Bible-Reading.comDeuteronomy 18
1The priests, the Levites, that is, all the tribe of Levi, will have no part or heritage with Israel: their food and their heritage will be the offerings of the Lord made by fire.
2And they will have no heritage among their countrymen: the Lord is their heritage, as he has said to them.
3And this is to be the priests' right: those who make an offering of a sheep or an ox are to give to the priest the top part of the leg and the two sides of the head and the stomach.
4And in addition you are to give him the first of your grain and wine and oil, and the first wool cut from your sheep.
5For he, and his sons after him for ever, have been marked out by the Lord your God from all your tribes, to do the work of priests in the name of the Lord.
6And if a Levite, moved by a strong desire, comes from any town in all Israel where he is living to the place marked out by the Lord;
7Then he will do the work of a priest in the name of the Lord his God, with all his brothers the Levites who are there before the Lord.
8His food will be the same as theirs, in addition to what has come to him as the price of his property.
9When you have come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, do not take as your example the disgusting ways of those nations.
10Let there not be seen among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or anyone using secret arts, or a maker of strange sounds, or a reader of signs, or any wonder-worker,
11Or anyone using secret force on people, or putting questions to a spirit, or having secret knowledge, or going to the dead for directions.
12For all who do such things are disgusting to the Lord; and because of these disgusting things the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
13You are to be upright in heart before the Lord your God.
14For these nations, whose land you are taking, give attention to readers of signs and to those using secret arts: but the Lord your God will not let you do so.
15The Lord your God will give you a prophet from among your people, like me; you will give ear to him;
16In answer to the request you made to the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the great meeting, when you said, Let not the voice of the Lord my God come to my ears again, and let me not see this great fire any more, or death will overtake me.
17Then the Lord said to me, What they have said is well said.
18I will give them a prophet from among themselves, like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will say to them whatever I give him orders to say.
19And whoever does not give ear to my words which he will say in my name, will be responsible to me.
20But the prophet who takes it on himself to say words in my name which I have not given him orders to say, or who says anything in the name of other gods, will come to his death.
21And if you say in your hearts, How are we to be certain that the word does not come from the Lord?
22When a prophet makes a statement in the name of the Lord, if what he says does not take place and his words do not come true, then his word is not the word of the Lord: the words of the prophet were said in the pride of his heart, and you are to have no fear of him.
Deuteronomy 19
1When the nations, whose land the Lord your God is giving you, have been cut off by him, and you have taken their place and are living in their towns and in their houses;
2You are to have three towns marked out in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.
3You are to make ready a way, and see that the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, is marked out into three parts, to which any taker of life may go in flight.
4This is to be the rule for anyone who goes in flight there, after causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate;
5For example, if a man goes into the woods with his neighbour for the purpose of cutting down trees, and when he takes his axe to give a blow to the tree, the head of the axe comes off, and falling on to his neighbour gives him a wound causing his death; then the man may go in flight to one of these towns and be safe:
6For if not, he who has the right of punishment may go running after the taker of life in the heat of his wrath, and overtake him because the way is long, and give him a death-blow; though it is not right for him to be put to death because he was not moved by hate.
7And so I am ordering you to see that three towns are marked out for this purpose.
8And if the Lord your God makes wide the limits of your land, as he said in his oath to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he undertook to give to your fathers;
9If you keep and do all these orders which I give you today, loving the Lord your God and walking ever in his ways; then let three more towns, in addition to these three, be marked out for you:
10So that in all your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, no man may be wrongly put to death, for which you will be responsible.
11But if any man has hate for his neighbour, and waiting for him secretly makes an attack on him and gives him a blow causing his death, and then goes in flight to one of these towns;
12The responsible men of his town are to send and take him, and give him up to the one who has the right of punishment to be put to death.
13Have no pity on him, so that Israel may be clear from the crime of putting a man to death without cause, and it will be well for you.
14Your neighbour's landmark, which was put in its place by the men of old times, is not to be moved or taken away in the land of your heritage which the Lord your God is giving you.
15One witness may not make a statement against a man in relation to any sin or wrongdoing which he has done: on the word of two or three witnesses a question is to be judged.
16If a false witness makes a statement against a man, saying that he has done wrong,
17Then the two men, between whom the argument has taken place, are to come before the Lord, before the priests and judges who are then in power;
18And the judges will have the question looked into with care: and if the witness is seen to be false and to have made a false statement against his brother,
19Then do to him what it was his purpose to do to his brother: and so put away the evil from among you.
20And the rest of the people, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and never again do such evil among you.
21Have no pity; let life be given for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy 20
1When you go out to war against other nations, and come face to face with horses and war-carriages and armies greater in number than yourselves, have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, who took you up out of the land of Egypt.
2And when you are on the point of attacking, let the priest come forward and say to the people,
3Give ear, O Israel: today you are going forward to the fight; let your heart be strong; do not let uncontrolled fear overcome you because of those who are against you;
4For the Lord your God goes with you, fighting for you to give you salvation from those who are against you.
5And let the overseers say to the people, If there is any man who has made for himself a new house and has not gone into it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not take his house for himself.
6Or if any man has made a vine-garden without taking the first-fruits of it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not be the first to make use of the fruit.
7Or if any man is newly married and has had no sex relations with his wife, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another man may not take her.
8And let the overseers go on to say to the people, If there is any man whose heart is feeble with fear, let him go back to his house before he makes the hearts of his countrymen feeble.
9Then, after saying these words to the people, let the overseers put captains over the army.
10When you come to a town, before attacking it, make an offer of peace.
11And if it gives you back an answer of peace, opening its doors to you, then all the people in it may be put to forced work as your servants.
12If however it will not make peace with you, but war, then let it be shut in on all sides:
13And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, let every male in it be put to death without mercy.
14But the women and the children and the cattle and everything in the town and all its wealth, you may take for yourselves: the wealth of your haters, which the Lord your God has given you, will be your food.
15So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations.
16But in the towns of these peoples whose land the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, let no living thing be kept from death:
17Give them up to the curse; the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has given you orders:
18So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.
19If in war a town is shut in by your armies for a long time, do not let its trees be cut down and made waste; for their fruit will be your food; are the trees of the countryside men for you to take up arms against them?
20Only those trees which you are certain are not used for food may be cut down and put to destruction: and you are to make walls of attack against the town till it is taken.
Deuteronomy 21
1If, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you come across the dead body of a man in the open country, and you have no idea who has put him to death:
2Then your responsible men and your judges are to come out, and give orders for the distance from the dead body to the towns round about it to be measured;
3And whichever town is nearest to the body, the responsible men of that town are to take from the herd a young cow which has never been used for work or put under the yoke;
4And they are to take the cow into a valley where there is flowing water, and which is not ploughed or planted, and there the neck of the cow is to be broken:
5Then the priests, the sons of Levi, are to come near; for they have been marked out by the Lord your God to be his servants and to give blessings in the name of the Lord; and by their decision every argument and every blow is to be judged:
6And all the responsible men of that town which is nearest to the dead man, washing their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the valley,
7Will say, This death is not the work of our hands and our eyes have not seen it.
8Have mercy, O Lord, on your people Israel whom you have made free, and take away from your people the crime of a death without cause. Then they will no longer be responsible for the man's death.
9So you will take away the crime of a death without cause from among you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.
10When you go out to war against other nations, and the Lord your God gives them up into your hands and you take them as prisoners;
11If among the prisoners you see a beautiful woman and it is your desire to make her your wife;
12Then take her back to your house; and let her hair and her nails be cut;
13And let her take off the dress in which she was made prisoner and go on living in your house and weeping for her father and mother for a full month: and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she will be your wife.
14But if you have no delight in her, you are to let her go wherever she will; you may not take a price for her as if she was your property, for you have made use of her for your pleasure.
15If a man has two wives, one greatly loved and the other hated, and the two of them have had children by him; and if the first son is the child of the hated wife:
16Then when he gives his property to his sons for their heritage, he is not to put the son of his loved one in the place of the first son, the son of the hated wife:
17But he is to give his first son his birthright, and twice as great a part of his property: for he is the first-fruits of his strength and the right of the first son is his.
18If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:
19Then let his father and mother take him to the responsible men of the town, to the public place;
20And say to them, This son of ours is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, he will not give attention to us; he gives himself up to pleasure and strong drink.
21Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.
22If a man does a crime for which the punishment is death, and he is put to death by hanging him on a tree;
23Do not let his body be on the tree all night, but put it to rest in the earth the same day; for the man who undergoes hanging is cursed by God; so do not make unclean the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.