Old/New Testament

5 The Lord said to Moses,

² Command the Israelites that they put outside the camp every leper and everyone who has a discharge, and whoever is defiled by [coming in contact with] the dead.

³ Both male and female you shall put out; without the camp you shall put them, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.

⁴ The Israelites did so, and put them outside the camp; as the Lord said to Moses, so the Israelites did.

⁵ And the Lord said to Moses,

⁶ Say to the Israelites, When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit by breaking faith with the Lord, and that person is guilty,

⁷ Then he shall confess the sin which he has committed, and he shall make restitution for his wrong in full, and add a fifth to it, and give it to him whom he has wronged.

⁸ But if the man [wronged] has no kinsman to whom the restitution may be made, let it be given to the Lord for the priest, besides the ram of atonement with which atonement shall be made for the offender.

⁹ And every offering of all the holy things of the Israelites which they bring to the priest shall be his.

¹⁰ And every man’s hallowed things shall be the priest’s; whatever any man gives the priest shall be his.

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses,

¹² Say to the Israelites, If any man’s wife goes astray and commits an offense of guilt against him,

¹³ And a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and it is kept secret though she is defiled, and there is no witness against her nor was she taken in the act,

¹⁴ And if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife who has defiled herself—or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife though she has not defiled herself—

¹⁵ Then shall the man bring his wife to the priest, and he shall bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal; but he shall pour no oil upon it nor put frankincense on it [symbols of favor and joy], for it is a cereal offering of jealousy and suspicion, a memorial offering bringing iniquity to remembrance.

¹⁶ And the priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord.

¹⁷ And the priest shall take holy water [probably from the sacred laver] in an earthen vessel and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it in the water.

¹⁸ And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and let the hair of the woman’s head hang loose, and put the meal offering of remembrance in her hands, which is the jealousy and suspicion offering. And the priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings the curse.

¹⁹ Then the priest shall make her take an oath, and say to the woman, If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray to uncleanness with another instead of your husband, then be free from any effect of this water of bitterness which brings the curse.

²⁰ But if you have gone astray and you are defiled, some man having lain with you beside your husband,

²¹ Then the priest shall make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman, The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell.

²² May this water that brings the curse go into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away. And the woman shall say, So let it be, so let it be.

²³ The priest shall then write these curses in a book and shall wash them off into the water of bitterness;

²⁴ And he shall cause the woman to drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her [to try her] bitterly.

²⁵ Then the priest shall take the cereal offering of jealousy and suspicion out of the woman’s hand and shall wave the offering before the Lord and offer it upon the altar.

²⁶ And the priest shall take a handful of the cereal offering as the memorial portion of it and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.

²⁷ And when he has made her drink the water, then if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, the curse water which she drank shall be bitterness and cause her body to swell and her thigh to fall away, and the woman shall be a curse among her people.

²⁸ But if the woman is not defiled and is clean, then she shall be free [from the curse] and be able to have children.

²⁹ This is the law of jealousy and suspicion when a wife goes aside to another instead of her husband and is defiled,

³⁰ Or when the spirit of jealousy and suspicion comes upon a man and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife; then shall he set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute on her all this law.

³¹ The [husband] shall be free from iniquity and guilt, and that woman [if guilty] shall bear her iniquity.

6 And the Lord said to Moses,

² Say to the Israelites, When either a man or a woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, that is, one separated and consecrated to the Lord,

³ He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar of wine or of strong drink, and shall drink no grape juice, or eat grapes, fresh or dried.^(A)

⁴ All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing produced from the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.

⁵ All the days of the vow of his separation and abstinence there shall no razor come upon his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.

⁶ All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body.

⁷ He shall not make himself unclean for his father, mother, brother, or sister, when they die, because his separation and abstinence to his God is upon his head.

⁸ All the days of his separation and abstinence he is holy to the Lord.

⁹ And if any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he has defiled his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day shall he shave it.

¹⁰ On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest to the door of the Tent of Meeting,

¹¹ And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering and make atonement for him because he sinned by reason of the dead body. He shall consecrate his head the same day,

¹² And he shall consecrate and separate himself to the Lord for the days of his separation and shall bring a male lamb a year old for a trespass or guilt offering; but the previous days shall be void and lost, because his separation was defiled.

¹³ And this is the law of the Nazirite when the days of his separation and abstinence are fulfilled. He shall be brought to the door of the Tent of Meeting,

¹⁴ And he shall offer his gift to the Lord, one he-lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for a peace offering,

¹⁵ And a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread spread with oil, and their cereal offering, and their drink offering.

¹⁶ And the priest shall present them before the Lord and shall offer the person’s sin offering and his burnt offering.

¹⁷ And he shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord, with the basket of unleavened bread; the priest shall offer also its cereal offering and its drink offering.

¹⁸ And the Nazirite shall shave his consecrated head at the door of the Tent of Meeting, and shall take the hair and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings.

¹⁹ And the priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazirite, after he has shaven the hair of his separation and abstinence.

²⁰ And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord; they are a holy portion for the priest, with the breast that is waved and the thigh or shoulder that is offered; and after that the Nazirite may drink wine.

²¹ This is the law for the Nazirite who has made a vow. His offering to the Lord, besides what else he is able to afford, shall be according to the vow which he has vowed; so shall he do according to the law for his separation and abstinence [as a Nazirite].^(B)

²² And the Lord said to Moses,

²³ Say to Aaron and his sons, This is the way you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them,

²⁴ The Lord bless you and watch, guard, and keep you;

²⁵ The Lord make His face to shine upon and enlighten you and be gracious (kind, merciful, and giving favor) to you;

²⁶ The Lord lift up His [approving] countenance upon you and give you peace (tranquility of heart and life continually).

²⁷ And they shall put My name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.

4 Again Jesus began to teach beside the lake. And a very great crowd gathered about Him, so that He got into a ship in order to sit in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was at the lakeside on the shore.

² And He taught them many things in parables (illustrations or comparisons put beside truths to explain them), and in His teaching He said to them:

³ Give attention to this! Behold, a sower went out to sow.

⁴ And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

⁵ Other seed [of the same kind] fell on ground full of rocks, where it had not much soil; and at once it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil;

⁶ And when the sun came up, it was scorched, and because it had not taken root, it withered away.

⁷ Other seed [of the same kind] fell among thorn plants, and the thistles grew and pressed together and utterly choked and suffocated it, and it yielded no grain.

⁸ And other seed [of the same kind] fell into good (well-adapted) soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing, and yielded up to thirty times as much, and sixty times as much, and even a hundred times as much as had been sown.

⁹ And He said, He who has ears to hear, let him be hearing [and let him ^[a]consider, and comprehend].

¹⁰ And as soon as He was alone, those who were around Him, with the Twelve [apostles], began to ask Him about the parables.

¹¹ And He said to them, To you has been entrusted the mystery of the kingdom of God [that is, ^[b]the secret counsels of God which are hidden from the ungodly]; but for those outside [^[c]of our circle] everything becomes a parable,

¹² In order that they may [indeed] look and look but not see and perceive, and may hear and hear but not grasp and comprehend, ^[d]lest haply they should turn again, and it [^[e]their willful rejection of the truth] should be forgiven them.^(A)

¹³ And He said to them, Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?

¹⁴ The sower sows the Word.

¹⁵ The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them.

¹⁶ And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy;

¹⁷ And they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away.

¹⁸ And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word;

¹⁹ Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless.

²⁰ And those sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit—some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some [even] a hundred times as much.