Old/New Testament
Chapter 10
The Stone Tablets. 1 The Lord then also told me, “Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones, and come up to me on the mountain. You are also to make an Ark out of wood. 2 I will engrave the words that had been on the first tablets that you broke on these tablets. Then you are to place them in the Ark.”
3 I made an Ark out of acacia wood and carved out two tablets like the first ones and climbed up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 4 He wrote on the tablets what he had written on the previous ones, the ten commandments that the Lord had proclaimed to you on the mountain from the midst of the flames on the day of the assembly. The Lord then gave them to me. 5 I climbed down the mountain and placed the tablets in the Ark that I had made, as the Lord had commanded, and they are still there today.
6 The Israelites traveled from the wells of Bene-jaakan to Moserah.[a] There Aaron died, and he was buried there. Eleazer, his son, succeeded him as priest. 7 From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land filled with streams of water. 8 It was at this time that the Lord set aside the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant, to stand before the Lord to minister to him, and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they do until the present. 9 That is why the Levites have no share in the inheritance with their brethren; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord, your God, promised them.
10 Once again I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, like the first time, and the Lord heard me once again, for the Lord decided not to destroy you. 11 The Lord said to me, “Rise up, proceed on your journey ahead of the people so that they might go in and take possession of the land that I promised to their fathers to give them.”
12 God’s Steadfast Love.[b]And so now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, require of you but to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all of his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, 13 and to observe the commandments and the statutes that I am giving you today for your own good. 14 Indeed the heavens and the highest heavens[c] belong to the Lord, your God, as well as the earth and all that is in it, 15 yet the Lord’s sole delight was in your fathers. He loved them so much that he chose you, their descendants, above every other nation, which is still true today.
16 Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and stop being stiff-necked,[d] 17 for the Lord, your God, is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, a great God, mighty and awesome, who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. 18 He ensures justice for the orphan and the widow, and demonstrates his love for the foreigner by giving him food and clothing. 19 So now, show your love to the foreigner, for you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.
20 You shall fear the Lord, your God, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him, taking your oaths by his name. 21 He is your glory, and he is your God. He has performed great and awesome wonders for you, deeds he performed before your very eyes. 22 Seventy of your ancestors went down into Egypt. Now the Lord, your God, has multiplied you so that you are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
Chapter 11
God’s Mighty Deeds. 1 You shall love the Lord, your God, and observe his ordinances, his statutes, his decrees, and his commandments always. 2 Remember this day, for I am now not speaking with your children, who did not experience the discipline of the Lord, your God, his majesty, his mighty hand and outstretched arm, 3 and the signs and deeds he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to the whole land, 4 what he did to the army of Egypt, to its horses and chariots, how he caused the waters of the Red Sea to flow over them as they pursued you, for the Lord brought a lasting destruction upon them, 5 and what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived here, 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, how he opened a hole in the ground right in the midst of the Israelites that swallowed them up, them and their households and their tents and all of their possessions. 7 You have seen with your own eyes all of these great deeds that the Lord has done.
8 Therefore, keep all of the commandments that I give you today so that you may be strong and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess 9 and so that the Lord may prolong your life in the land that the Lord promised to give to your forefathers and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 The land that you are entering to take possession of is not like the land of Egypt out of which you have come. There you planted your seeds and watered the plants by hand,[e] like you would in a vegetable garden. 11 The land that you are entering to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys that obtains its water from the rain of the skies. 12 It is a land that the Lord, your God, cares for, the Lord, your God, continuously keeps his eyes on it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.
13 [f]If you carefully observe the commandments that I give you today, to love the Lord, your God, and to serve him with all your heart and soul, 14 then he will provide the rain upon the land in its proper season, the fall rains and the spring rains, so that you can harvest your grain, your wine, and your oil. 15 I will provide grass in your field for your cattle, so that you may eat until you are full.
16 Only be careful not to let yourself be enticed, turning away and serving other gods, worshiping them. 17 Then the Lord’s anger would lash out against you. He would shut up the heavens so that there would be no rain, no produce from the land. Beware lest you soon perish in the good land that the Lord is giving you.
18 Rewards of Faithfulness. Fix these words in your heart and your soul, bind them as a reminder upon your hand, and wear them as a pendant between your eyes. 19 You are to teach them to your children. You shall talk of them when you are sitting in your home, and when you are walking along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. 20 You are to write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates 21 so that your days and the days of your children will be multiplied in the land that the Lord promised to give them, lasting as long as the heavens cover the earth.
22 If you are careful in observing all of these commandments that I give you, loving the Lord, your God, and walking in all of his ways and holding fast to him, 23 then the Lord will drive out all of these nations from before you. You will dispossess nations that are larger and stronger than you are. 24 Everywhere that your feet touch the ground shall be yours, from the desert and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, up to the western sea, this will all be your land.[g] 25 No one will be able to stand up to you. The Lord, your God, as he promised you, he has put fear and dread of you upon everyone in the land, wherever you go.
26 Blessing and Curse. Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. 27 There will be a blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I give you today. 28 There will be a curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, and you turn from the way that I command you today and you seek after other gods whom you have previously not known. 29 When the Lord, your God, has brought you into the land that you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim a blessing on Mount Gerizim and a curse on Mount Ebal. 30 (Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah near Gilgal, beside the terebinth of Moreh?)[h] 31 You are to cross over the Jordan and enter in it and take possession of the land that the Lord, your God, has given you. When you have taken possession of it and are living in it, 32 then you are to observe all of the statutes and decrees that I have placed before you today.
The Deuteronomic Code[i]
Chapter 12
One Place of Worship.[j] 1 These are the statutes and the decrees that you must be careful to observe in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you as an inheritance for the whole time that you live upon the earth. 2 You must totally destroy all the places where the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods, whether they be on the high mountains or upon the hills or under every green tree. 3 You are to overturn their altars and break their sacred pillars. You must burn their wooden idols in fires, you must cut down their carved idols and obliterate their names from that place. 4 This is not the way that you are to worship the Lord, your God.
5 You are to seek out the place that the Lord, your God, has chosen from among all the tribes to be where you shall place his name and establish his dwelling. This is where you are to go 6 to bring your burnt offering, your sacrifices, your tithes, your wave offerings, what you have vowed to give as a freewill offering, and the firstborn from your herds and flocks. 7 There you and your families will eat before the Lord, your God, and you shall rejoice at everything you have put your hand to, for the Lord, your God, will have blessed you. 8 You are not to do things the way we do them today, that each person does as he sees fit, 9 for you have not yet come to your resting place, the inheritance that the Lord, your God, is giving you. 10 But when you cross the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving to you as an inheritance, a place where he will give you peace from all the enemies who surround you so that you can live in safety, 11 then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the Lord, your God, will have chosen for the dwelling place of his name: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your wave offerings, and all of your choice vow offerings that you have vowed onto the Lord. 12 You and your sons and daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite who lives in your town (for he has no claim to your inheritance) will rejoice before the Lord, your God.
13 Make sure that you do not offer burnt offerings any place you might happen to see, 14 but you are to offer burnt offerings in the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. There you are to fulfill all that I command you to do.
15 Permissible Slaughter. Nevertheless, you can slaughter animals and eat meat within your town gates with the blessing that the Lord, your God, gives you, as much as you desire. The clean and the unclean may eat of it, the gazelle and the roebuck alike. 16 Only you are not to consume its blood; you are to pour it on the ground as if it were water.[k]
17 You are not to eat the following things within your town gates: the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil, the firstborn of the herds or flocks, any of the vow offerings you have offered with a vow, any freewill offering and any wave offering. 18 You are to eat these before the Lord, your God, in the place that the Lord, your God, will have chosen, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite who lives in your town. You are to rejoice before the Lord, your God, in all of your undertakings.
19 Take heed not to forsake the Levite for as long as you live in the land. 20 When the Lord, your God, enlarges your boundaries, as he has promised that he will do, and you say to yourself, “I am going to eat some meat,”[l] because you feel like eating some meat, you can eat as much meat as you desire.
21 If the place that the Lord, your God, will have chosen to put his name is too far from where you are living, you can kill any animal from the herd or the flock that the Lord has given you, just as I have instructed you. You can eat as much as you want of it within your town gates. 22 You can eat them like you would eat the gazelle or the roebuck. Both the unclean and the clean can eat of it. 23 Only be careful that you do not consume the blood, for the blood is its life. You are not to eat the life with the meat. 24 You are not to consume the blood; you are to pour it on the ground as if it were water. 25 You are not to eat it, so that things may turn out well for you and your children after you, for you will be doing the right thing from the Lord’s point of view.
26 Take your consecrated things and whatever you have vowed to give, and go to the place that the Lord has chosen. 27 Present your burnt offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord, your God. You are to pour the blood out on the altar of the Lord, your God, but you can eat the meat. 28 Take heed to observe all of the things that I have commanded you, that things may go well with you and your children forever, when you do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, your God. 29 The Lord, your God, will cut down the nations of the place where you are going before you so that you can dispossess them. When you take their place and settle in their land 30 and they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by asking questions about their gods such as, “How did these nations serve their gods? We should do the same thing as they did.” 31 You shall not do these things to the Lord, your God. They have worshiped their gods with every kind of abomination that the Lord hates. They have even offered their sons and daughters as burnt sacrifices to their gods.
Chapter 12
The Parable of the Tenants.[a] 1 Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went off on a journey.
2 “When the time arrived, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. 3 But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again, he sent them another servant, but they beat him over the head and treated him shamefully. 5 Then he sent another, and that one they killed. He also sent many others, some of whom they beat, and others of whom they killed.
6 “Finally, he had only one other to send—his beloved son. And so he sent him to them, thinking: ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 And so they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and put those tenants to death and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 by the Lord this has been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes’?”
12 They wanted to arrest him because they realized that this parable was directed at them, but they were afraid of the crowd. Therefore, they left him and went away.
Controversies[b]
13 God or Caesar.[c] Then they sent some Pharisees and Herodians to trap him in what he said. 14 They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are truthful and are not concerned with anyone’s opinion no matter what his station in life. Rather, you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful or not for us to pay taxes to Caesar? Should we pay them or not?”
15 He was aware of their hypocrisy and said to them, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a denarius[d] and let me examine it.” 16 When they brought one, he asked them, “Whose image is this, and whose inscription?” They replied and said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is due to Caesar, and to God what is due to God.” His reply left them completely amazed at him.
18 Marriage and the Resurrection.[e] Then some Sadducees, who assert that there is no resurrection, approached him and posed this question, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote down for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall take his brother’s wife and raise up children for his brother. 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first brother took a wife and died, leaving no children. 21 The second brother married the widow and died, leaving no children. The same was true of the third brother. 22 None of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman herself died. 23 Now at the resurrection, when they rise up, whose wife will she be, inasmuch as all seven had her?”
24 Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are in error—namely, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They are like angels in heaven.
26 “And in regard to the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account about the bush, how God said to him: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ 27 He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are very badly mistaken.”
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