Parashat Shoftim

Judges Appointed

¹⁸ “Judges and officers you are to appoint within all your gates that Adonai your God is giving you, according to your tribes; and they are to judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹ You are not to twist justice—you must not show partiality or take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts the words of the righteous. ²⁰ Justice, justice you must pursue, so that you may live and possess the land that Adonai your God is giving you. ²¹ You are not to plant for yourself an Asherah pole of any kind of wood beside the altar of Adonai your God that you make for yourself. ²² Nor are you to set up a pillar for yourself—Adonai your God hates this.

Investigations and Witnesses

17 “You are not to sacrifice to Adonai your God a bull or a sheep that has a defect or anything bad—for that would be an abomination to Adonai your God. ² Suppose there is found in your midst—within one of your gates that Adonai your God is giving you—a man or woman who does what is evil in the eyes of Adonai your God by transgressing His covenant. ³ This person goes and serves other gods and worships them—the sun or moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded. ⁴ It is told to you and you have heard about it, and you investigate thoroughly and indeed it is true and the thing certain—this abomination has been done in Israel. ⁵ Then you are to bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and stone that man or woman with stones to death. ⁶ By the word of two or three witnesses,^[a] the one who is to die is to be put to death. No one is to be put to death by the word of one witness. ⁷ The hand of the witnesses is to be first to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

⁸ “Suppose a matter arises that is too hard for you to judge—over bloodshed, legal claims or assault—matters of controversy within your gates. Then you should go up to the place Adonai your God chooses, ⁹ and come to the Levitical kohanim and the judge in charge at that time. And you will inquire, and they will tell you the sentence of judgment. ¹⁰ You are to act according to the sentence they tell you from that place Adonai chooses, and take care to do all that they instruct you. ¹¹ You are to act according to the instruction they teach you and the judgment they tell you—you must not turn aside from the sentence they tell you, to the right or to the left. ¹² The man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the kohen who stands to serve there before Adonai your God, or to the judge, that man must die. So you are to purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and not act presumptuously again.

Torah for Kings

¹⁴ “When you come to the land that Adonai your God is giving you, possess it and dwell in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me,’ ¹⁵ you will indeed set over yourselves a king, whom Adonai your God chooses. One from among your brothers will be appointed as king over you—you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. ¹⁶ Only he should not multiply horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to multiply horses, because Adonai has said to you, “You must never go back that way again.” ¹⁷ Nor should he multiply wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn aside, nor multiply much silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸ “Now when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll, from what is before the Levitical kohanim. ¹⁹ It will remain with him, and he will read in it all the days of his life, in order to learn to fear Adonai his God and keep all the words of this Torah and these statutes. ²⁰ Then his heart will not be exalted above his brothers, and he will not turn from the commandment to the right or to the left—so that he may prolong his days in his kingship, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.

Jonah Runs From His Mission

1 Now the word of Adonai came to Jonah,^[a] son of Amittai, saying: ² “Rise, go to the great city Nineveh and call out to her, for their evil has risen before me.”

³ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish, from the presence of Adonai. He went down to Jaffa and found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fee and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish—away from the presence of Adonai.

⁴ Then Adonai hurled a forceful wind into the sea and there was such a mighty storm on the sea that the ship was about to shatter. ⁵ So the sailors were afraid and cried out, each man to his own god. Then they cast the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest part of the ship, to lay down and fell fast asleep.

⁶ So the chief sailor came near to him and said to him, “What, are you sleeping? Get up! Call out to your god. Perhaps the gods will consider us, so we will not perish!”

⁷ Then each man said to his companion, “Come, let’s cast lots—so we may know because of whom this evil is happening to us.” So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.^[b]

⁸ Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account is this evil happening to us? What is your profession and where did you come from? What is your land and from what nation are you?”

⁹ He said to them, “I am a Hebrew and I fear Adonai God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

¹⁰ Then the men became afraid with an overwhelming fear and they said to him, “What have you done?” For the men knew that he had fled from the presence of Adonai, because he had told them. ¹¹ So they said to him, “What should we do to you so the sea will become calm for us?”—for the storm was raging on.

¹² “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he said to them, “then the sea will become calm for you. For I know it is because of me that this great storm is upon you.”

¹³ Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to the land, but they could not, because the sea kept raging against them. ¹⁴ So they cried to Adonai and said, “Please, Adonai, don’t let us perish on account of the soul of this man and don’t put innocent blood on us. For you, Adonai, have done as you pleased.”

¹⁵ So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea—and the sea stilled from its raging. ¹⁶ Then the men became afraid with an overwhelming fear of Adonai, and they offered a sacrifice to Adonai and made vows.

2 Now Adonai prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.^[c][d]

Jonah’s Prayer of Distress

² Then Jonah prayed to Adonai his God from the belly of the fish, ³ saying:

¹¹ Then Adonai spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land.

3 See how glorious a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God’s children—and so we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. ² Loved ones, now we are God’s children; and it has not yet been revealed what we will be. But we do know that when it’s revealed, we shall be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. ³ Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

⁴ Everyone practicing sin also practices lawlessness—indeed, sin is lawlessness. ⁵ You know that Yeshua appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who sins has seen Him or known Him. ⁷ Children, let no one mislead you! The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Yeshua is righteous. ⁸ The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Ben-Elohim appeared for this purpose—to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one born of God practices sin, because God’s seed remains in him. He cannot sin, because he is born of God.

Loving Children Emulate His Actions

¹⁰ It is clear who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil by this—anyone who does not act righteously or love his brother is not of God. ¹¹ For this is the message you have heard from the beginning—we should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, while his brother’s were righteous. ^{[a] 13} Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer—and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. ¹⁶ We have come to know love by this—Yeshua laid down His life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ But if someone has material possessions and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him^[b], how does the love of God abide in him? ¹⁸ Children, let us not love with word or talk, but in deed and truth!

¹⁹ By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and set our heart at rest before Him ²⁰ whenever our heart condemns us. For God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. ²¹ Loved ones, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; ²² and whatever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. ²³ Now this is His commandment—that we should believe in the name of His Son, Yeshua the Messiah, and love one another, just as He commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps His commandments abides in God, and God in him. We know that He abides in us by this—by the Spirit He has given us.