Old/New Testament
Chapter 16
Feast of the Passover. 1 Observe the month of Abib[a] by keeping the Passover of the Lord, your God,(A) since it was in the month of Abib that the Lord, your God, brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 You shall offer the Passover sacrifice from your flock and your herd to the Lord, your God, in the place the Lord will choose as the dwelling place of his name.(B) 3 (C)You shall not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days you shall eat with it only unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, so that you may remember as long as you live the day you left the land of Egypt; for in hurried flight you left the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven is to be found with you in all your territory for seven days, and none of the meat which you sacrificed on the evening of the first day shall be kept overnight for the next day.
5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in any of the communities which the Lord, your God, gives you; 6 only at the place which the Lord, your God, will choose as the dwelling place of his name, and in the evening at sunset, at the very time when you left Egypt, shall you sacrifice the Passover.(D) 7 You shall cook and eat it at the place the Lord, your God, will choose; then in the morning you may return to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for the Lord, your God; on that day you shall do no work.(E)
Feast of Weeks. 9 (F)You shall count off seven weeks; begin to count the seven weeks from the day when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 You shall then keep the feast of Weeks[b] for the Lord, your God, and the measure of your own voluntary offering which you will give shall be in proportion to the blessing the Lord, your God, has given you. 11 You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord, your God, together with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and the Levite within your gates, as well as the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow among you, in the place which the Lord, your God, will choose as the dwelling place of his name.(G) 12 Remember that you too were slaves in Egypt, so carry out these statutes carefully.
Feast of Booths. 13 (H)You shall celebrate the feast of Booths[c] for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and wine press. 14 You shall rejoice at your feast,(I) together with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and also the Levite, the resident alien, the orphan and the widow within your gates. 15 For seven days you shall celebrate this feast for the Lord, your God, in the place which the Lord will choose; since the Lord, your God, has blessed you in all your crops and in all your undertakings, you will be full of joy.
16 Three times a year,(J) then, all your males shall appear before the Lord, your God, in the place which he will choose: at the feast of Unleavened Bread, at the feast of Weeks, and at the feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed, 17 but each with his own gift, in proportion to the blessing which the Lord, your God, has given to you.
Justice. 18 (K)In all the communities which the Lord, your God, is giving you, you shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes to administer true justice for the people. 19 You must not distort justice: you shall not show partiality;(L) you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes even of the wise and twists the words even of the just. 20 Justice, justice alone shall you pursue, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord, your God, is giving you.
Illicit Worship. 21 (M)You shall not plant an asherah[d] of any kind of wood next to the altar of the Lord, your God, which you will build;(N) 22 nor shall you erect a sacred pillar, such as the Lord, your God, hates.
Chapter 17
1 You shall not sacrifice to the Lord, your God, an ox or a sheep with any serious defect;(O) that would be an abomination to the Lord, your God.
2 (P)If there is found in your midst, in any one of the communities which the Lord, your God, gives you, a man or a woman who does evil in the sight of the Lord, your God, and transgresses his covenant,(Q) 3 by going to serve other gods, by bowing down to them, to the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, contrary to my command;(R) 4 and if you are told or hear of it, you must investigate it thoroughly. If the truth of the matter is established that this abomination has been committed in Israel, 5 you shall bring the man or the woman who has done this evil deed out to your gates[e] and stone the man or the woman to death. 6 Only on the testimony of two or three witnesses shall a person be put to death;(S) no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised to put the person to death, and afterward the hands of all the people.(T) Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.
Judges. 8 (U)If there is a case for judgment which proves too baffling for you to decide, in a matter of bloodshed or of law or of injury, matters of dispute within your gates, you shall then go up to the place which the Lord, your God, will choose, 9 to the levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time. They shall investigate the case and then announce to you the decision.(V) 10 You shall act according to the decision they announce to you in the place which the Lord will choose, carefully observing everything as they instruct you. 11 You shall carry out the instruction they give you and the judgment they pronounce, without turning aside either to the right or left from the decision they announce to you. 12 Anyone who acts presumptuously and does not obey the priest[f] who officiates there in the ministry of the Lord, your God, or the judge, shall die. Thus shall you purge the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people, on hearing of it, shall fear, and will never again act presumptuously.(W)
The King. 14 (X)When you have come into the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, should you then decide, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,”(Y) 15 you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord, your God, will choose.(Z) Someone from among your own kindred you may set over you as king; you may not set over you a foreigner, who is no kin of yours. 16 [g]But he shall not have a great number of horses; nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord said to you, Do not go back that way again.(AA) 17 Neither shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart turn away,(AB) nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold. 18 When he is sitting upon his royal throne, he shall write a copy of this law[h] upon a scroll from the one that is in the custody of the levitical priests.(AC) 19 [i](AD)It shall remain with him and he shall read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to fear the Lord, his God, and to observe carefully all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 so that he does not exalt himself over his kindred or turn aside from this commandment to the right or to the left, and so that he and his descendants may reign long in Israel.
Chapter 18
Priests. 1 The levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no hereditary portion with Israel; they shall eat the fire offerings of the Lord and the portions due to him.(AE) 2 They shall have no heritage among their kindred; the Lord himself is their heritage, as he has told them.(AF) 3 This shall be the due of the priests from the people: those who are offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep, shall give the priest the shoulder, the jowls and the stomach. 4 The first fruits of your grain, your wine, and your oil,(AG) as well as the first shearing of your flock, you shall also give him. 5 For the Lord, your God, has chosen him out of all your tribes to be in attendance to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his descendants for all time.(AH)
6 When a Levite goes from one of your communities anywhere in Israel in which he has been residing, to visit, as his heart may desire, the place which the Lord will choose, 7 and ministers there in the name of the Lord, his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand before the Lord there, 8 he shall receive the same portions to eat, along with his stipends and patrimony.[j]
Prophets. 9 When you come into the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of the nations there.(AI) 10 (AJ)Let there not be found among you anyone who causes their son or daughter to pass through the fire,[k] or practices divination, or is a soothsayer, augur, or sorcerer, 11 or who casts spells, consults ghosts and spirits, or seeks oracles from the dead. 12 Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, and because of such abominations the Lord, your God, is dispossessing them before you.(AK) 13 You must be altogether sincere with the Lord, your God. 14 Although these nations whom you are about to dispossess listen to their soothsayers and diviners, the Lord, your God, will not permit you to do so.
15 A prophet like me[l] will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.(AL) 16 This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let me not again hear the voice of the Lord, my God, nor see this great fire any more, or I will die.”(AM) 17 And the Lord said to me, What they have said is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kindred, and will put my words into the mouth of the prophet; the prophet shall tell them all that I command.(AN) 19 Anyone who will not listen to my words which the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will hold accountable for it.(AO) 20 But if a prophet presumes to speak a word in my name(AP) that I have not commanded, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
21 Should you say to yourselves, “How can we recognize that a word is one the Lord has not spoken?”, 22 if a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the word does not come true, it is a word the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not fear him.
Chapter 13
The Destruction of the Temple Foretold.[a] 1 As he was making his way out of the temple area one of his disciples said to him, “Look, teacher, what stones and what buildings!”(A) 2 Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down.”
The Signs of the End. 3 [b]As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple area, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,(B) 4 “Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be when all these things are about to come to an end?” 5 Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one deceives you.(C) 6 Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and reports of wars do not be alarmed; such things must happen, but it will not yet be the end. 8 Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes from place to place and there will be famines. These are the beginnings of the labor pains.
The Coming Persecution. 9 (D)“Watch out for yourselves. They will hand you over to the courts. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will be arraigned before governors and kings because of me, as a witness before them. 10 But the gospel must first be preached to all nations.[c] 11 When they lead you away and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say.(E) But say whatever will be given to you at that hour. For it will not be you who are speaking but the holy Spirit. 12 Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. 13 You will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.
The Great Tribulation. 14 (F)“When you see the desolating abomination standing[d] where he should not (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains,(G) 15 [and] a person on a housetop must not go down or enter to get anything out of his house,(H) 16 and a person in a field must not return to get his cloak. 17 Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days. 18 Pray that this does not happen in winter. 19 For those times will have tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of God’s creation until now, nor ever will be.(I) 20 If the Lord had not shortened those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he did shorten the days.
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.