live. 12 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and obey these laws carefully.
13 After you have gathered the grain from your threshing floor[a] and made your wine, celebrate the Festival of Booths for seven days. 14 Enjoy yourselves at the festival along with your sons, daughters, male and female slaves, the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your cities. 15 For seven days you will celebrate this festival dedicated to Yahweh your Elohim in the place Yahweh will choose. You will enjoy yourselves, because Yahweh your Elohim will bless all your harvest and all your work.
16 Three times a year all your men must come into the presence of Yahweh your Elohim at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. But no one may come into the presence of Yahweh without an offering. 17 Each man must bring a gift in proportion to the blessings Yahweh your Elohim has given him.
Administering Justice
18 Appoint judges and officers for your tribes in every city that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly. 19 Never pervert justice. Instead, be impartial. Never take a bribe, because bribes blind wise people and deny justice to those who are in the right. 20 Strive for nothing but justice so that you will live and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
21 When you build the altar for Yahweh your Elohim, never plant beside it any tree dedicated to the goddess Asherah. 22 Never set up a sacred stone. These are things Yahweh your Elohim hates.
17 Never offer an ox or a sheep that has a defect or anything seriously wrong with it as a sacrifice to Yahweh your Elohim. That would be disgusting to Yahweh your Elohim.
2 In one of the cities Yahweh your Elohim is giving you, there may be a man or woman among you who is doing what Yahweh your Elohim considers evil. This person may be disregarding the conditions of Yahweh’s promise[b] 3 by worshiping and bowing down to other gods, the sun, the moon, or the whole army of heaven. I have forbidden this. 4 When you are told about it, investigate it thoroughly. If it’s true and it can be proven that this disgusting thing has been done in Israel, 5 then bring the man or woman who did this evil thing to the gates of your city, and stone that person to death. 6 The person can only be sentenced to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses, but no one should ever be sentenced to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The witnesses must start the execution, then all the other people will join them in putting the person to death. You must get rid of this evil.
8 There may be a case that is too hard for you to decide. It may involve murder, assault, or a dispute—any case which may be brought to court in your cities. Take this case to the place that Yahweh your Elohim will choose. 9 Go to the Levitical priests and the judge who is serving at that time. Ask for their opinion, and they will give you their verdict 10 at the place that Yahweh will choose. Do what they tell you. Follow all their instructions carefully, 11 and do what they tell you to do in their verdict. Do exactly what they tell you to do in their decision. 12 If anyone deliberately disobeys the priest (who serves Yahweh your Elohim) or the judge, that person must die. You must get rid of this evil in Israel. 13 When all the people hear about it, they will be afraid and will never defy God’s law again.
14 You will enter the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you. You will take possession of it and live there. You will say, “Let’s have our own king like all the other nations around us.” 15 Be sure to appoint the king Yahweh your Elohim will choose. He must be one of your own people. Never let a foreigner be king, because he’s not one of your own people.
16 The king must never own a large number of horses or make the people return to Egypt to get more horses. Yahweh has told you, “You will never go back there again.” 17 The king must never have a large number of wives, or he will turn away from God. And he must never own a lot of gold and silver.
18 When he becomes king, he should have the Levitical priests make him a copy of these teachings on a scroll. 19 He must keep it with him and read it his entire life. He will learn to fear Yahweh his Elohim and faithfully obey everything found in these teachings and laws. 20 Then he won’t think he’s better than the rest of his people, and he won’t disobey these commands in any way. So he and his sons will rule for a long time in Israel.
Laws for the Levites
18 The Levitical priests—in fact, the whole tribe of Levi—will receive no land or property of their own like the rest of the Israelites. They will eat what has been sacrificed to Yahweh. These sacrifices will be what they receive.[c] 2 So the Levites will have no land of their own like the other Israelites. Yahweh will be their inheritance, as he promised them.
3 This is what the people owe the priests whenever they sacrifice an ox, a sheep, or a goat: the shoulder, jaws, and stomach. 4 Also, give them the first produce harvested: grain, new wine, olive oil, and the first wool you shear from your sheep. 5 Out of all your tribes, Yahweh your Elohim has chosen the Levites and their descendants to do the work of serving in the name of Yahweh forever.
6 A Levite from any of your cities in Israel may come from where he has been living to the place Yahweh will choose. He may come as often as he wants 7 and may serve in the name of Yahweh his Elohim like all the other Levites who do their work in Yahweh’s presence. 8 If he does, he’ll get the same amount of food as they do, in addition to what he gets from selling his family’s goods.[d]
Laws about Prophets
9 When you come to the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you, never learn the disgusting practices of those nations. 10 You must never sacrifice your sons or daughters by burning them alive, practice black magic, be a fortuneteller, witch, or sorcerer, 11 cast spells, ask ghosts or spirits for help, or consult the dead. 12 Whoever does these things is disgusting to Yahweh. Yahweh your Elohim is forcing these nations out of your way because of their disgusting practices. 13 You must have integrity in dealing with Yahweh your Elohim. 14 These nations you are forcing out listen to fortunetellers and to those who practice black magic. But Yahweh your Elohim won’t let you do anything like that.
15 Yahweh your Elohim will send you a prophet, an Israelite like me. You must listen to him. 16 This is what you asked Yahweh your Elohim to give you on the day of the assembly at Mount Horeb. You said, “We never want to hear the voice of Yahweh our Elohim or see this raging fire again. If we do, we’ll die!”
17 Yahweh told me, “What they’ve said is good. 18 So I will send them a prophet, an Israelite like you. I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 Whoever refuses to listen to the words that prophet speaks in my name will answer to me. 20 But any prophet who dares to say something in my name that I didn’t command him to say or who speaks in the name of other gods must die.”
21 You may be wondering, “How can we recognize that Yahweh didn’t speak this message?” 22 If a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name and what he says doesn’t happen or come true, then it didn’t come from Yahweh. That prophet has spoken on his own authority. Never be afraid of him.
Jesus Teaches Disciples on the Mount of Olives(A)
13 As Yeshua was going out of the temple courtyard, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look at these huge stones and these beautiful buildings!”
2 Yeshua said to him, “Do you see these large buildings? Not one of these stones will be left on top of another. Each one will be torn down.”
3 As Yeshua was sitting on the Mount of Olives facing the temple buildings, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will this happen? What will be the sign when all this will come to an end?”
5 Yeshua answered them, “Be careful not to let anyone deceive you. 6 Many will come using my name. They will say, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many people.
7 “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be alarmed! These things must happen, but they don’t mean that the end has come. 8 Nation will fight against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes and famines in various places. These are only the beginning pains of the end.
9 “Be on your guard! People will hand you over to the Jewish courts and whip you in their synagogues. You will stand in front of governors and kings to testify to them because of me. 10 But first, the Good News must be spread to all nations. 11 When they take you away to hand you over to the authorities, don’t worry ahead of time about what you will say. Instead, say whatever is given to you to say when the time comes. Indeed, you are not the one who will be speaking, but the Holy Spirit will.
12 “Brother will hand over brother to death; a father will hand over his child. Children will rebel against their parents and kill them. 13 Everyone will hate you because you are committed to me. But the person who endures to the end will be saved.
14 “When you see the disgusting thing that will cause destruction standing where it should not (let the reader take note), those of you in Judea should flee to the mountains. 15 Those who are on the roof should not come down to get anything out of their houses. 16 Those who are in the field should not turn back to get their coats.
17 “How horrible it will be for the women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days. 18 Pray that it will not be in winter. 19 It will be a time of misery that has not happened from the beginning of God’s creation until now, and will certainly never happen again. 20 If the Lord does not reduce that time, no one will be saved. But those days will be reduced because of those whom God has chosen.
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.