Old/New Testament
The next group of laws in Deuteronomy is concerned with making sure people in Israel treat one another honestly and fairly. Safeguards are to be put in place to protect the lives and property of the innocent and to make sure the guilty are caught and punished. These will include the cities of refuge, property markers, and the court system. Each law in this group seeks specifically to prevent people from abusing or manipulating one these safeguards.
19 Moses: When the Eternal your God has destroyed the nations whose land He’s going to give you, when you’ve driven them out and have settled in their cities and are living in their houses, 2-3 then designate three cities of refuge for yourselves in the land He is giving you to live in. Divide your territory into three parts, locate one city centrally in each part, and measure the roads to each of them. That way a person who kills someone accidentally can escape to one of these cities and be safe from revenge.
4 This is the kind of person I’m talking about: someone who kills a friend unintentionally, when there was no grudge between them, 5 such as when two friends go into the forest together to chop wood, and one of them swings an ax to cut a tree, and the ax head slips off the handle, hits his friend, and kills him. A person such as he can flee to one of these cities and be safe from revenge. 6 Otherwise, if the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too great, one of the relatives of the friend who was killed is going to feel honor-bound to avenge the dead man’s blood, and he’ll catch up with him and kill him while he’s still furious about his relative’s death. This wouldn’t be right because the man slaughterer didn’t deserve the death sentence. There was no grudge between these friends—the death was accidental. 7 That’s why I’m commanding you to designate these three cities for yourselves. 8-9 Now if you carefully obey the command I’m giving you today, to love the Eternal your God and always do as He wishes, then He will expand your territory as He promised your ancestors; He’ll give you all the land He told your ancestors He’d give them. If that happens, then designate three more cities for yourselves, besides the first three. 10 That way no innocent blood will be shed in the land He is giving you to live in, and as a nation you won’t have any bloodguilt just because a city of refuge was too far away.
11 But someone who does hate another person, who ambushes and kills that person can’t escape revenge by fleeing to one of these cities. 12 The elders of his city must send representatives to bring the killer back and turn him over to the blood-avenger, the relative of the murder victim who will kill him. 13 Don’t show any pity! You must remove the stain of innocent blood from Israel, so that everything will go well for you.
14 Don’t steal land from your neighbor by moving the boundary marker your ancestors put in place. Each person’s property is an inheritance from the Eternal, who’s giving you this land to live in.
These potential “property disputes” are a divine reflection. When you steal land from another person, you’re taking away what God has given—that’s like stealing from the Lord Himself!
15 The testimony of a single witness is not sufficient to convict a person of a crime or to find someone guilty of doing something wrong. Every charge must be confirmed by two or three witnesses.[a] 16 If one person accuses another of some crime, and you suspect it’s being done out of malice, 17 bring the two people involved into the Eternal’s presence at the sanctuary. Present their case to the priests and the judges who are serving on the tribunal at the time. 18 The judges will conduct a careful investigation. If it turns out that the witness was lying and accused the other Israelite maliciously, 19-21 then do to the witness exactly what he wanted done to the other person. Don’t show any pity! If he wanted the other person killed, then kill him; if he wanted his eye put out or a tooth knocked out or a hand or foot cut off, then do that to him.[b] This will expel the wicked from your own community. Everyone else will hear what happens and be afraid to do the same thing themselves, so none of you will ever do such an evil thing to each other again.
20 Moses: This is how you should act during wartime: When you go to battle against your enemies, if you see their army is larger than yours and they have horses and chariots, don’t be afraid of them! The Eternal your God is with you—the same God who defeated Pharaoh and brought you out of Egypt. 2 As you are approaching the battlefield, your priest will come over to you and address you: 3 “Listen, Israel! Today you’re going to fight a battle against your enemies. Don’t be intimidated by them! Don’t be afraid! Don’t run away! Don’t let them terrify you! 4 The Eternal, your True God, has come out here with you, and He’ll fight for you against your enemies and save you.” 5 Then the officials will say to the people who are eligible for a deferment, “Has anyone just built a new house but hasn’t begun to use it yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would dedicate it. 6 Has anyone planted a vineyard but hasn’t enjoyed its fruit yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would be the first to enjoy its fruit. 7 Has anyone become engaged to a woman but hasn’t consummated the marriage? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would take her.” 8 They’ll continue, “Is anyone here afraid or intimidated? You can go back home too! We don’t want you to make everyone else as scared as you are!” 9 When the officials have finished speaking to the troops, they’ll appoint commanders to lead each section of the army.
10 When you first approach a city you’re going to fight against, shout out, “Peace!” 11 If they shout back, “Peace!” and open their gates to you, then you must let them surrender. Make everyone in the city your slaves, and put them to work for you. 12 But if the city doesn’t surrender, if it resists you instead, then lay siege to it. 13 When the Eternal your God enables you to capture the city, kill all the men who are left in it with your swords. 14 But you can take the women, children, livestock, all the other goods in the city, and all of its spoils as your plunder for your use. The Eternal your God has given you these spoils from your enemies.
15 This is what you’re to do with cities that are a great distance from you that don’t belong to the nations living here. 16 But when you conquer one of the cities the Eternal, your True God, is giving you to live in and pass on to your children, don’t spare anything that breathes! 17 If it’s a city that belongs to the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, or the Jebusites, then completely destroy the inhabitants as He has commanded you. 18 If you don’t, they’ll teach you to do all the horrible things they do for their gods, and you’ll sin against Him.
19 When you’re fighting against a city, and it hasn’t fallen to you even after a long siege, don’t chop down all the trees around it. You can eat the fruit and nuts they produce, so don’t cut them down. Are these trees humans who are resisting your siege? Of course not! 20 Only cut down the trees you know don’t produce any food. You can use them to build siege machines against the city you’re fighting with until it falls.
Israelite teachers and scribes are fond of organizing material using mnemonic devices. If two writings share a key word, phrase, or idea, it is considered clever and attractive to put them next to one another. This principle is applied often as the first law in Deuteronomy 21:1 begins by using some Hebrew words similar to those at the end of the last law in the previous group. Even though the second law in 21:10 is really about marriage, it begins, “When you go to battle against your enemies,” transitioning from the warfare laws. The third law follows because it starts by talking about marriage, even though it’s really about the inheritance rights of sons. And the next law also talks about sons—except that they’re so disobedient, they need to be executed. So the final law in the group is about executions. These language techniques are intended to help the Israelites memorize the laws.
21 Moses: If a murder victim is found lying on the ground in the open field, anywhere in the territory the Eternal your God is giving you to live in, and no one knows who the killer was, then perform a special ceremony to remove the bloodguilt from your land. 5 Send for the priests, the descendants of Levi, the ones the Eternal your God chose to serve Him and to bless His name, because they’re the ones who settle disputes and handle cases of injury like this.[c] 2 Have your elders and judges measure the distance from the body to the nearby cities. 3 The elders of the city that’s closest to the body will have jurisdiction and offer a special sacrifice. Have them take a heifer that has never been put to work pulling a yoke, 4 bring it down by a flowing stream onto land where no crops have ever been planted or grown, and break its neck in that stream. 6 Then in the presence of the priests, have those city elders wash their hands over the heifer’s corpse and take an oath: 7 “Our hands didn’t shed this blood, and our eyes never saw who did. 8 Eternal, please cover the wickedness of Your people Israel, the ones You delivered from slavery. Please don’t consider your people Israel guilty of shedding innocent blood!” If this ceremony is performed, that city will be forgiven for the blood that was shed near it. 9 You will remove the bloodguilt from your nation because you’ve done what the Eternal considers right.
The Hebrew practice of kipper is when one party makes a gift to another in order to reestablish a good relationship between two parties and remove bloodguilt. The emphasis is not so much on the gift itself (although it should be a worthy one), but on the first party’s desire for reconciliation. When the kipper is a sacrificial animal resolving an offense that would otherwise be settled according to the principle of “a life for a life,” the death of the animal is a substitution for what should have been the death of the murderer. This situation helps Christians understand what the sacrificial system provides for Israel before the Lord and what Jesus does for us on the cross. His death is a substitutionary sacrifice, but it is also a kipper, a gift that reestablishes our relationship with God.
Moses: 10 When you go to battle against your enemies and the Eternal, your True God, enables you to defeat them and take them captive, 11 you may see a beautiful woman among the captives and be attracted to her and want to marry her. 12 Bring her back to your house, and then have her shave her head and cut her nails 13 and exchange her old clothes she was wearing when she was captured for new ones. Let her stay in your house and mourn for her father and mother for a month. Only after that may you, as her husband, have sexual relations with her. She will be your fully legal wife and you her husband. 14 If you are ever displeased with her and divorce her, you must give her freedom and send her anywhere she wants to go. You’re not allowed to sell her into slavery, and you can’t turn her into your own slave because you humiliated her.
15 Suppose a man has two wives, and he favors one over the other, loving one and not loving the other. If they’ve both borne him sons, but the firstborn doesn’t belong to his favorite wife, 16-17 he can’t designate the eldest son of his favorite wife as the firstborn instead. When he divides his property and gives his sons their inheritances, he must recognize his true firstborn, the eldest son of the other wife, and give him a double portion of all his property as is customary for all men. That son was the first one created by the man’s generative power, so the rights of the firstborn belong to him.
18 If anyone has a stubborn and rebellious son who refuses to obey his father and mother, who won’t even listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his parents may bring him to the city gate and formally accuse him in court, 20 telling the city elders what wicked things he has done. For example, “This is our son. He’s stubborn and rebellious! He won’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunk!” 21 Then all the people of the city will stone him to death. You must expel the wicked from your own community.[d] Everyone else in Israel will hear about it and fear the consequences of such rebellion.
22 If someone does something so wicked that it’s punishable by death, and if you execute that person and then hang the body on a pole, 23 don’t leave the body up there overnight. Bury it that same day because everyone who hangs is cursed by God.[e] Otherwise you will defile the ground the Eternal your God is giving you to live on.
21 If anyone tells you in those days, “Look, there is the Anointed One!” or “Hey, that must be Him!” don’t believe them. 22 False liberators and prophets will pop up like weeds, and they will work signs and perform miracles that would entice even God’s chosen people, if that were possible. 23 So be alert, and remember how I have warned you.
24-25 As Isaiah said in the days after that great suffering,
The sun will refuse to shine,
and the moon will hold back its light.
The stars in heaven will fall,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.[a]
26 Then you will see (as Daniel predicted) “the Son of Man coming in the clouds,”[b] clothed in power and majesty. 27 And He will send out His heavenly messengers and gather together to Himself those He has chosen from the four corners of the world, from every direction and every land.
The disciples can’t help but notice that something is in the air during this week between His entry into Jerusalem and His crucifixion. Surely the moment when Jesus is to reveal Himself as the Anointed can’t be far off. By repeatedly calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus has told people His kingdom will be divinely instituted like the one described in Daniel 7. They are also thinking of promises about the coming Anointed One. But for Jesus, everything now is connected to His imminent death and resurrection. Even as He predicts the temple’s fall—an event that will occur about 40 years later—and speaks of His second coming, He is still thinking about His death. After all, resurrection can’t happen without death. And the old world must die before the world is made new.
Jesus: 28 Learn this lesson from the fig tree: When its branch is new and tender and begins to put forth leaves, you know that summer must be near. 29 In the same way, when you see and hear the things I’ve described to you taking place, you’ll know the time is drawing near. 30 It’s true—this generation will not pass away before all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth may pass away, but these words of Mine will never pass away.
32 Take heed: no one knows the day or hour when the end is coming. The messengers in heaven don’t know, nor does the Son. Only the Father knows.
33 So be alert. Watch for it [and pray,][c] for you never know when that time might approach.
34 This situation is like a man who went on a journey; when he departed, he left his servants in charge of the house. Each of them had his own job to do; and the man left the porter to stand at the door, watching. 35 So stay awake, because no one knows when the master of the house is coming back. It could be in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning. 36 Stay awake; be alert so that when he suddenly returns, the master won’t find you sleeping.
37 The teaching I am giving the four of you now is for everyone who will follow Me: stay awake, and keep your eyes open.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.