2nd Kings

Posted on March 21, 2025March 21, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

2nd Kings

⁷The king asked them, “What kind of man was it who came to meet you and

1After Ahab’s death, Moab rebelled

against Israel.

²Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers, saying to them, “Go and consult Baal- Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I will recover from this injury.”

³But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’

⁴Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!’ ” So Elijah went.

⁵When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you come back?”

⁶“A man came to meet us,” they replied. “And he said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending men to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” ‘ “

told you this?”

⁸They replied, “He was a man with a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.” The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”

⁹Then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. The captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’ “

¹⁰Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.

¹¹At this the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of God, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’ “

¹²“If I am a man of God,” Elijah replied, “may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.

¹³So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants!

¹⁴See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!”

¹⁵The angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.

¹⁶He told the king, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!”

¹⁷So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram succeeded him as king in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.

¹⁸As for all the other events of Ahaziah’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

2When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.

²Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

³The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, “Do you

know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?” “Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “but do not speak of it.”

⁴Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.

⁵The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?” “Yes, I know,” he replied, “but do not speak of it.”

⁶Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them walked on.

⁷Fifty men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan.

⁸Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

⁹When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

¹⁰“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am

taken from you, it will be yours- otherwise not.”

¹¹As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

¹²Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart.

¹³He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.

¹⁴Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord , the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.

¹⁵The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.

¹⁶“Look,” they said, “we your servants have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley.” “No,” Elisha replied, “do not send them.”

¹⁷But they persisted until he was too ashamed to refuse. So he said, “Send them.” And they sent fifty men, who

searched for three days but did not find him.

¹⁸When they returned to Elisha, who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, “Didn’t I tell you not to go?”

¹⁹The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.”

²⁰“Bring me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.

²¹Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’ “

²²And the water has remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.

²³From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!”

²⁴He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord . Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

²⁵And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

3Joram son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year

of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned twelve years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , but not as his father and mother had done. He got rid of the sacred stone of Baal that his father had made.

³Nevertheless he clung to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.

⁴Now Mesha king of Moab raised sheep, and he had to supply the king of Israel with a hundred thousand lambs and with the wool of a hundred thousand rams.

⁵But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

⁶So at that time King Joram set out from Samaria and mobilized all Israel.

⁷He also sent this message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?” “I will go with you,” he replied. “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

⁸“By what route shall we attack?” he asked. “Through the Desert of Edom,” he answered.

⁹So the king of Israel set out with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. After a roundabout march of seven days, the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them.

¹⁰“What!” exclaimed the king of Israel. “Has the Lord called us three kings together only to hand us over to Moab?”

¹¹But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord through him?” An officer of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah. “

¹²Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

¹³Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What do we have to do with each other? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.” “No,” the king of Israel answered, “because it was the Lord who called us three kings together to hand us over to Moab.”

¹⁴Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or even notice you.

¹⁵But now bring me a harpist.” While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha

¹⁶and he said, “This is what the Lord says: Make this valley full of ditches.

¹⁷For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink.

¹⁸This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord ; he will also hand Moab over to you.

¹⁹You will overthrow every fortified city and every major town. You will cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs, and ruin every good field with stones.”

²⁰The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was-water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water.

²¹Now all the Moabites had heard that the kings had come to fight against them; so every man, young and old, who could bear arms was called up and stationed on the border.

²²When they got up early in the morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites across the way, the water looked red-like blood.

²³“That’s blood!” they said. “Those kings must have fought and slaughtered each other. Now to the plunder, Moab!”

²⁴But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and fought them until they fled. And the Israelites invaded the land and slaughtered the Moabites.

²⁵They destroyed the towns, and each man threw a stone on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up all the springs and cut down every good tree. Only Kir Hareseth was left with its stones in place, but men armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it as well.

²⁶When the king of Moab saw that the battle had gone against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they failed.

²⁷Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.

4The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord . But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

²Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.”

³Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few.

⁴Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”

⁵She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.

⁶When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

⁷She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

⁸One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat.

⁹She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God.

¹⁰Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”

¹¹One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there.

¹²He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him.

¹³Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’ ” She replied, “I have a home among my own people.”

¹⁴“What can be done for her?” Elisha asked. Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son and her husband is old.”

¹⁵Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway.

¹⁶“About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.” “No,

my lord,” she objected. “Don’t mislead your servant, O man of God!”

¹⁷But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

¹⁸The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.

¹⁹“My head! My head!” he said to his father. His father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

²⁰After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.

²¹She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.

²²She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

²³“Why go to him today?” he asked. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.” “It’s all right,” she said.

²⁴She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.”

²⁵So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the Shunammite!

²⁶Run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’ ” “Everything is all right,” she said.

²⁷When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

²⁸“Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

²⁹Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

³⁰But the child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

³¹Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

³²When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch.

³³He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord .

³⁴Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes,

hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy’s body grew warm.

³⁵Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

³⁶Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.”

³⁷She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.

³⁸Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men.”

³⁹One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.

⁴⁰The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

⁴¹Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He put it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

⁴²A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

⁴³“How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ “

⁴⁴Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord .

5Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

²Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.

³She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

⁴Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said.

⁵“By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.

⁶The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

⁷As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

⁸When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”

⁹So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house.

¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

¹¹But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

¹³Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told

you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”

¹⁴So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

¹⁵Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant.”

¹⁶The prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.” And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.

¹⁷“If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord .

¹⁸But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also-when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”

¹⁹“Go in peace,” Elisha said. After Naaman had traveled some distance,

²⁰Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “My master was

too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”

²¹So Gehazi hurried after Naaman. When Naaman saw him running toward him, he got down from the chariot to meet him. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

²²“Everything is all right,” Gehazi answered. “My master sent me to say, ‘Two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’ “

²³“By all means, take two talents,” said Naaman. He urged Gehazi to accept them, and then tied up the two talents of silver in two bags, with two sets of clothing. He gave them to two of his servants, and they carried them ahead of Gehazi.

²⁴When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the servants and put them away in the house. He sent the men away and they left.

²⁵Then he went in and stood before his master Elisha. “Where have you been, Gehazi?” Elisha asked. “Your servant didn’t go anywhere,” Gehazi answered.

²⁶But Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money, or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants?

²⁷Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.

6The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us.

²Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to live.” And he said, “Go.”

³Then one of them said, “Won’t you please come with your servants?” “I will,” Elisha replied.

⁴And he went with them. They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees.

⁵As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh, my lord,” he cried out, “it was borrowed!”

⁶The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float.

⁷“Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

⁸Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

⁹The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.”

¹⁰So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

¹¹This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

¹²“None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

¹³“Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”

¹⁴Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

¹⁵When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked.

¹⁶“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

¹⁷And Elisha prayed, “O Lord , open his eyes so he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

¹⁸As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord , “Strike these people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

¹⁹Elisha told them, “This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to Samaria.

²⁰After they entered the city, Elisha said, “Lord , open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Then the Lord opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria.

²¹When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”

²²“Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.”

²³So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.

²⁴Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria.

²⁵There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver,

and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.

²⁶As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

²⁷The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?”

²⁸Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’

²⁹So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

³⁰When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body.

³¹He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”

³²Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is

not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”

³³While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This disaster is from the Lord . Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

7Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord . This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”

²The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”

³Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die?

⁴If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’-the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”

⁵At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there,

⁶for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses

and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!”

⁷So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.

⁸The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.

⁹Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”

¹⁰So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there-not a sound of anyone-only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.”

¹¹The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.

¹²The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’ “

¹³One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here-yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”

¹⁴So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.”

¹⁵They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king.

¹⁶Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

¹⁷Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house.

¹⁸It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”

¹⁹The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied,

“You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!”

²⁰And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.

8Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.”

²The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.

³At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to the king to beg for her house and land.

⁴The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.”

⁵Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to beg the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”

⁶The king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her

land from the day she left the country until now.”

⁷Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben- Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the king was told, “The man of God has come all the way up here,”

⁸he said to Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the Lord through him; ask him, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ “

⁹Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ “

¹⁰Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover’; but the Lord has revealed to me that he will in fact die.”

¹¹He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep.

¹²“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹³Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?” “The Lord has shown me that you will become king of Aram,” answered Elisha.

¹⁴Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.”

¹⁵But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.

¹⁶In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began his reign as king of Judah.

¹⁷He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years.

¹⁸He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord .

¹⁹Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.

²⁰In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king.

²¹So Jehoram went to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and broke through by night; his army, however, fled back home.

²²To this day Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time.

²³As for the other events of Jehoram’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁴Jehoram rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.

²⁵In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.

²⁶Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

²⁷He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord , as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab’s family.

²⁸Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram;

²⁹so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram. Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he had been wounded.

9The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of the prophets and said to him, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of oil with you and go to Ramoth Gilead.

²When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner room.

³Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and run; don’t delay!”

⁴So the young man, the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead.

⁵When he arrived, he found the army officers sitting together. “I have a message for you, commander,” he said. “For which of us?” asked Jehu. “For you, commander,” he replied.

⁶Jehu got up and went into the house. Then the prophet poured the oil on Jehu’s head and declared, “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘I anoint you king over the Lord ‘s people Israel.

⁷You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the Lord ‘s servants shed by Jezebel.

⁸The whole house of Ahab will perish. I will cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel-slave or free.

⁹I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah.

¹⁰As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’ ” Then he opened the door and ran.

¹¹When Jehu went out to his fellow officers, one of them asked him, “Is everything all right? Why did this madman come to you?” “You know the man and the sort of things he says,” Jehu replied.

¹²“That’s not true!” they said. “Tell us.” Jehu said, “Here is what he told me: ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’ “

¹³They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”

¹⁴So Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. (Now Joram and all Israel had been defending Ramoth Gilead against Hazael king of Aram,

¹⁵but King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him in the battle with Hazael king of Aram.) Jehu said, “If this is the way you feel, don’t let anyone slip out of the city to go and tell the news in Jezreel.”

¹⁶Then he got into his chariot and rode to Jezreel, because Joram was resting there and Ahaziah king of Judah had gone down to see him.

¹⁷When the lookout standing on the tower in Jezreel saw Jehu’s troops approaching, he called out, “I see some troops coming.” “Get a horseman,” Joram ordered. “Send him to meet them and ask, ‘Do you come in peace?’ “

¹⁸The horseman rode off to meet Jehu and said, “This is what the king says: ‘Do you come in peace?’ ” “What do you have to do with peace?” Jehu replied. “Fall in behind me.” The lookout reported, “The messenger has reached them, but he isn’t coming back.”

¹⁹So the king sent out a second horseman. When he came to them he said, “This is what the king says: ‘Do you come in peace?’ ” Jehu replied, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”

²⁰The lookout reported, “He has reached them, but he isn’t coming back either. The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi-he drives like a madman.”

²¹“Hitch up my chariot,” Joram ordered. And when it was hitched up, Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah rode out, each in his own chariot, to meet Jehu. They met him at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite.

²²When Joram saw Jehu he asked, “Have you come in peace, Jehu?” “How can there be peace,” Jehu replied, “as

long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?”

²³Joram turned about and fled, calling out to Ahaziah, “Treachery, Ahaziah!”

²⁴Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot.

²⁵Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, “Pick him up and throw him on the field that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember how you and I were riding together in chariots behind Ahab his father when the Lord made this prophecy about him:

²⁶‘Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, declares the Lord , and I will surely make you pay for it on this plot of ground, declares the Lord .’ Now then, pick him up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of the Lord .”

²⁷When Ahaziah king of Judah saw what had happened, he fled up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, shouting, “Kill him too!” They wounded him in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, but he escaped to Megiddo and died there.

²⁸His servants took him by chariot to Jerusalem and buried him with his fathers in his tomb in the City of David.

²⁹(In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king of Judah.)

³⁰Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window.

³¹As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?”

³²He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him.

³³“Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.

³⁴Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.”

³⁵But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands.

³⁶They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh.

³⁷Jezebel’s body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’ “

10Now there were in Samaria seventy sons of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel, to

the elders and to the guardians of Ahab’s children. He said,

²“As soon as this letter reaches you, since your master’s sons are with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons,

³choose the best and most worthy of your master’s sons and set him on his father’s throne. Then fight for your master’s house.”

⁴But they were terrified and said, “If two kings could not resist him, how can we?”

⁵So the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders and the guardians sent this message to Jehu: “We are your servants and we will do anything you say. We will not appoint anyone as king; you do whatever you think best.”

⁶Then Jehu wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are on my side and will obey me, take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel by this time tomorrow.” Now the royal princes, seventy of them, were with the leading men of the city, who were rearing them.

⁷When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.

⁸When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, “They have brought the heads of the princes.” Then Jehu ordered, “Put them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning.”

⁹The next morning Jehu went out. He stood before all the people and said, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who killed all these?

¹⁰Know then, that not a word the Lord has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The Lord has done what he promised through his servant Elijah.”

¹¹So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor.

¹²Jehu then set out and went toward Samaria. At Beth Eked of the Shepherds,

¹³he met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, “Who are you?” They said, “We are relatives of Ahaziah, and we have come down to greet the families of the king and of the queen mother.”

¹⁴“Take them alive!” he ordered. So they took them alive and slaughtered them by the well of Beth Eked-forty-two men. He left no survivor.

¹⁵After he left there, he came upon Jehonadab son of Recab, who was on his way to meet him. Jehu greeted him and said, “Are you in accord with me, as I am with you?” “I am,” Jehonadab answered. “If so,” said Jehu, “give me your hand.” So he did, and Jehu helped him up into the chariot.

¹⁶Jehu said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord .” Then he had him ride along in his chariot.

¹⁷When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed all who were left there of Ahab’s family; he destroyed them, according to the word of the Lord spoken to Elijah.

¹⁸Then Jehu brought all the people together and said to them, “Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much.

¹⁹Now summon all the prophets of Baal, all his ministers and all his priests. See that no one is missing, because I am going to hold a great sacrifice for Baal. Anyone who fails to come will no longer live.” But Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the ministers of Baal.

²⁰Jehu said, “Call an assembly in honor of Baal.” So they proclaimed it.

²¹Then he sent word throughout Israel, and all the ministers of Baal came; not one stayed away. They crowded into the temple of Baal until it was full from one end to the other.

²²And Jehu said to the keeper of the wardrobe, “Bring robes for all the ministers of Baal.” So he brought out robes for them.

²³Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Recab went into the temple of Baal. Jehu said to the ministers of Baal, “Look around and see that no servants of the Lord are here with you-only ministers of Baal.”

²⁴So they went in to make sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had posted eighty men outside with this warning: “If one of you lets any of the men I am placing in your hands escape, it will be your life for his life.”

²⁵As soon as Jehu had finished making the burnt offering, he ordered the guards and officers: “Go in and kill them; let no one escape.” So they cut them down with the sword. The guards and officers threw the bodies out and then entered the inner shrine of the temple of Baal.

²⁶They brought the sacred stone out of the temple of Baal and burned it.

²⁷They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day.

²⁸So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.

²⁹However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit- the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

³⁰The Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”

³¹Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the Lord , the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn away from

the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit.

³²In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael overpowered the Israelites throughout their territory

³³east of the Jordan in all the land of Gilead (the region of Gad, Reuben and Manasseh), from Aroer by the Arnon Gorge through Gilead to Bashan.

³⁴As for the other events of Jehu’s reign, all he did, and all his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

³⁵Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son succeeded him as king.

³⁶The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

11When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family.

²But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram and sister of Ahaziah, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes, who were about to be murdered. She put him and his nurse in a bedroom to hide him from Athaliah; so he was not killed.

³He remained hidden with his nurse at the temple of the Lord for six years while Athaliah ruled the land.

⁴In the seventh year Jehoiada sent for the commanders of units of a hundred, the Carites and the guards and had them brought to him at the temple of the Lord . He made a covenant with them and put them under oath at the temple of the Lord . Then he showed them the king’s son.

⁵He commanded them, saying, “This is what you are to do: You who are in the three companies that are going on duty on the Sabbath-a third of you guarding the royal palace,

⁶a third at the Sur Gate, and a third at the gate behind the guard, who take turns guarding the temple-

⁷and you who are in the other two companies that normally go off Sabbath duty are all to guard the temple for the king.

⁸Station yourselves around the king, each man with his weapon in his hand. Anyone who approaches your ranks must be put to death. Stay close to the king wherever he goes.”

⁹The commanders of units of a hundred did just as Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each one took his men-those who were going on duty on the Sabbath and those who were going off duty-and came to Jehoiada the priest.

¹⁰Then he gave the commanders the spears and shields that had belonged to King David and that were in the temple of the Lord .

¹¹The guards, each with his weapon in his hand, stationed themselves around the king-near the altar and the temple, from the south side to the north side of the temple.

¹²Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, “Long live the king!”

¹³When Athaliah heard the noise made by the guards and the people, she went to the people at the temple of the Lord .

¹⁴She looked and there was the king, standing by the pillar, as the custom was. The officers and the trumpeters were beside the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her robes and called out, “Treason! Treason!”

¹⁵Jehoiada the priest ordered the commanders of units of a hundred, who were in charge of the troops: “Bring her out between the ranks and put to the sword anyone who follows her.” For the priest had said, “She must not be put to death in the temple of the Lord .”

¹⁶So they seized her as she reached the place where the horses enter the palace grounds, and there she was put to death.

¹⁷Jehoiada then made a covenant between the Lord and the king and people that they would be the Lord ‘s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people.

¹⁸All the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed the altars and idols to pieces and killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars. Then Jehoiada the priest posted guards at the temple of the Lord .

¹⁹He took with him the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, the guards and all the people of the land, and together they brought the king down from the temple of the Lord and went into the palace, entering by way of the gate of the guards. The king then took his place on the royal throne,

²⁰and all the people of the land rejoiced. And the city was quiet, because Athaliah had been slain with the sword at the palace.

²¹Joash was seven years old when he began to reign.

12In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba.

²Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

³The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁴Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the Lord -the

money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple.

⁵Let every priest receive the money from one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found in the temple.”

⁶But by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests still had not repaired the temple.

⁷Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, “Why aren’t you repairing the damage done to the temple? Take no more money from your treasurers, but hand it over for repairing the temple.”

⁸The priests agreed that they would not collect any more money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves.

⁹Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid. He placed it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the temple of the Lord . The priests who guarded the entrance put into the chest all the money that was brought to the temple of the Lord .

¹⁰Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal secretary and the high priest came, counted the money that had been brought into the temple of the Lord and put it into bags.

¹¹When the amount had been determined, they gave the money to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. With it they paid those who worked on the temple of the Lord -the carpenters and builders,

¹²the masons and stonecutters. They purchased timber and dressed stone for the repair of the temple of the Lord , and met all the other expenses of restoring the temple.

¹³The money brought into the temple was not spent for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or any other articles of gold or silver for the temple of the Lord ;

¹⁴it was paid to the workmen, who used it to repair the temple.

¹⁵They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.

¹⁶The money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the temple of the Lord ; it belonged to the priests.

¹⁷About this time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem.

¹⁸But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers- Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah-and the gifts he himself had dedicated and all the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of the Lord

and of the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.

¹⁹As for the other events of the reign of Joash, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁰His officials conspired against him and assassinated him at Beth Millo, on the road down to Silla.

²¹The officials who murdered him were Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer. He died and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. And Amaziah his son succeeded him as king.

13In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned seventeen years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, and he did not turn away from them.

³So the Lord ‘s anger burned against Israel, and for a long time he kept them under the power of Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad his son.

⁴Then Jehoahaz sought the Lord ‘s favor, and the Lord listened to him, for he saw how severely the king of Aram was oppressing Israel.

⁵The Lord provided a deliverer for Israel, and they escaped from the power of Aram. So the Israelites lived in their own homes as they had before.

⁶But they did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit; they continued in them. Also, the Asherah pole remained standing in Samaria.

⁷Nothing had been left of the army of Jehoahaz except fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers, for the king of Aram had destroyed the rest and made them like the dust at threshing time.

⁸As for the other events of the reign of Jehoahaz, all he did and his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

⁹Jehoahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Jehoash his son succeeded him as king.

¹⁰In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned sixteen years.

¹¹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he continued in them.

¹²As for the other events of the reign of Jehoash, all he did and his achievements, including his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not

written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

¹³Jehoash rested with his fathers, and Jeroboam succeeded him on the throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

¹⁴Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

¹⁵Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so.

¹⁶“Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.

¹⁷“Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it. “Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot. “The Lord ‘s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declared. “You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.”

¹⁸Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped.

¹⁹The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”

²⁰Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring.

²¹Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

²²Hazael king of Aram oppressed Israel throughout the reign of Jehoahaz.

²³But the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To this day he has been unwilling to destroy them or banish them from his presence.

²⁴Hazael king of Aram died, and Ben- Hadad his son succeeded him as king.

²⁵Then Jehoash son of Jehoahaz recaptured from Ben-Hadad son of Hazael the towns he had taken in battle from his father Jehoahaz. Three times Jehoash defeated him, and so he recovered the Israelite towns.

14In the second year of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah began to reign.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin; she was from Jerusalem.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , but not as his father David had done. In everything he followed the example of his father Joash.

⁴The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁵After the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed the officials who had murdered his father the king.

⁶Yet he did not put the sons of the assassins to death, in accordance with what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses where the Lord commanded: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sins.”

⁷He was the one who defeated ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt and captured Sela in battle, calling it Joktheel, the name it has to this day.

⁸Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, with the challenge: “Come, meet me face to face.”

⁹But Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “A thistle in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ Then a wild beast in Lebanon came along and trampled the thistle underfoot.

¹⁰You have indeed defeated Edom and now you are arrogant. Glory in your victory, but stay at home! Why ask for

trouble and cause your own downfall and that of Judah also?”

¹¹Amaziah, however, would not listen, so Jehoash king of Israel attacked. He and Amaziah king of Judah faced each other at Beth Shemesh in Judah.

¹²Judah was routed by Israel, and every man fled to his home.

¹³Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. Then Jehoash went to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate-a section about six hundred feet long.

¹⁴He took all the gold and silver and all the articles found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. He also took hostages and returned to Samaria.

¹⁵As for the other events of the reign of Jehoash, what he did and his achievements, including his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

¹⁶Jehoash rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. And Jeroboam his son succeeded him as king.

¹⁷Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.

¹⁸As for the other events of Amaziah’s reign, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

¹⁹They conspired against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish, but they sent men after him to Lachish and killed him there.

²⁰He was brought back by horse and was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers, in the City of David.

²¹Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

²²He was the one who rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah after Amaziah rested with his fathers.

²³In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years.

²⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

²⁵He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, in accordance with the word of the Lord , the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

²⁶The Lord had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free,

was suffering; there was no one to help them.

²⁷And since the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

²⁸As for the other events of Jeroboam’s reign, all he did, and his military achievements, including how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Yaudi, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

²⁹Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son succeeded him as king.

15In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah king of Judah began to reign.

²He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father Amaziah had done.

⁴The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁵The Lord afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house. Jotham the king’s son

had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

⁶As for the other events of Azariah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

⁷Azariah rested with his fathers and was buried near them in the City of David. And Jotham his son succeeded him as king.

⁸In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah son of Jeroboam became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned six months.

⁹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , as his fathers had done. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

¹⁰Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against Zechariah. He attacked him in front of the people, assassinated him and succeeded him as king.

¹¹The other events of Zechariah’s reign are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.

¹²So the word of the Lord spoken to Jehu was fulfilled: “Your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”

¹³Shallum son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned in Samaria one month.

¹⁴Then Menahem son of Gadi went from Tirzah up to Samaria. He attacked Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria, assassinated him and succeeded him as king.

¹⁵The other events of Shallum’s reign, and the conspiracy he led, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.

¹⁶At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.

¹⁷In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem son of Gadi became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria ten years.

¹⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord . During his entire reign he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

¹⁹Then Pul king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem gave him a thousand talents of silver to gain his support and strengthen his own hold on the kingdom.

²⁰Menahem exacted this money from Israel. Every wealthy man had to contribute fifty shekels of silver to be given to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria withdrew and stayed in the land no longer.

²¹As for the other events of Menahem’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

²²Menahem rested with his fathers. And Pekahiah his son succeeded him as king.

²³In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned two years.

²⁴Pekahiah did evil in the eyes of the Lord . He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

²⁵One of his chief officers, Pekah son of Remaliah, conspired against him. Taking fifty men of Gilead with him, he assassinated Pekahiah, along with Argob and Arieh, in the citadel of the royal palace at Samaria. So Pekah killed Pekahiah and succeeded him as king.

²⁶The other events of Pekahiah’s reign, and all he did, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.

²⁷In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years.

²⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord . He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

²⁹In the time of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and

took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah conspired against Pekah son of Remaliah. He attacked and assassinated him, and then succeeded him as king in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah.

³¹As for the other events of Pekah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

³²In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah king of Judah began to reign.

³³He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.

³⁴He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father Uzziah had done.

³⁵The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple of the Lord .

³⁶As for the other events of Jotham’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

³⁷(In those days the Lord began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.)

³⁸Jotham rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David, the city of his father. And Ahaz his son succeeded him as king.

16In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign.

²Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God.

³He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁴He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

⁵Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem and besieged Ahaz, but they could not overpower him.

⁶At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram by driving out the men of Judah. Edomites then moved into Elath and have lived there to this day.

⁷Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of

Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”

⁸And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

⁹The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it. He deported its inhabitants to Kir and put Rezin to death.

¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar, with detailed plans for its construction.

¹¹So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned.

¹²When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it.

¹³He offered up his burnt offering and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar.

¹⁴The bronze altar that stood before the Lord he brought from the front of the temple-from between the new altar and the temple of the Lord -and put it on the north side of the new altar.

¹⁵King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: “On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the

evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance.”

¹⁶And Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered.

¹⁷King Ahaz took away the side panels and removed the basins from the movable stands. He removed the Sea from the bronze bulls that supported it and set it on a stone base.

¹⁸He took away the Sabbath canopy that had been built at the temple and removed the royal entryway outside the temple of the Lord , in deference to the king of Assyria.

¹⁹As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁰Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.

17In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.

³Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser’s vassal and had paid him tribute.

⁴But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.

⁵The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.

⁷All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods

⁸and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.

⁹The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns.

¹⁰They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

¹¹At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that provoked the Lord to anger.

¹²They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, “You shall not do this.”

¹³The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the Lord their God.

¹⁵They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do.

¹⁶They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal.

¹⁷They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord , provoking him to anger.

¹⁸So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left,

¹⁹and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced.

²⁰Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence.

²¹When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin.

²²The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them

²³until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.

²⁴The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the

Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.

²⁵When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord ; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people.

²⁶It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”

²⁷Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.”

²⁸So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord .

²⁹Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.

³⁰The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima;

³¹the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

³²They worshiped the Lord , but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places.

³³They worshiped the Lord , but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

³⁴To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

³⁵When the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them: “Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them.

³⁶But the Lord , who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the one you must worship. To him you shall bow down and to him offer sacrifices.

³⁷You must always be careful to keep the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands he wrote for you. Do not worship other gods.

³⁸Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods.

³⁹Rather, worship the Lord your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”

⁴⁰They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices.

⁴¹Even while these people were worshiping the Lord , they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.

18In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father David had done.

⁴He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan. )

⁵Hezekiah trusted in the Lord , the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

⁶He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses.

⁷And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook.

He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

⁸From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.

⁹In King Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.

¹⁰At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

¹¹The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes.

¹²This happened because they had not obeyed the Lord their God, but had violated his covenant-all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.

¹³In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

¹⁴So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.” The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

¹⁵So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

¹⁶At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord , and gave it to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field.

¹⁸They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.

¹⁹The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ” ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?

²⁰You say you have strategy and military strength-but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?

²¹Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.

²²And if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”-isn’t he the one whose high places and altars

Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?

²³” ‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses-if you can put riders on them!

²⁴How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen ?

²⁵Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the Lord ? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’ “

²⁶Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

²⁷But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall-who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

²⁸Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

²⁹This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand.

³⁰Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

³¹“Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

³²until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death! “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’

³³Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?

³⁵Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

³⁶But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

³⁷Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and

told him what the field commander had said.

19When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord .

²He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

³They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them.

⁴It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”

⁵When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah,

⁶Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard-those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

⁷Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’ “

⁸When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

⁹Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt , was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word:

¹⁰“Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’

¹¹Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered?

¹²Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar?

¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?”

¹⁴Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord .

¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord : “O Lord , God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

¹⁶Give ear, O Lord , and hear; open your eyes, O Lord , and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.

¹⁷“It is true, O Lord , that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands.

¹⁸They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men’s hands.

¹⁹Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord , are God.”

²⁰Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.

²¹This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him: ” ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee.

²²Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²³By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, “With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest

of its pines. I have reached its remotest parts, the finest of its forests.

²⁴I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

²⁵” ‘Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.

²⁶Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.

²⁷” ‘But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me.

²⁸Because you rage against me and your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.’

²⁹“This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah: “This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³⁰Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above.

³¹For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band

of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

³²“Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: “He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it.

³³By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this city, declares the Lord .

³⁴I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”

³⁵That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning-there were all the dead bodies!

³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

³⁷One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.

20In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

²Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord ,

³“Remember, O Lord , how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him:

⁵“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, ‘This is what the Lord , the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord .

⁶I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’ “

⁷Then Isaiah said, “Prepare a poultice of figs.” They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.

⁸Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?”

⁹Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord ‘s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?”

¹⁰“It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”

¹¹Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord , and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

¹²At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah’s illness.

¹³Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses-the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil-his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

¹⁴Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come from?” “From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came from Babylon.”

¹⁵The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?” “They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”

¹⁶Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord :

¹⁷The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord .

¹⁸And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will

become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

¹⁹“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

²⁰As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²¹Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.

21Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.

⁴He built altars in the temple of the Lord , of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.”

⁵In both courts of the temple of the Lord , he built altars to all the starry hosts.

⁶He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord , provoking him to anger.

⁷He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.

⁸I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.”

⁹But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰The Lord said through his servants the prophets:

¹¹“Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.

¹²Therefore this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.

¹³I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria

and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

¹⁴I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes,

¹⁵because they have done evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day.”

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end-besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord .

¹⁷As for the other events of Manasseh’s reign, and all he did, including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

¹⁸Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And Amon his son succeeded him as king.

¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.

²⁰He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , as his father Manasseh had done.

²¹He walked in all the ways of his father; he worshiped the idols his father had worshiped, and bowed down to them.

²²He forsook the Lord , the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord .

²³Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace.

²⁴Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his place.

²⁵As for the other events of Amon’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁶He was buried in his grave in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son succeeded him as king.

22Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

³In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord . He said:

⁴“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord , which the doorkeepers have collected from the people.

⁵Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord –

⁶the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple.

⁷But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are acting faithfully.”

⁸Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord .” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

⁹Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the Lord and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple.”

¹⁰Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

¹¹When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes.

¹²He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor

son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant:

¹³“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord ‘s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.”

¹⁴Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.

¹⁵She said to them, “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me,

¹⁶‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read.

¹⁷Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’

¹⁸Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord , ‘This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard:

¹⁹Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord .

²⁰Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’ ” So they took her answer back to the king.

23Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

²He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets- all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord .

³The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord -to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

⁴The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the

fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel.

⁵He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem-those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.

⁶He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.

⁷He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the Lord and where women did weaving for Asherah.

⁸Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the shrines at the gates-at the entrance to the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which is on the left of the city gate.

⁹Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

¹⁰He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.

¹¹He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an official named Nathan-Melech. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.

¹²He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord . He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.

¹³The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption-the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the people of Ammon.

¹⁴Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

¹⁵Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin-even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also.

¹⁶Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord

proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.

¹⁷The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?” The men of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”

¹⁸“Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed and defiled all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria that had provoked the Lord to anger.

²⁰Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

²²Not since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, had any such Passover been observed.

²³But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other

detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord .

²⁵Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did-with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

²⁶Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him to anger.

²⁷So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘There shall my Name be.’ “

²⁸As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁹While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Neco faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

³⁰Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

³²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , just as his fathers had done.

³³Pharaoh Neco put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁴Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died.

³⁵Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Neco the silver and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments.

³⁶Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah.

³⁷And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord , just as his fathers had done.

24During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. But

then he changed his mind and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.

²The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by his servants the prophets.

³Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord ‘s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done,

⁴including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.

⁵As for the other events of Jehoiakim’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

⁶Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. And Jehoiachin his son succeeded him as king.

⁷The king of Egypt did not march out from his own country again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.

⁹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father had done.

¹⁰At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it,

¹¹and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it.

¹²Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him. In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner.

¹³As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace, and took away all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the Lord .

¹⁴He carried into exile all Jerusalem: all the officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans-a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.

¹⁵Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials and the leading men of the land.

¹⁶The king of Babylon also deported to Babylon the entire force of seven thousand fighting men, strong and fit for war, and a thousand craftsmen and artisans.

¹⁷He made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

¹⁹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , just as Jehoiakim had done.

²⁰It was because of the Lord ‘s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence. Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

25So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped outside the city and built siege works all around it.

²The city was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

³By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people to eat.

⁴Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled at night through the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Babylonians were surrounding the city. They fled toward the Arabah,

⁵but the Babylonian army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers were separated from him and scattered,

⁶and he was captured. He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him.

⁷They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.

⁸On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

⁹He set fire to the temple of the Lord , the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down.

¹⁰The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

¹¹Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon.

¹²But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.

¹³The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the movable stands and the bronze Sea that were at the temple of

the Lord and they carried the bronze to Babylon.

¹⁴They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.

¹⁵The commander of the imperial guard took away the censers and sprinkling bowls-all that were made of pure gold or silver.

¹⁶The bronze from the two pillars, the Sea and the movable stands, which Solomon had made for the temple of the Lord , was more than could be weighed.

¹⁷Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of one pillar was four and a half feet high and was decorated with a network and pomegranates of bronze all around. The other pillar, with its network, was similar.

¹⁸The commander of the guard took as prisoners Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank and the three doorkeepers.

¹⁹Of those still in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men and five royal advisers. He also took the secretary who was chief officer in charge of conscripting the people of the land and sixty of his men who were found in the city.

²⁰Nebuzaradan the commander took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

²¹There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king had them executed. So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.

²²Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be over the people he had left behind in Judah.

²³When all the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah-Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and their men.

²⁴Gedaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men. “Do not be afraid of the Babylonian officials,” he said. “Settle down in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.”

²⁵In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was of royal blood, came with ten men and assassinated Gedaliah and also the men of Judah and the Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

²⁶At this, all the people from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.

²⁷In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month.

²⁸He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

²⁹So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table.

³⁰Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.

1st Kings

Posted on March 21, 2025March 21, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

1st Kings

⁸But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei

1When King David was old and well

advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him.

²So his servants said to him, “Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.”

³Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful girl and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

⁴The girl was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no intimate relations with her.

⁵Now Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, put himself forward and said, “I will be king.” So he got chariots and horses ready, with fifty men to run ahead of him.

⁶(His father had never interfered with him by asking, “Why do you behave as you do?” He was also very handsome and was born next after Absalom.)

⁷Adonijah conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they gave him their support.

and Rei and David’s special guard did not join Adonijah.

⁹Adonijah then sacrificed sheep, cattle and fattened calves at the Stone of Zoheleth near En Rogel. He invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah who were royal officials,

¹⁰but he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the special guard or his brother Solomon.

¹¹Then Nathan asked Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has become king without our lord David’s knowing it?

¹²Now then, let me advise you how you can save your own life and the life of your son Solomon.

¹³Go in to King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, did you not swear to me your servant: “Surely Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne”? Why then has Adonijah become king?’

¹⁴While you are still there talking to the king, I will come in and confirm what you have said.”

¹⁵So Bathsheba went to see the aged king in his room, where Abishag the Shunammite was attending him.

¹⁶Bathsheba bowed low and knelt before the king. “What is it you want?” the king asked.

¹⁷She said to him, “My lord, you yourself swore to me your servant by the Lord your God: ‘Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne.’

¹⁸But now Adonijah has become king, and you, my lord the king, do not know about it.

¹⁹He has sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep, and has invited all the king’s sons, Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army, but he has not invited Solomon your servant.

²⁰My lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, to learn from you who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

²¹Otherwise, as soon as my lord the king is laid to rest with his fathers, I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals.”

²²While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet arrived.

²³And they told the king, “Nathan the prophet is here.” So he went before the king and bowed with his face to the ground.

²⁴Nathan said, “Have you, my lord the king, declared that Adonijah shall be king after you, and that he will sit on your throne?

²⁵Today he has gone down and sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep. He has invited all the king’s sons, the commanders of the army and Abiathar the priest. Right now they are eating and drinking with him and saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’

²⁶But me your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon he did not invite.

²⁷Is this something my lord the king has done without letting his servants know who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?”

²⁸Then King David said, “Call in Bathsheba.” So she came into the king’s presence and stood before him.

²⁹The king then took an oath: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble,

³⁰I will surely carry out today what I swore to you by the Lord , the God of Israel: Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne in my place.”

³¹Then Bathsheba bowed low with her face to the ground and, kneeling before the king, said, “May my lord King David live forever!”

³²King David said, “Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” When they came before the king,

³³he said to them: “Take your lord’s servants with you and set Solomon my son on my own mule and take him down to Gihon.

³⁴There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and shout, ‘Long live King Solomon!’

³⁵Then you are to go up with him, and he is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed him ruler over Israel and Judah.”

³⁶Benaiah son of Jehoiada answered the king, “Amen! May the Lord , the God of my lord the king, so declare it.

³⁷As the Lord was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon to make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord King David!”

³⁸So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and put Solomon on King David’s mule and escorted him to Gihon.

³⁹Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, “Long live King Solomon!”

⁴⁰And all the people went up after him, playing flutes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.

⁴¹Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they were finishing their feast. On hearing the sound of the

trumpet, Joab asked, “What’s the meaning of all the noise in the city?”

⁴²Even as he was speaking, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest arrived. Adonijah said, “Come in. A worthy man like you must be bringing good news.”

⁴³“Not at all!” Jonathan answered. “Our lord King David has made Solomon king.

⁴⁴The king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites, and they have put him on the king’s mule,

⁴⁵and Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon. From there they have gone up cheering, and the city resounds with it. That’s the noise you hear.

⁴⁶Moreover, Solomon has taken his seat on the royal throne.

⁴⁷Also, the royal officials have come to congratulate our lord King David, saying, ‘May your God make Solomon’s name more famous than yours and his throne greater than yours!’ And the king bowed in worship on his bed

⁴⁸and said, ‘Praise be to the Lord , the God of Israel, who has allowed my eyes to see a successor on my throne today.’ “

⁴⁹At this, all Adonijah’s guests rose in alarm and dispersed.

⁵⁰But Adonijah, in fear of Solomon, went and took hold of the horns of the altar.

⁵¹Then Solomon was told, “Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon and is clinging to the horns of the altar. He says, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.’ “

⁵²Solomon replied, “If he shows himself to be a worthy man, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground; but if evil is found in him, he will die.”

⁵³Then King Solomon sent men, and they brought him down from the altar. And Adonijah came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon said, “Go to your home.”

2When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son.

²“I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, show yourself a man,

³and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go,

⁴and that the Lord may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

⁵“Now you yourself know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me-what he did to the

two commanders of Israel’s armies, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He killed them, shedding their blood in peacetime as if in battle, and with that blood stained the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet.

⁶Deal with him according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to the grave in peace.

⁷“But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai of Gilead and let them be among those who eat at your table. They stood by me when I fled from your brother Absalom.

⁸“And remember, you have with you Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, who called down bitter curses on me the day I went to Mahanaim. When he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord : ‘I will not put you to death by the sword.’

⁹But now, do not consider him innocent. You are a man of wisdom; you will know what to do to him. Bring his gray head down to the grave in blood.”

¹⁰Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.

¹¹He had reigned forty years over Israel- seven years in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem.

¹²So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his rule was firmly established.

¹³Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother.

Bathsheba asked him, “Do you come peacefully?” He answered, “Yes, peacefully.”

¹⁴Then he added, “I have something to say to you.” “You may say it,” she replied.

¹⁵“As you know,” he said, “the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother; for it has come to him from the Lord .

¹⁶Now I have one request to make of you. Do not refuse me.” “You may make it,” she said.

¹⁷So he continued, “Please ask King Solomon-he will not refuse you-to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife.”

¹⁸“Very well,” Bathsheba replied, “I will speak to the king for you.”

¹⁹When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat down at his right hand.

²⁰“I have one small request to make of you,” she said. “Do not refuse me.” The king replied, “Make it, my mother; I will not refuse you.”

²¹So she said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given in marriage to your brother Adonijah.”

²²King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you request Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? You might as well request the kingdom for him-after all, he is my older brother-yes, for him and for Abiathar the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah!”

²³Then King Solomon swore by the Lord : “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request!

²⁴And now, as surely as the Lord lives- he who has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a dynasty for me as he promised-Adonijah shall be put to death today!”

²⁵So King Solomon gave orders to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he struck down Adonijah and he died.

²⁶To Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go back to your fields in Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I will not put you to death now, because you carried the ark of the Sovereign Lord before my father David and shared all my father’s hardships.”

²⁷So Solomon removed Abiathar from the priesthood of the Lord , fulfilling the word the Lord had spoken at Shiloh about the house of Eli.

²⁸When the news reached Joab, who had conspired with Adonijah though not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar.

²⁹King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and was beside the altar. Then Solomon ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada, “Go, strike him down!”

³⁰So Benaiah entered the tent of the Lord and said to Joab, “The king says, ‘Come out!’ ” But he answered, “No, I will die here.” Benaiah reported to the king, “This is how Joab answered me.”

³¹Then the king commanded Benaiah, “Do as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my father’s house of the guilt of the innocent blood that Joab shed.

³²The Lord will repay him for the blood he shed, because without the knowledge of my father David he attacked two men and killed them with the sword. Both of them-Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel’s army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah’s army-were better men and more upright than he.

³³May the guilt of their blood rest on the head of Joab and his descendants forever. But on David and his descendants, his house and his throne, may there be the Lord ‘s peace forever.”

³⁴So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and struck down Joab and killed him, and he was buried on his own land in the desert.

³⁵The king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in Joab’s position and replaced Abiathar with Zadok the priest.

³⁶Then the king sent for Shimei and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but do not go anywhere else.

³⁷The day you leave and cross the Kidron Valley, you can be sure you will die; your blood will be on your own head.”

³⁸Shimei answered the king, “What you say is good. Your servant will do as my lord the king has said.” And Shimei stayed in Jerusalem for a long time.

³⁹But three years later, two of Shimei’s slaves ran off to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath, and Shimei was told, “Your slaves are in Gath.”

⁴⁰At this, he saddled his donkey and went to Achish at Gath in search of his slaves. So Shimei went away and brought the slaves back from Gath.

⁴¹When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned,

⁴²the king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the Lord and warn you, ‘On the day you leave to go anywhere else, you can be sure you will die’? At that time you said to me, ‘What you say is good. I will obey.’

⁴³Why then did you not keep your oath to the Lord and obey the command I gave you?”

⁴⁴The king also said to Shimei, “You know in your heart all the wrong you did

to my father David. Now the Lord will repay you for your wrongdoing.

⁴⁵But King Solomon will be blessed, and David’s throne will remain secure before the Lord forever.”

⁴⁶Then the king gave the order to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck Shimei down and killed him. The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon’s hands.

3Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the Lord , and the wall around Jerusalem.

²The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord .

³Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

⁴The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

⁵At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

⁶Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.

⁷“Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.

⁸Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number.

⁹So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

¹⁰The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.

¹¹So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice,

¹²I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

¹³Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for-both riches and honor-so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings.

¹⁴And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”

¹⁵Then Solomon awoke-and he realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the Lord’s covenant and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then he gave a feast for all his court.

¹⁶Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.

¹⁷One of them said, “My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me.

¹⁸The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

¹⁹“During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him.

²⁰So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast.

²¹The next morning, I got up to nurse my son-and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”

²²The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.” But the first one insisted, “No! The dead

one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.

²³The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’ “

²⁴Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king.

²⁵He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

²⁶The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

²⁷Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

²⁸When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

4So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.

²And these were his chief officials: Azariah son of Zadok-the priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha- secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud- recorder;

⁴Benaiah son of Jehoiada-commander in chief; Zadok and Abiathar-priests;

⁵Azariah son of Nathan-in charge of the district officers; Zabud son of Nathan-a priest and personal adviser to the king;

⁶Ahishar-in charge of the palace; Adoniram son of Abda-in charge of forced labor.

⁷Solomon also had twelve district governors over all Israel, who supplied provisions for the king and the royal household. Each one had to provide supplies for one month in the year.

⁸These are their names: Ben-Hur-in the hill country of Ephraim;

⁹Ben-Deker-in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth Shemesh and Elon Bethhanan;

¹⁰Ben-Hesed-in Arubboth (Socoh and all the land of Hepher were his);

¹¹Ben-Abinadab-in Naphoth Dor (he was married to Taphath daughter of Solomon);

¹²Baana son of Ahilud-in Taanach and Megiddo, and in all of Beth Shan next to Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth Shan to Abel Meholah across to Jokmeam;

¹³Ben-Geber-in Ramoth Gilead (the settlements of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead were his, as well as the district of Argob in Bashan and its sixty large walled cities with bronze gate bars);

¹⁴Ahinadab son of Iddo-in Mahanaim;

¹⁵Ahimaaz-in Naphtali (he had married Basemath daughter of Solomon);

¹⁶Baana son of Hushai-in Asher and in Aloth;

¹⁷Jehoshaphat son of Paruah-in Issachar;

¹⁸Shimei son of Ela-in Benjamin;

¹⁹Geber son of Uri-in Gilead (the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and the country of Og king of Bashan). He was the only governor over the district.

²⁰The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.

²¹And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries brought tribute and were Solomon’s subjects all his life.

²²Solomon’s daily provisions were thirty cors of fine flour and sixty cors of meal,

²³ten head of stall-fed cattle, twenty of pasture-fed cattle and a hundred sheep and goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks and choice fowl.

²⁴For he ruled over all the kingdoms west of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, and had peace on all sides.

²⁵During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree.

²⁶Solomon had four thousand stalls for chariot horses, and twelve thousand horses.

²⁷The district officers, each in his month, supplied provisions for King Solomon and all who came to the king’s table. They saw to it that nothing was lacking.

²⁸They also brought to the proper place their quotas of barley and straw for the chariot horses and the other horses.

²⁹God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.

³⁰Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

³¹He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite-wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.

³²He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five.

³³He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.

³⁴Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

5When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David.

²Solomon sent back this message to Hiram:

³“You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

⁴But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster.

⁵I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’

⁶“So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians.”

⁷When Hiram heard Solomon’s message, he was greatly pleased and said, “Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation.”

⁸So Hiram sent word to Solomon: “I have received the message you sent me

and will do all you want in providing the cedar and pine logs.

⁹My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household.”

¹⁰In this way Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and pine logs he wanted,

¹¹and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths , of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year.

¹²The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

¹³King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel-thirty thousand men.

¹⁴He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

¹⁵Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills,

¹⁶as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen.

¹⁷At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple.

¹⁸The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and the men of Gebal cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.

6In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord .

²The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.

³The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple.

⁴He made narrow clerestory windows in the temple.

⁵Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms.

⁶The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges

around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

⁷In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.

⁸The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third.

⁹So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks.

¹⁰And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.

¹¹The word of the Lord came to Solomon:

¹²“As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, carry out my regulations and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father.

¹³And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.”

¹⁴So Solomon built the temple and completed it.

¹⁵He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of pine.

¹⁶He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.

¹⁸The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

¹⁹He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there.

²⁰The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.

²¹Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold.

²²So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

²³In the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.

²⁴One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits-ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip.

²⁵The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape.

²⁶The height of each cherub was ten cubits.

²⁷He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room.

²⁸He overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers.

³⁰He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

³¹For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood with five- sided jambs.

³²And on the two olive wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with beaten gold.

³³In the same way he made four-sided jambs of olive wood for the entrance to the main hall.

³⁴He also made two pine doors, each having two leaves that turned in sockets.

³⁵He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.

³⁶And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.

³⁷The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv.

³⁸In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.

7It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.

²He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams.

³It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns-forty- five beams, fifteen to a row.

⁴Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other.

⁵All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.

⁶He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a portico, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof.

⁷He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling.

⁸And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.

⁹All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high- grade stone cut to size and trimmed with a saw on their inner and outer faces.

¹⁰The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight.

¹¹Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams.

¹²The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the Lord with its portico.

¹³King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram,

¹⁴whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.

¹⁵He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around, by line.

¹⁶He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high.

¹⁷A network of interwoven chains festooned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital.

¹⁸He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital.

¹⁹The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high.

²⁰On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around.

²¹He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.

²²The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.

²³He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

²⁴Below the rim, gourds encircled it-ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

²⁵The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three

facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center.

²⁶It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.

²⁷He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high.

²⁸This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached to uprights.

²⁹On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim-and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work.

³⁰Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side.

³¹On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round.

³²The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half.

³³The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal.

³⁴Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand.

³⁵At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand.

³⁶He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around.

³⁷This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same molds and were identical in size and shape.

³⁸He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands.

³⁹He placed five of the stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple.

⁴⁰He also made the basins and shovels and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of the Lord :

⁴¹the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl- shaped capitals on top of the pillars;

⁴²the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);

⁴³the ten stands with their ten basins;

⁴⁴the Sea and the twelve bulls under it;

⁴⁵the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls. All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord were of burnished bronze.

⁴⁶The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

⁴⁷Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

⁴⁸Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the Lord ‘s temple: the golden altar; the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence;

⁴⁹the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary); the gold floral work and lamps and tongs;

⁵⁰the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple.

⁵¹When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was

finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated-the silver and gold and the furnishings-and he placed them in the treasuries of the Lord ‘s temple.

8Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant from Zion, the City of David.

²All the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month.

³When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark,

⁴and they brought up the ark of the Lord and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up,

⁵and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.

⁶The priests then brought the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim.

⁷The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its carrying poles.

⁸These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today.

⁹There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

¹⁰When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord .

¹¹And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.

¹²Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud;

¹³I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”

¹⁴While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them.

¹⁵Then he said: “Praise be to the Lord , the God of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David. For he said,

¹⁶‘Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built for my Name to be there, but I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.’

¹⁷“My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the Lord , the God of Israel.

¹⁸But the Lord said to my father David, ‘Because it was in your heart to build a temple for my Name, you did well to have this in your heart.

¹⁹Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, who is your own flesh and blood-he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’

²⁰“The Lord has kept the promise he made: I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the Lord , the God of Israel.

²¹I have provided a place there for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our fathers when he brought them out of Egypt.”

²²Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven

²³and said: “O Lord , God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below-you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way.

²⁴You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it-as it is today.

²⁵“Now Lord , God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, ‘You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me as you have done.’

²⁶And now, O God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David my father come true.

²⁷“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

²⁸Yet give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day.

²⁹May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place.

³⁰Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.

³¹“When a man wrongs his neighbor and is required to take an oath and he comes and swears the oath before your altar in this temple,

³²then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, condemning the guilty and bringing down on his own

head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty, and so establish his innocence.

³³“When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in this temple,

³⁴then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to their fathers.

³⁵“When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them,

³⁶then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance.

³⁷“When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come,

³⁸and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel-each one aware of the afflictions of his own heart, and spreading out his hands toward this temple-

³⁹then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with each

man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of all men),

⁴⁰so that they will fear you all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers.

⁴¹“As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name-

⁴²for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm-when he comes and prays toward this temple,

⁴³then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

⁴⁴“When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the Lord toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name,

⁴⁵then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

⁴⁶“When they sin against you-for there is no one who does not sin-and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to his own land, far away or near;

⁴⁷and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive,

and repent and plead with you in the land of their conquerors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’;

⁴⁸and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name;

⁴⁹then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

⁵⁰And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their conquerors to show them mercy;

⁵¹for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron-smelting furnace.

⁵²“May your eyes be open to your servant’s plea and to the plea of your people Israel, and may you listen to them whenever they cry out to you.

⁵³For you singled them out from all the nations of the world to be your own inheritance, just as you declared through your servant Moses when you, O Sovereign Lord , brought our fathers out of Egypt.”

⁵⁴When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the Lord , he rose from before the altar of the Lord ,

where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

⁵⁵He stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:

⁵⁶“Praise be to the Lord , who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses.

⁵⁷May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us.

⁵⁸May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers.

⁵⁹And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the Lord , be near to the Lord our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need,

⁶⁰so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other.

⁶¹But your hearts must be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.”

⁶²Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord .

⁶³Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord : twenty-

two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the Lord .

⁶⁴On that same day the king consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the Lord , and there he offered burnt offerings, grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar before the Lord was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings.

⁶⁵So Solomon observed the festival at that time, and all Israel with him-a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. They celebrated it before the Lord our God for seven days and seven days more, fourteen days in all.

⁶⁶On the following day he sent the people away. They blessed the king and then went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things the Lord had done for his servant David and his people Israel.

9When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do,

²the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

³The Lord said to him: “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before

me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

⁴“As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws,

⁵I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

⁶“But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them,

⁷then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.

⁸And though this temple is now imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

⁹People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them-that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.’ “

¹⁰At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two

buildings-the temple of the Lord and the royal palace-

¹¹King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and pine and gold he wanted.

¹²But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.

¹³“What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Cabul, a name they have to this day.

¹⁴Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold.

¹⁵Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord ‘s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.

¹⁶(Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

¹⁷And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon,

¹⁸Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land,

¹⁹as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses

-whatever he desired to build in

Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

²⁰All the people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites),

²¹that is, their descendants remaining in the land, whom the Israelites could not exterminate -these Solomon conscripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day.

²²But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers.

²³They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon’s projects-550 officials supervising the men who did the work.

²⁴After Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the supporting terraces.

²⁵Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord , burning incense before the Lord along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.

²⁶King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.

²⁷And Hiram sent his men-sailors who knew the sea-to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men.

²⁸They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

10When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the Lord , she came to test him with hard questions.

²Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan-with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones-she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind.

³Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her.

⁴When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built,

⁵the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord , she was overwhelmed.

⁶She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true.

⁷But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in

wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard.

⁸How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!

⁹Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord ‘s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness.”

¹⁰And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

¹¹(Hiram’s ships brought gold from Ophir; and from there they brought great cargoes of almugwood and precious stones.

¹²The king used the almugwood to make supports for the temple of the Lord and for the royal palace, and to make harps and lyres for the musicians. So much almugwood has never been imported or seen since that day.)

¹³King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for, besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she left and returned with her retinue to her own country.

¹⁴The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents,

¹⁵not including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the

Arabian kings and the governors of the land.

¹⁶King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas of gold went into each shield.

¹⁷He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three minas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸Then the king made a great throne inlaid with ivory and overlaid with fine gold.

¹⁹The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them.

²⁰Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom.

²¹All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon’s days.

²²The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.

²³King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.

²⁴The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.

²⁵Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift-articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

²⁶Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.

²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills.

²⁸Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue – the royal merchants purchased them from Kue.

²⁹They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

11King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.

²They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because

they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.

³He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.

⁴As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

⁵He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.

⁶So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord ; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

⁷On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.

⁸He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.

⁹The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord , the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

¹⁰Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord ‘s command.

¹¹So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not

kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates.

¹²Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

¹³Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

¹⁴Then the Lord raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite, from the royal line of Edom.

¹⁵Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab the commander of the army, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom.

¹⁶Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom.

¹⁷But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father.

¹⁸They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking men from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food.

¹⁹Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage.

²⁰The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath, whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There Genubath lived with Pharaoh’s own children.

²¹While he was in Egypt, Hadad heard that David rested with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was also dead. Then Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me go, that I may return to my own country.”

²²“What have you lacked here that you want to go back to your own country?” Pharaoh asked. “Nothing,” Hadad replied, “but do let me go!”

²³And God raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah.

²⁴He gathered men around him and became the leader of a band of rebels when David destroyed the forces of Zobah ; the rebels went to Damascus, where they settled and took control.

²⁵Rezon was Israel’s adversary as long as Solomon lived, adding to the trouble caused by Hadad. So Rezon ruled in Aram and was hostile toward Israel.

²⁶Also, Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon’s officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah.

²⁷Here is the account of how he rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the supporting terraces and had filled in the

gap in the wall of the city of David his father.

²⁸Now Jeroboam was a man of standing, and when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the house of Joseph.

²⁹About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country,

³⁰and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces.

³¹Then he said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes.

³²But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe.

³³I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molech the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in my ways, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my statutes and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.

³⁴” ‘But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake

of David my servant, whom I chose and who observed my commands and statutes.

³⁵I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes.

³⁶I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.

³⁷However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart desires; you will be king over Israel.

³⁸If you do whatever I command you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you.

³⁹I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.’ “

⁴⁰Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death.

⁴¹As for the other events of Solomon’s reign-all he did and the wisdom he displayed-are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon?

⁴²Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.

⁴³Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father.

And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king.

12Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king.

²When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt.

³So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him:

⁴“Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.

⁷They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”

⁸But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.

⁹He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’-tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.

¹¹My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’ “

¹²Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.”

¹³The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders,

¹⁴he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”

¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord , to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

¹⁶When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own

house, O David!” So the Israelites went home.

¹⁷But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.

¹⁸King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

²⁰When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.

²¹When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin-a hundred and eighty thousand fighting men-to make war against the house of Israel and to regain the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.

²²But this word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God:

²³“Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,

²⁴‘This is what the Lord says: Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.’ ” So they obeyed

the word of the Lord and went home again, as the Lord had ordered.

²⁵Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel.

²⁶Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David.

²⁷If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

²⁸After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

²⁹One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.

³⁰And this thing became a sin; the people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.

³¹Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.

³²He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made.

And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made.

³³On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

13By the word of the Lord a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering.

²He cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord : “O altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’ “

³That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”

⁴When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back.

⁵Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the Lord .

⁶Then the king said to the man of God, “Intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.” So the man of God interceded with the Lord , and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before.

⁷The king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift.”

⁸But the man of God answered the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here.

⁹For I was commanded by the word of the Lord : ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.’ “

¹⁰So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king.

¹²Their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken.

¹³So he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it

¹⁴and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “I am,” he replied.

¹⁵So the prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat.”

¹⁶The man of God said, “I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place.

¹⁷I have been told by the word of the Lord : ‘You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.’ “

¹⁸The old prophet answered, “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord : ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” (But he was lying to him.)

¹⁹So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.

²⁰While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back.

²¹He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you.

²²You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.’ “

²³When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him.

²⁴As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it.

²⁵Some people who passed by saw the body thrown down there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied the word of the Lord . The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”

²⁷The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they did so.

²⁸Then he went out and found the body thrown down on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey.

²⁹So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him.

³⁰Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, “Oh, my brother!”

³¹After burying him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”

³³Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places.

³⁴This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.

14At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill,

²and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there-the one who told me I would be king over this people.

³Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”

⁴So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh. Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age.

⁵But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.”

⁶So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news.

⁷Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel.

⁸I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.

⁹You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back.

¹⁰” ‘Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel-slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.

¹¹Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken!’

¹²“As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die.

¹³All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord , the God of Israel, has found anything good.

¹⁴“The Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. This is the day! What? Yes, even now.

¹⁵And the Lord will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the River, because they provoked the Lord to anger by making Asherah poles.

¹⁶And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

¹⁷Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died.

¹⁸They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as the Lord had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.

¹⁹The other events of Jeroboam’s reign, his wars and how he ruled, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.

²⁰He reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his fathers. And Nadab his son succeeded him as king.

²¹Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his Name. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.

²²Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord . By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than their fathers had done.

²³They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

²⁴There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

²⁵In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem.

²⁶He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.

²⁷So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard

on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.

²⁸Whenever the king went to the Lord ‘s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.

²⁹As for the other events of Rehoboam’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

³⁰There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

³¹And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite. And Abijah his son succeeded him as king.

15In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijah became king of Judah,

²and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

³He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.

⁴Nevertheless, for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong.

⁵For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed

to keep any of the Lord ‘s commands all the days of his life-except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

⁶There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout Abijah’s lifetime.

⁷As for the other events of Abijah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

⁸And Abijah rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And Asa his son succeeded him as king.

⁹In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa became king of Judah,

¹⁰and he reigned in Jerusalem forty-one years. His grandmother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

¹¹Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , as his father David had done.

¹²He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his fathers had made.

¹³He even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

¹⁴Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.

¹⁵He brought into the temple of the Lord the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated.

¹⁶There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel throughout their reigns.

¹⁷Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and fortified Ramah to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa king of Judah.

¹⁸Asa then took all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the Lord ‘s temple and of his own palace. He entrusted it to his officials and sent them to Ben-Hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus.

¹⁹“Let there be a treaty between me and you,” he said, “as there was between my father and your father. See, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Now break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so he will withdraw from me.”

²⁰Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent the commanders of his forces against the towns of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah and all Kinnereth in addition to Naphtali.

²¹When Baasha heard this, he stopped building Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa issued an order to all Judah-no one was exempt-and they carried away from Ramah the stones and timber Baasha had been using there. With them King Asa built up Geba in Benjamin, and also Mizpah.

²³As for all the other events of Asa’s reign, all his achievements, all he did and the cities he built, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? In his old age, however, his feet became diseased.

²⁴Then Asa rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the city of his father David. And Jehoshaphat his son succeeded him as king.

²⁵Nadab son of Jeroboam became king of Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.

²⁶He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , walking in the ways of his father and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit.

²⁷Baasha son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar plotted against him, and he struck him down at Gibbethon, a Philistine town, while Nadab and all Israel were besieging it.

²⁸Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of Asa king of Judah and succeeded him as king.

²⁹As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam’s whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of the Lord given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite-

³⁰because of the sins Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit, and because he provoked the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger.

³¹As for the other events of Nadab’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

³²There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel throughout their reigns.

³³In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty- four years.

³⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , walking in the ways of Jeroboam and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit.

16Then the word of the Lord came to Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha:

²“I lifted you up from the dust and made you leader of my people Israel, but you walked in the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to provoke me to anger by their sins.

³So I am about to consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat.

⁴Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”

⁵As for the other events of Baasha’s reign, what he did and his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

⁶Baasha rested with his fathers and was buried in Tirzah. And Elah his son succeeded him as king.

⁷Moreover, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani to Baasha and his house, because of all the evil he had done in the eyes of the Lord , provoking him to anger by the things he did, and becoming like the house of Jeroboam-and also because he destroyed it.

⁸In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah son of Baasha became king of Israel, and he reigned in Tirzah two years.

⁹Zimri, one of his officials, who had command of half his chariots, plotted against him. Elah was in Tirzah at the time, getting drunk in the home of Arza, the man in charge of the palace at Tirzah.

¹⁰Zimri came in, struck him down and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah. Then he succeeded him as king.

¹¹As soon as he began to reign and was seated on the throne, he killed off Baasha’s whole family. He did not spare a single male, whether relative or friend.

¹²So Zimri destroyed the whole family of Baasha, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken against Baasha through the prophet Jehu-

¹³because of all the sins Baasha and his son Elah had committed and had caused Israel to commit, so that they

provoked the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger by their worthless idols.

¹⁴As for the other events of Elah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

¹⁵In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned in Tirzah seven days. The army was encamped near Gibbethon, a Philistine town.

¹⁶When the Israelites in the camp heard that Zimri had plotted against the king and murdered him, they proclaimed Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that very day there in the camp.

¹⁷Then Omri and all the Israelites with him withdrew from Gibbethon and laid siege to Tirzah.

¹⁸When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the royal palace and set the palace on fire around him. So he died,

¹⁹because of the sins he had committed, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and walking in the ways of Jeroboam and in the sin he had committed and had caused Israel to commit.

²⁰As for the other events of Zimri’s reign, and the rebellion he carried out, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

²¹Then the people of Israel were split into two factions; half supported Tibni son of Ginath for king, and the other half supported Omri.

²²But Omri’s followers proved stronger than those of Tibni son of Ginath. So Tibni died and Omri became king.

²³In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned twelve years, six of them in Tirzah.

²⁴He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill.

²⁵But Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him.

²⁶He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger by their worthless idols.

²⁷As for the other events of Omri’s reign, what he did and the things he achieved, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

²⁸Omri rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son succeeded him as king.

²⁹In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years.

³⁰Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.

³¹He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.

³²He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.

³³Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.

³⁴In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun.

17Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord , the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

²Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah:

³“Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.

⁴You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”

⁵So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.

⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

⁷Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him:

⁹“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

¹⁰So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?”

¹¹As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

¹²“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread-only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it-and die.”

¹³Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.

¹⁴For this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’ “

¹⁵She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.

¹⁶For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

¹⁷Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing.

¹⁸She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

¹⁹“Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.

²⁰Then he cried out to the Lord , “O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?”

²¹Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord , “O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

²²The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived.

²³Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

²⁴Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”

18After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.”

²So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria,

³and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of his palace. (Obadiah was a devout believer in the Lord .

⁴While Jezebel was killing off the Lord ‘s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)

⁵Ahab had said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find some grass to keep the horses and mules alive so we will not have to kill any of our animals.”

⁶So they divided the land they were to cover, Ahab going in one direction and Obadiah in another.

⁷As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him,

bowed down to the ground, and said, “Is it really you, my lord Elijah?”

⁸“Yes,” he replied. “Go tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’ “

⁹“What have I done wrong,” asked Obadiah, “that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death?

¹⁰As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you.

¹¹But now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’

¹²I don’t know where the Spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn’t find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth.

¹³Haven’t you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord ? I hid a hundred of the Lord ‘s prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water.

¹⁴And now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’ He will kill me!”

¹⁵Elijah said, “As the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today.”

¹⁶So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

¹⁷When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?”

¹⁸“I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord ‘s commands and have followed the Baals.

¹⁹Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

²⁰So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel.

²¹Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.

²²Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord ‘s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets.

²³Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.

²⁴Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord . The god who answers by fire-he is God.” Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

²⁵Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.”

²⁶So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

²⁷At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”

²⁸So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.

²⁹Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

³⁰Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord , which was in ruins.

³¹Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”

³²With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord , and he dug a trench

around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.

³³He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

³⁴“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time.

³⁵The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

³⁶At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O Lord , God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.

³⁷Answer me, O Lord , answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord , are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

³⁹When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord -he is God! The Lord -he is God!”

⁴⁰Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

⁴¹And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”

⁴²So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.

⁴³“Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”

⁴⁴The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’ “

⁴⁵Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.

⁴⁶The power of the Lord came upon Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.

19Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

²So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

³Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there,

⁴while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord ,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

⁵Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”

⁶He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

⁷The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”

⁸So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

⁹There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁰He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

¹¹The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord , for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the

mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord , but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

¹²After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

¹³When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁴He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

¹⁵The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram.

¹⁶Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.

¹⁷Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.

¹⁸Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

¹⁹So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.

²⁰Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,” he said, “and then I will come with you.” “Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”

²¹So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.

20Now Ben-Hadad king of Aram mustered his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two kings with their horses and chariots, he went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it.

²He sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, saying, “This is what Ben-Hadad says:

³‘Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.’ “

⁴The king of Israel answered, “Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours.”

⁵The messengers came again and said, “This is what Ben-Hadad says: ‘I sent to demand your silver and gold, your wives and your children.

⁶But about this time tomorrow I am going to send my officials to search your palace and the houses of your officials. They will seize everything you value and carry it away.’ “

⁷The king of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and said to them, “See how this man is looking for trouble! When he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, I did not refuse him.”

⁸The elders and the people all answered, “Don’t listen to him or agree to his demands.”

⁹So he replied to Ben-Hadad’s messengers, “Tell my lord the king, ‘Your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand I cannot meet.’ ” They left and took the answer back to Ben-Hadad.

¹⁰Then Ben-Hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful.”

¹¹The king of Israel answered, “Tell him: ‘One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off.’ “

¹²Ben-Hadad heard this message while he and the kings were drinking in their tents, and he ordered his men: “Prepare to attack.” So they prepared to attack the city.

¹³Meanwhile a prophet came to Ahab king of Israel and announced, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Do you see this

vast army? I will give it into your hand today, and then you will know that I am the Lord .’ “

¹⁴“But who will do this?” asked Ahab. The prophet replied, “This is what the Lord says: ‘The young officers of the provincial commanders will do it.’ ” “And who will start the battle?” he asked. The prophet answered, “You will.”

¹⁵So Ahab summoned the young officers of the provincial commanders, 232 men. Then he assembled the rest of the Israelites, 7,000 in all.

¹⁶They set out at noon while Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings allied with him were in their tents getting drunk.

¹⁷The young officers of the provincial commanders went out first. Now Ben- Hadad had dispatched scouts, who reported, “Men are advancing from Samaria.”

¹⁸He said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive; if they have come out for war, take them alive.”

¹⁹The young officers of the provincial commanders marched out of the city with the army behind them

²⁰and each one struck down his opponent. At that, the Arameans fled, with the Israelites in pursuit. But Ben- Hadad king of Aram escaped on horseback with some of his horsemen.

²¹The king of Israel advanced and overpowered the horses and chariots

and inflicted heavy losses on the Arameans.

²²Afterward, the prophet came to the king of Israel and said, “Strengthen your position and see what must be done, because next spring the king of Aram will attack you again.”

²³Meanwhile, the officials of the king of Aram advised him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they.

²⁴Do this: Remove all the kings from their commands and replace them with other officers.

²⁵You must also raise an army like the one you lost-horse for horse and chariot for chariot-so we can fight Israel on the plains. Then surely we will be stronger than they.” He agreed with them and acted accordingly.

²⁶The next spring Ben-Hadad mustered the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel.

²⁷When the Israelites were also mustered and given provisions, they marched out to meet them. The Israelites camped opposite them like two small flocks of goats, while the Arameans covered the countryside.

²⁸The man of God came up and told the king of Israel, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast

army into your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord .’ “

²⁹For seven days they camped opposite each other, and on the seventh day the battle was joined. The Israelites inflicted a hundred thousand casualties on the Aramean foot soldiers in one day.

³⁰The rest of them escaped to the city of Aphek, where the wall collapsed on twenty-seven thousand of them. And Ben-Hadad fled to the city and hid in an inner room.

³¹His officials said to him, “Look, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. Let us go to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life.”

³²Wearing sackcloth around their waists and ropes around their heads, they went to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-Hadad says: ‘Please let me live.’ ” The king answered, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.”

³³The men took this as a good sign and were quick to pick up his word. “Yes, your brother Ben-Hadad!” they said. “Go and get him,” the king said. When Ben- Hadad came out, Ahab had him come up into his chariot.

³⁴“I will return the cities my father took from your father,” Ben-Hadad offered. “You may set up your own market areas in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.” Ahab said, “On the basis of a treaty I will set you free.” So he made a treaty with him, and let him go.

³⁵By the word of the Lord one of the sons of the prophets said to his companion, “Strike me with your weapon,” but the man refused.

³⁶So the prophet said, “Because you have not obeyed the Lord , as soon as you leave me a lion will kill you.” And after the man went away, a lion found him and killed him.

³⁷The prophet found another man and said, “Strike me, please.” So the man struck him and wounded him.

³⁸Then the prophet went and stood by the road waiting for the king. He disguised himself with his headband down over his eyes.

³⁹As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, “Your servant went into the thick of the battle, and someone came to me with a captive and said, ‘Guard this man. If he is missing, it will be your life for his life, or you must pay a talent of silver.’

⁴⁰While your servant was busy here and there, the man disappeared.” “That is your sentence,” the king of Israel said. “You have pronounced it yourself.”

⁴¹Then the prophet quickly removed the headband from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.

⁴²He said to the king, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have set free a man I had determined should die. Therefore it is your life for his life, your people for his people.’ “

⁴³Sullen and angry, the king of Israel went to his palace in Samaria.

21Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

²Ahab said to Naboth, “Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth.”

³But Naboth replied, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.”

⁴So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat.

⁵His wife Jezebel came in and asked him, “Why are you so sullen? Why won’t you eat?”

⁶He answered her, “Because I said to Naboth the Jezreelite, ‘Sell me your vineyard; or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’ “

⁷Jezebel his wife said, “Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”

⁸So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, placed his seal on them, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city with him.

⁹In those letters she wrote: “Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people.

¹⁰But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them testify that he has cursed both God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.”

¹¹So the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city did as Jezebel directed in the letters she had written to them.

¹²They proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth in a prominent place among the people.

¹³Then two scoundrels came and sat opposite him and brought charges against Naboth before the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed both God and the king.” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.

¹⁴Then they sent word to Jezebel: “Naboth has been stoned and is dead.”

¹⁵As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, “Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead.”

¹⁶When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard.

¹⁷Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite:

¹⁸“Go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it.

¹⁹Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood-yes, yours!’ “

²⁰Ahab said to Elijah, “So you have found me, my enemy!” “I have found you,” he answered, “because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord .

²¹‘I am going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel- slave or free.

²²I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.’

²³“And also concerning Jezebel the Lord says: ‘Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’

²⁴“Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”

²⁵(There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord , urged on by Jezebel his wife.

²⁶He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel.)

²⁷When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.

²⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite:

²⁹“Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

22For three years there was no war between Aram and Israel.

²But in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of Israel.

³The king of Israel had said to his officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?”

⁴So he asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

⁵But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the Lord .”

⁶So the king of Israel brought together the prophets-about four hundred men- and asked them, “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?” “Go,” they answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.”

⁷But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there not a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?”

⁸The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the Lord , but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.” “The king should not say that,” Jehoshaphat replied.

⁹So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, “Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once.”

¹⁰Dressed in their royal robes, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying before them.

¹¹Now Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had made iron horns and he declared, “This is what the Lord says: ‘With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.’ “

¹²All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. “Attack

Ramoth Gilead and be victorious,” they said, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.”

¹³The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, “Look, as one man the other prophets are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably.”

¹⁴But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me.”

¹⁵When he arrived, the king asked him, “Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?” “Attack and be victorious,” he answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.”

¹⁶The king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord ?”

¹⁷Then Micaiah answered, “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.’ “

¹⁸The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?”

¹⁹Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord : I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left.

²⁰And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that.

²¹Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

²²” ‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. ” ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. ” ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord . ‘Go and do it.’

²³“So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”

²⁴Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. “Which way did the spirit from the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked.

²⁵Micaiah replied, “You will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room.”

²⁶The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon the ruler of the city and to Joash the king’s son

²⁷and say, ‘This is what the king says: Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.’ “

²⁸Micaiah declared, “If you ever return safely, the Lord has not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Mark my words, all you people!”

²⁹So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.

³⁰The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.

³¹Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel.”

³²When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought, “Surely this is the king of Israel.” So they turned to attack him, but when Jehoshaphat cried out,

³³the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel and stopped pursuing him.

³⁴But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.”

³⁵All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died.

³⁶As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army: “Every man to his town; everyone to his land!”

³⁷So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there.

³⁸They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the Lord had declared.

³⁹As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

⁴⁰Ahab rested with his fathers. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.

⁴¹Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king of Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel.

⁴²Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-five years. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.

⁴³In everything he walked in the ways of his father Asa and did not stray from them; he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord . The high places, however, were not removed, and the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁴⁴Jehoshaphat was also at peace with the king of Israel.

⁴⁵As for the other events of Jehoshaphat’s reign, the things he achieved and his military exploits, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

⁴⁶He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes who remained there even after the reign of his father Asa.

⁴⁷There was then no king in Edom; a deputy ruled.

⁴⁸Now Jehoshaphat built a fleet of trading ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they never set sail-they were wrecked at Ezion Geber.

⁴⁹At that time Ahaziah son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Let my men sail with your men,” but Jehoshaphat refused.

⁵⁰Then Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the

city of David his father. And Jehoram his son succeeded him.

⁵¹Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.

⁵²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

⁵³He served and worshiped Baal and provoked the Lord , the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done.

2nd Samuel

Posted on March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

2nd Samuel

⁹“Then he said to me, ‘Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death,

1After the death of Saul, David

returned from defeating the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days.

²On the third day a man arrived from Saul’s camp, with his clothes torn and with dust on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him honor.

³“Where have you come from?” David asked him. He answered, “I have escaped from the Israelite camp.”

⁴“What happened?” David asked. “Tell me.” He said, “The men fled from the battle. Many of them fell and died. And Saul and his son Jonathan are dead.”

⁵Then David said to the young man who brought him the report, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?”

⁶“I happened to be on Mount Gilboa,” the young man said, “and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him.

⁷When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, ‘What can I do?’

⁸“He asked me, ‘Who are you?’ ” ‘An Amalekite,’ I answered.

but I’m still alive.’

¹⁰“So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord.”

¹¹Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them.

¹²They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

¹³David said to the young man who brought him the report, “Where are you from?” “I am the son of an alien, an Amalekite,” he answered.

¹⁴David asked him, “Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord ‘s anointed?”

¹⁵Then David called one of his men and said, “Go, strike him down!” So he struck him down, and he died.

¹⁶For David had said to him, “Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I killed the Lord ‘s anointed.’ “

¹⁷David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan,

¹⁸and ordered that the men of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is written in the Book of Jashar):

¹⁹“Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!

²⁰“Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.

²¹“O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields that yield offerings of grain . For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul-no longer rubbed with oil.

²²From the blood of the slain, from the flesh of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, the sword of Saul did not return unsatisfied.

²³“Saul and Jonathan- in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.

²⁴“O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and finery, who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold.

²⁵“How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights.

²⁶I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.

²⁷“How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!”

2In the course of time, David inquired of the Lord . “Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?” he asked. The Lord said, “Go up.” David asked, “Where shall I go?” “To Hebron,” the Lord answered.

²So David went up there with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

³David also took the men who were with him, each with his family, and they settled in Hebron and its towns.

⁴Then the men of Judah came to Hebron and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. When David was told that it was the men of Jabesh Gilead who had buried Saul,

⁵he sent messengers to the men of Jabesh Gilead to say to them, “The Lord bless you for showing this kindness to Saul your master by burying him.

⁶May the Lord now show you kindness and faithfulness, and I too will show you the same favor because you have done this.

⁷Now then, be strong and brave, for Saul your master is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me king over them.”

⁸Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, had taken

Ish-Bosheth son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim.

⁹He made him king over Gilead, Ashuri and Jezreel, and also over Ephraim, Benjamin and all Israel.

¹⁰Ish-Bosheth son of Saul was forty years old when he became king over Israel, and he reigned two years. The house of Judah, however, followed David.

¹¹The length of time David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

¹²Abner son of Ner, together with the men of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, left Mahanaim and went to Gibeon.

¹³Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s men went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. One group sat down on one side of the pool and one group on the other side.

¹⁴Then Abner said to Joab, “Let’s have some of the young men get up and fight hand to hand in front of us.” “All right, let them do it,” Joab said.

¹⁵So they stood up and were counted off-twelve men for Benjamin and Ish- Bosheth son of Saul, and twelve for David.

¹⁶Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent’s side, and they fell down together. So that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim.

¹⁷The battle that day was very fierce, and Abner and the men of Israel were defeated by David’s men.

¹⁸The three sons of Zeruiah were there: Joab, Abishai and Asahel. Now Asahel was as fleet-footed as a wild gazelle.

¹⁹He chased Abner, turning neither to the right nor to the left as he pursued him.

²⁰Abner looked behind him and asked, “Is that you, Asahel?” “It is,” he answered.

²¹Then Abner said to him, “Turn aside to the right or to the left; take on one of the young men and strip him of his weapons.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him.

²²Again Abner warned Asahel, “Stop chasing me! Why should I strike you down? How could I look your brother Joab in the face?”

²³But Asahel refused to give up the pursuit; so Abner thrust the butt of his spear into Asahel’s stomach, and the spear came out through his back. He fell there and died on the spot. And every man stopped when he came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.

²⁴But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner, and as the sun was setting, they came to the hill of Ammah, near Giah on the way to the wasteland of Gibeon.

²⁵Then the men of Benjamin rallied behind Abner. They formed themselves

into a group and took their stand on top of a hill.

²⁶Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their brothers?”

²⁷Joab answered, “As surely as God lives, if you had not spoken, the men would have continued the pursuit of their brothers until morning. “

²⁸So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the men came to a halt; they no longer pursued Israel, nor did they fight anymore.

²⁹All that night Abner and his men marched through the Arabah. They crossed the Jordan, continued through the whole Bithron and came to Mahanaim.

³⁰Then Joab returned from pursuing Abner and assembled all his men. Besides Asahel, nineteen of David’s men were found missing.

³¹But David’s men had killed three hundred and sixty Benjamites who were with Abner.

³²They took Asahel and buried him in his father’s tomb at Bethlehem. Then Joab and his men marched all night and arrived at Hebron by daybreak.

3The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger,

while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.

²Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;

³his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom the son of Maacah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;

⁴the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;

⁵and the sixth, Ithream the son of David’s wife Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron.

⁶During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner had been strengthening his own position in the house of Saul.

⁷Now Saul had had a concubine named Rizpah daughter of Aiah. And Ish- Bosheth said to Abner, “Why did you sleep with my father’s concubine?”

⁸Abner was very angry because of what Ish-Bosheth said and he answered, “Am I a dog’s head-on Judah’s side? This very day I am loyal to the house of your father Saul and to his family and friends. I haven’t handed you over to David. Yet now you accuse me of an offense involving this woman!

⁹May God deal with Abner, be it ever so severely, if I do not do for David what the Lord promised him on oath

¹⁰and transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and establish David’s throne over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba.”

¹¹Ish-Bosheth did not dare to say another word to Abner, because he was afraid of him.

¹²Then Abner sent messengers on his behalf to say to David, “Whose land is it? Make an agreement with me, and I will help you bring all Israel over to you.”

¹³“Good,” said David. “I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come to see me.”

¹⁴Then David sent messengers to Ish- Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, “Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins.”

¹⁵So Ish-Bosheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband Paltiel son of Laish.

¹⁶Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, “Go back home!” So he went back.

¹⁷Abner conferred with the elders of Israel and said, “For some time you have wanted to make David your king.

¹⁸Now do it! For the Lord promised David, ‘By my servant David I will rescue my people Israel from the hand of the

Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies.’ “

¹⁹Abner also spoke to the Benjamites in person. Then he went to Hebron to tell David everything that Israel and the whole house of Benjamin wanted to do.

²⁰When Abner, who had twenty men with him, came to David at Hebron, David prepared a feast for him and his men.

²¹Then Abner said to David, “Let me go at once and assemble all Israel for my lord the king, so that they may make a compact with you, and that you may rule over all that your heart desires.” So David sent Abner away, and he went in peace.

²²Just then David’s men and Joab returned from a raid and brought with them a great deal of plunder. But Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, because David had sent him away, and he had gone in peace.

²³When Joab and all the soldiers with him arrived, he was told that Abner son of Ner had come to the king and that the king had sent him away and that he had gone in peace.

²⁴So Joab went to the king and said, “What have you done? Look, Abner came to you. Why did you let him go? Now he is gone!

²⁵You know Abner son of Ner; he came to deceive you and observe your movements and find out everything you are doing.”

²⁶Joab then left David and sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the well of Sirah. But David did not know it.

²⁷Now when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the gateway, as though to speak with him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother Asahel, Joab stabbed him in the stomach, and he died.

²⁸Later, when David heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner.

²⁹May his blood fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his father’s house! May Joab’s house never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food.”

³⁰(Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.)

³¹Then David said to Joab and all the people with him, “Tear your clothes and put on sackcloth and walk in mourning in front of Abner.” King David himself walked behind the bier.

³²They buried Abner in Hebron, and the king wept aloud at Abner’s tomb. All the people wept also.

³³The king sang this lament for Abner: “Should Abner have died as the lawless die?

³⁴Your hands were not bound, your feet were not fettered. You fell as one falls before wicked men.” And all the people wept over him again.

³⁵Then they all came and urged David to eat something while it was still day; but David took an oath, saying, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun sets!”

³⁶All the people took note and were pleased; indeed, everything the king did pleased them.

³⁷So on that day all the people and all Israel knew that the king had no part in the murder of Abner son of Ner.

³⁸Then the king said to his men, “Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day?

³⁹And today, though I am the anointed king, I am weak, and these sons of Zeruiah are too strong for me. May the Lord repay the evildoer according to his evil deeds!”

4When Ish-Bosheth son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he lost courage, and all Israel became alarmed.

²Now Saul’s son had two men who were leaders of raiding bands. One was named Baanah and the other Recab; they were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite from the tribe of Benjamin- Beeroth is considered part of Benjamin,

³because the people of Beeroth fled to Gittaim and have lived there as aliens to this day.

⁴(Jonathan son of Saul had a son who was lame in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.)

⁵Now Recab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out for the house of Ish-Bosheth, and they arrived there in the heat of the day while he was taking his noonday rest.

⁶They went into the inner part of the house as if to get some wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah slipped away.

⁷They had gone into the house while he was lying on the bed in his bedroom. After they stabbed and killed him, they cut off his head. Taking it with them, they traveled all night by way of the Arabah.

⁸They brought the head of Ish-Bosheth to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, your enemy, who tried to take your life. This day the Lord has avenged my lord the king against Saul and his offspring.”

⁹David answered Recab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of all trouble,

¹⁰when a man told me, ‘Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward I gave him for his news!

¹¹How much more-when wicked men have killed an innocent man in his own house and on his own bed-should I not now demand his blood from your hand and rid the earth of you!”

¹²So David gave an order to his men, and they killed them. They cut off their hands and feet and hung the bodies by the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-Bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb at Hebron.

5All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “We are your own flesh and blood.

²In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’ “

³When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, the king made a compact with them at Hebron before the Lord , and they anointed David king over Israel.

⁴David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.

⁵In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.

⁶The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.”

⁷Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.

⁸On that day, David said, “Anyone who conquers the Jebusites will have to use the water shaft to reach those ‘lame and blind’ who are David’s enemies. ” That is why they say, “The ‘blind and lame’ will not enter the palace.”

⁹David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built up the area around it, from the supporting terraces inward.

¹⁰And he became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him.

¹¹Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, along with cedar logs and carpenters and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David.

¹²And David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

¹³After he left Hebron, David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him.

¹⁴These are the names of the children born to him there: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,

¹⁵Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia,

¹⁶Elishama, Eliada and Eliphelet.

¹⁷When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, they went up in full force to search for him, but David heard about it and went down to the stronghold.

¹⁸Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim;

¹⁹so David inquired of the Lord , “Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you hand them over to me?” The Lord answered him, “Go, for I will surely hand the Philistines over to you.”

²⁰So David went to Baal Perazim, and there he defeated them. He said, “As waters break out, the Lord has broken out against my enemies before me.” So that place was called Baal Perazim.

²¹The Philistines abandoned their idols there, and David and his men carried them off.

²²Once more the Philistines came up and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim;

²³so David inquired of the Lord , and he answered, “Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.

²⁴As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because that will mean the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.”

²⁵So David did as the Lord commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.

6David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all.

²He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark.

³They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart

⁴with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it.

⁵David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord , with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.

⁶When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.

⁷The Lord ‘s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act;

therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

⁸Then David was angry because the Lord ‘s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.

⁹David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?”

¹⁰He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.

¹¹The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.

¹²Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed- Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing.

¹³When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf.

¹⁴David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might,

¹⁵while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

¹⁶As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul

watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord , she despised him in her heart.

¹⁷They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord .

¹⁸After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty.

¹⁹Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

²⁰When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

²¹David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord , who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord ‘s people Israel-I will celebrate before the Lord .

²²I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

²³And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.

7After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him,

²he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

³Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”

⁴That night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:

⁵“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?

⁶I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.

⁷Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ‘

⁸“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel.

⁹I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your

enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth.

¹⁰And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning

¹¹and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. ” ‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you:

¹²When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.

¹³He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

¹⁴I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.

¹⁵But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.

¹⁶Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me ; your throne will be established forever.’ “

¹⁷Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.

¹⁸Then King David went in and sat before the Lord , and he said: “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord , and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?

¹⁹And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign Lord , you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign Lord ?

²⁰“What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord .

²¹For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.

²²“How great you are, O Sovereign Lord ! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.

²³And who is like your people Israel-the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt?

²⁴You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, O Lord , have become their God.

²⁵“And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised,

²⁶so that your name will be great forever. Then men will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established before you.

²⁷“O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to offer you this prayer.

²⁸O Sovereign Lord , you are God! Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.

²⁹Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, O Sovereign Lord , have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.”

8In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines.

²David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought tribute.

³Moreover, David fought Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his control along the Euphrates River.

⁴David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses.

⁵When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David struck down twenty-two thousand of them.

⁶He put garrisons in the Aramean kingdom of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to him and brought tribute. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went.

⁷David took the gold shields that belonged to the officers of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.

⁸From Tebah and Berothai, towns that belonged to Hadadezer, King David took a great quantity of bronze.

⁹When Tou king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer,

¹⁰he sent his son Joram to King David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. Joram brought with him articles of silver and gold and bronze.

¹¹King David dedicated these articles to the Lord , as he had done with the silver and gold from all the nations he had subdued:

¹²Edom and Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines, and Amalek. He also

dedicated the plunder taken from Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah.

¹³And David became famous after he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

¹⁴He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went.

¹⁵David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people.

¹⁶Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder;

¹⁷Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was secretary;

¹⁸Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites; and David’s sons were royal advisers.

9David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

²Now there was a servant of Saul’s household named Ziba. They called him to appear before David, and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” “Your servant,” he replied.

³The king asked, “Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?” Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in both feet.”

⁴“Where is he?” the king asked. Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”

⁵So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel.

⁶When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, “Mephibosheth!” “Your servant,” he replied.

⁷“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”

⁸Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”

⁹Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family.

¹⁰You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)

¹¹Then Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons.

¹²Mephibosheth had a young son named Mica, and all the members of Ziba’s household were servants of Mephibosheth.

¹³And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table, and he was crippled in both feet.

10In the course of time, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun succeeded him as king.

²David thought, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun concerning his father. When David’s men came to the land of the Ammonites,

³the Ammonite nobles said to Hanun their lord, “Do you think David is honoring your father by sending men to you to express sympathy? Hasn’t David sent them to you to explore the city and spy it out and overthrow it?”

⁴So Hanun seized David’s men, shaved off half of each man’s beard, cut off their garments in the middle at the buttocks, and sent them away.

⁵When David was told about this, he sent messengers to meet the men, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back.”

⁶When the Ammonites realized that they had become a stench in David’s nostrils, they hired twenty thousand Aramean

foot soldiers from Beth Rehob and Zobah, as well as the king of Maacah with a thousand men, and also twelve thousand men from Tob.

⁷On hearing this, David sent Joab out with the entire army of fighting men.

⁸The Ammonites came out and drew up in battle formation at the entrance to their city gate, while the Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah were by themselves in the open country.

⁹Joab saw that there were battle lines in front of him and behind him; so he selected some of the best troops in Israel and deployed them against the Arameans.

¹⁰He put the rest of the men under the command of Abishai his brother and deployed them against the Ammonites.

¹¹Joab said, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to come to my rescue; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come to rescue you.

¹²Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his sight.”

¹³Then Joab and the troops with him advanced to fight the Arameans, and they fled before him.

¹⁴When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans were fleeing, they fled before Abishai and went inside the city. So

Joab returned from fighting the Ammonites and came to Jerusalem.

¹⁵After the Arameans saw that they had been routed by Israel, they regrouped.

¹⁶Hadadezer had Arameans brought from beyond the River ; they went to Helam, with Shobach the commander of Hadadezer’s army leading them.

¹⁷When David was told of this, he gathered all Israel, crossed the Jordan and went to Helam. The Arameans formed their battle lines to meet David and fought against him.

¹⁸But they fled before Israel, and David killed seven hundred of their charioteers and forty thousand of their foot soldiers. He also struck down Shobach the commander of their army, and he died there.

¹⁹When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with the Israelites and became subject to them. So the Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites anymore.

11In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

²One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,

³and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

⁴Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home.

⁵The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

⁶So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David.

⁷When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going.

⁸Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him.

⁹But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰When David was told, “Uriah did not go home,” he asked him, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

¹²Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

¹³At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

¹⁴In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

¹⁵In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

¹⁶So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.

¹⁷When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

¹⁸Joab sent David a full account of the battle.

¹⁹He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle,

²⁰the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall?

²¹Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub- Besheth ? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so

that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’ “

²²The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.

²³The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate.

²⁴Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

²⁵David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”

²⁶When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.

²⁷After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord .

12The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.

²The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

³but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

⁴“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

⁵David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die!

⁶He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

⁷Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

⁸I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.

⁹Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with

the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

¹⁰Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

¹¹“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

¹²You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ “

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord .” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.

¹⁴But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”

¹⁵After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.

¹⁶David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground.

¹⁷The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.

¹⁸On the seventh day the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”

¹⁹David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked. “Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”

²⁰Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

²¹His servants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”

²²He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’

²³But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

²⁴Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him;

²⁵and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.

²⁶Meanwhile Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal citadel.

²⁷Joab then sent messengers to David, saying, “I have fought against Rabbah and taken its water supply.

²⁸Now muster the rest of the troops and besiege the city and capture it. Otherwise I will take the city, and it will be named after me.”

²⁹So David mustered the entire army and went to Rabbah, and attacked and captured it.

³⁰He took the crown from the head of their king -its weight was a talent of gold, and it was set with precious stones-and it was placed on David’s head. He took a great quantity of plunder from the city

³¹and brought out the people who were there, consigning them to labor with saws and with iron picks and axes, and he made them work at brickmaking. He did this to all the Ammonite towns. Then David and his entire army returned to Jerusalem.

13In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.

²Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar,

for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.

³Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man.

⁴He asked Amnon, “Why do you, the king’s son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won’t you tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”

⁵“Go to bed and pretend to be ill,” Jonadab said. “When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’ “

⁶So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.”

⁷David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.”

⁸So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it.

⁹Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat. “Send everyone out of here,” Amnon said. So everyone left him.

¹⁰Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom.

¹¹But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”

¹²“Don’t, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing.

¹³What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.”

¹⁴But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

¹⁵Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

¹⁶“No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.” But he refused to listen to her.

¹⁷He called his personal servant and said, “Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her.”

¹⁸So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the

kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore.

¹⁹Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went.

²⁰Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman.

²¹When King David heard all this, he was furious.

²²Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.

²³Two years later, when Absalom’s sheepshearers were at Baal Hazor near the border of Ephraim, he invited all the king’s sons to come there.

²⁴Absalom went to the king and said, “Your servant has had shearers come. Will the king and his officials please join me?”

²⁵“No, my son,” the king replied. “All of us should not go; we would only be a burden to you.” Although Absalom urged him, he still refused to go, but gave him his blessing.

²⁶Then Absalom said, “If not, please let my brother Amnon come with us.” The king asked him, “Why should he go with you?”

²⁷But Absalom urged him, so he sent with him Amnon and the rest of the king’s sons.

²⁸Absalom ordered his men, “Listen! When Amnon is in high spirits from drinking wine and I say to you, ‘Strike Amnon down,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Have not I given you this order? Be strong and brave.”

²⁹So Absalom’s men did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered. Then all the king’s sons got up, mounted their mules and fled.

³⁰While they were on their way, the report came to David: “Absalom has struck down all the king’s sons; not one of them is left.”

³¹The king stood up, tore his clothes and lay down on the ground; and all his servants stood by with their clothes torn.

³²But Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother, said, “My lord should not think that they killed all the princes; only Amnon is dead. This has been Absalom’s expressed intention ever since the day Amnon raped his sister Tamar.

³³My lord the king should not be concerned about the report that all the king’s sons are dead. Only Amnon is dead.”

³⁴Meanwhile, Absalom had fled. Now the man standing watch looked up and saw many people on the road west of him, coming down the side of the hill. The watchman went and told the king, “I

see men in the direction of Horonaim, on the side of the hill.”

³⁵Jonadab said to the king, “See, the king’s sons are here; it has happened just as your servant said.”

³⁶As he finished speaking, the king’s sons came in, wailing loudly. The king, too, and all his servants wept very bitterly.

³⁷Absalom fled and went to Talmai son of Ammihud, the king of Geshur. But King David mourned for his son every day.

³⁸After Absalom fled and went to Geshur, he stayed there three years.

³⁹And the spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom, for he was consoled concerning Amnon’s death.

14Joab son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart longed for Absalom.

²So Joab sent someone to Tekoa and had a wise woman brought from there. He said to her, “Pretend you are in mourning. Dress in mourning clothes, and don’t use any cosmetic lotions. Act like a woman who has spent many days grieving for the dead.

³Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab put the words in her mouth.

⁴When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell with her face to the

ground to pay him honor, and she said, “Help me, O king!”

⁵The king asked her, “What is troubling you?” She said, “I am indeed a widow; my husband is dead.

⁶I your servant had two sons. They got into a fight with each other in the field, and no one was there to separate them. One struck the other and killed him.

⁷Now the whole clan has risen up against your servant; they say, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother down, so that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed; then we will get rid of the heir as well.’ They would put out the only burning coal I have left, leaving my husband neither name nor descendant on the face of the earth.”

⁸The king said to the woman, “Go home, and I will issue an order in your behalf.”

⁹But the woman from Tekoa said to him, “My lord the king, let the blame rest on me and on my father’s family, and let the king and his throne be without guilt.”

¹⁰The king replied, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he will not bother you again.”

¹¹She said, “Then let the king invoke the Lord his God to prevent the avenger of blood from adding to the destruction, so that my son will not be destroyed.” “As surely as the Lord lives,” he said, “not one hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

¹²Then the woman said, “Let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” “Speak,” he replied.

¹³The woman said, “Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son?

¹⁴Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.

¹⁵“And now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; perhaps he will do what his servant asks.

¹⁶Perhaps the king will agree to deliver his servant from the hand of the man who is trying to cut off both me and my son from the inheritance God gave us.’

¹⁷“And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king bring me rest, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and evil. May the Lord your God be with you.’ “

¹⁸Then the king said to the woman, “Do not keep from me the answer to what I am going to ask you.” “Let my lord the king speak,” the woman said.

¹⁹The king asked, “Isn’t the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right

or to the left from anything my lord the king says. Yes, it was your servant Joab who instructed me to do this and who put all these words into the mouth of your servant.

²⁰Your servant Joab did this to change the present situation. My lord has wisdom like that of an angel of God-he knows everything that happens in the land.”

²¹The king said to Joab, “Very well, I will do it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom.”

²²Joab fell with his face to the ground to pay him honor, and he blessed the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that he has found favor in your eyes, my lord the king, because the king has granted his servant’s request.”

²³Then Joab went to Geshur and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem.

²⁴But the king said, “He must go to his own house; he must not see my face.” So Absalom went to his own house and did not see the face of the king.

²⁵In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him.

²⁶Whenever he cut the hair of his head- he used to cut his hair from time to time when it became too heavy for him-he would weigh it, and its weight was two hundred shekels by the royal standard.

²⁷Three sons and a daughter were born to Absalom. The daughter’s name was Tamar, and she became a beautiful woman.

²⁸Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king’s face.

²⁹Then Absalom sent for Joab in order to send him to the king, but Joab refused to come to him. So he sent a second time, but he refused to come.

³⁰Then he said to his servants, “Look, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.

³¹Then Joab did go to Absalom’s house and he said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?”

³²Absalom said to Joab, “Look, I sent word to you and said, ‘Come here so I can send you to the king to ask, “Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me if I were still there!” ‘ Now then, I want to see the king’s face, and if I am guilty of anything, let him put me to death.”

³³So Joab went to the king and told him this. Then the king summoned Absalom, and he came in and bowed down with his face to the ground before the king. And the king kissed Absalom.

15In the course of time, Absalom provided himself with a chariot and horses and with fifty men to run ahead of him.

²He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, “What town are you from?” He would answer, “Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel.”

³Then Absalom would say to him, “Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you.”

⁴And Absalom would add, “If only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me and I would see that he gets justice.”

⁵Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.

⁶Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice, and so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

⁷At the end of four years, Absalom said to the king, “Let me go to Hebron and fulfill a vow I made to the Lord .

⁸While your servant was living at Geshur in Aram, I made this vow: ‘If the Lord takes me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the Lord in Hebron. ‘ “

⁹The king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he went to Hebron.

¹⁰Then Absalom sent secret messengers throughout the tribes of Israel to say, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’ “

¹¹Two hundred men from Jerusalem had accompanied Absalom. They had been invited as guests and went quite innocently, knowing nothing about the matter.

¹²While Absalom was offering sacrifices, he also sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, to come from Giloh, his hometown. And so the conspiracy gained strength, and Absalom’s following kept on increasing.

¹³A messenger came and told David, “The hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom.”

¹⁴Then David said to all his officials who were with him in Jerusalem, “Come! We must flee, or none of us will escape from Absalom. We must leave immediately, or he will move quickly to overtake us and bring ruin upon us and put the city to the sword.”

¹⁵The king’s officials answered him, “Your servants are ready to do whatever our lord the king chooses.”

¹⁶The king set out, with his entire household following him; but he left ten concubines to take care of the palace.

¹⁷So the king set out, with all the people following him, and they halted at a place some distance away.

¹⁸All his men marched past him, along with all the Kerethites and Pelethites; and all the six hundred Gittites who had accompanied him from Gath marched before the king.

¹⁹The king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why should you come along with us? Go back and stay with King Absalom. You are a foreigner, an exile from your homeland.

²⁰You came only yesterday. And today shall I make you wander about with us, when I do not know where I am going? Go back, and take your countrymen. May kindness and faithfulness be with you.”

²¹But Ittai replied to the king, “As surely as the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be.”

²²David said to Ittai, “Go ahead, march on.” So Ittai the Gittite marched on with all his men and the families that were with him.

²³The whole countryside wept aloud as all the people passed by. The king also crossed the Kidron Valley, and all the people moved on toward the desert.

²⁴Zadok was there, too, and all the Levites who were with him were carrying the ark of the covenant of God. They set down the ark of God, and Abiathar offered sacrifices until all the people had finished leaving the city.

²⁵Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord ‘s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again.

²⁶But if he says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him.”

²⁷The king also said to Zadok the priest, “Aren’t you a seer? Go back to the city in peace, with your son Ahimaaz and Jonathan son of Abiathar. You and Abiathar take your two sons with you.

²⁸I will wait at the fords in the desert until word comes from you to inform me.”

²⁹So Zadok and Abiathar took the ark of God back to Jerusalem and stayed there.

³⁰But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went; his head was covered and he was barefoot. All the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up.

³¹Now David had been told, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David prayed, “O Lord , turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.”

³²When David arrived at the summit, where people used to worship God, Hushai the Arkite was there to meet him, his robe torn and dust on his head.

³³David said to him, “If you go with me, you will be a burden to me.

³⁴But if you return to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king; I was your father’s servant in the past, but now I will be your servant,’ then you can help me by frustrating Ahithophel’s advice.

³⁵Won’t the priests Zadok and Abiathar be there with you? Tell them anything you hear in the king’s palace.

³⁶Their two sons, Ahimaaz son of Zadok and Jonathan son of Abiathar, are there with them. Send them to me with anything you hear.”

³⁷So David’s friend Hushai arrived at Jerusalem as Absalom was entering the city.

16When David had gone a short distance beyond the summit, there was Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, waiting to meet him. He had a string of donkeys saddled and loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred cakes of raisins, a hundred cakes of figs and a skin of wine.

²The king asked Ziba, “Why have you brought these?” Ziba answered, “The donkeys are for the king’s household to ride on, the bread and fruit are for the men to eat, and the wine is to refresh those who become exhausted in the desert.”

³The king then asked, “Where is your master’s grandson?” Ziba said to him, “He is staying in Jerusalem, because he thinks, ‘Today the house of Israel will

give me back my grandfather’s kingdom.’ “

⁴Then the king said to Ziba, “All that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours.” “I humbly bow,” Ziba said. “May I find favor in your eyes, my lord the king.”

⁵As King David approached Bahurim, a man from the same clan as Saul’s family came out from there. His name was Shimei son of Gera, and he cursed as he came out.

⁶He pelted David and all the king’s officials with stones, though all the troops and the special guard were on David’s right and left.

⁷As he cursed, Shimei said, “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you scoundrel!

⁸The Lord has repaid you for all the blood you shed in the household of Saul, in whose place you have reigned. The Lord has handed the kingdom over to your son Absalom. You have come to ruin because you are a man of blood!”

⁹Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head.”

¹⁰But the king said, “What do you and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why do you do this?’ “

¹¹David then said to Abishai and all his officials, “My son, who is of my own flesh, is trying to take my life. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.

¹²It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.”

¹³So David and his men continued along the road while Shimei was going along the hillside opposite him, cursing as he went and throwing stones at him and showering him with dirt.

¹⁴The king and all the people with him arrived at their destination exhausted. And there he refreshed himself.

¹⁵Meanwhile, Absalom and all the men of Israel came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel was with him.

¹⁶Then Hushai the Arkite, David’s friend, went to Absalom and said to him, “Long live the king! Long live the king!”

¹⁷Absalom asked Hushai, “Is this the love you show your friend? Why didn’t you go with your friend?”

¹⁸Hushai said to Absalom, “No, the one chosen by the Lord , by these people, and by all the men of Israel-his I will be, and I will remain with him.

¹⁹Furthermore, whom should I serve? Should I not serve the son? Just as I served your father, so I will serve you.”

²⁰Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your advice. What should we do?”

²¹Ahithophel answered, “Lie with your father’s concubines whom he left to take care of the palace. Then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench in your father’s nostrils, and the hands of everyone with you will be strengthened.”

²²So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he lay with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

²³Now in those days the advice Ahithophel gave was like that of one who inquires of God. That was how both David and Absalom regarded all of Ahithophel’s advice.

17Ahithophel said to Absalom, “I would choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David.

²I would attack him while he is weary and weak. I would strike him with terror, and then all the people with him will flee. I would strike down only the king

³and bring all the people back to you. The death of the man you seek will mean the return of all; all the people will be unharmed.”

⁴This plan seemed good to Absalom and to all the elders of Israel.

⁵But Absalom said, “Summon also Hushai the Arkite, so we can hear what he has to say.”

⁶When Hushai came to him, Absalom said, “Ahithophel has given this advice. Should we do what he says? If not, give us your opinion.”

⁷Hushai replied to Absalom, “The advice Ahithophel has given is not good this time.

⁸You know your father and his men; they are fighters, and as fierce as a wild bear robbed of her cubs. Besides, your father is an experienced fighter; he will not spend the night with the troops.

⁹Even now, he is hidden in a cave or some other place. If he should attack your troops first, whoever hears about it will say, ‘There has been a slaughter among the troops who follow Absalom.’

¹⁰Then even the bravest soldier, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt with fear, for all Israel knows that your father is a fighter and that those with him are brave.

¹¹“So I advise you: Let all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba-as numerous as the sand on the seashore-be gathered to you, with you yourself leading them into battle.

¹²Then we will attack him wherever he may be found, and we will fall on him as dew settles on the ground. Neither he nor any of his men will be left alive.

¹³If he withdraws into a city, then all Israel will bring ropes to that city, and we will drag it down to the valley until not even a piece of it can be found.”

¹⁴Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than that of Ahithophel.” For the Lord had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.

¹⁵Hushai told Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, “Ahithophel has advised Absalom and the elders of Israel to do such and such, but I have advised them to do so and so.

¹⁶Now send a message immediately and tell David, ‘Do not spend the night at the fords in the desert; cross over without fail, or the king and all the people with him will be swallowed up.’ “

¹⁷Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at En Rogel. A servant girl was to go and inform them, and they were to go and tell King David, for they could not risk being seen entering the city.

¹⁸But a young man saw them and told Absalom. So the two of them left quickly and went to the house of a man in Bahurim. He had a well in his courtyard, and they climbed down into it.

¹⁹His wife took a covering and spread it out over the opening of the well and scattered grain over it. No one knew anything about it.

²⁰When Absalom’s men came to the woman at the house, they asked, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” The woman answered them, “They crossed over the brook.” The men searched but found no one, so they returned to Jerusalem.

²¹After the men had gone, the two climbed out of the well and went to inform King David. They said to him, “Set out and cross the river at once; Ahithophel has advised such and such against you.”

²²So David and all the people with him set out and crossed the Jordan. By daybreak, no one was left who had not crossed the Jordan.

²³When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his house in order and then hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.

²⁴David went to Mahanaim, and Absalom crossed the Jordan with all the men of Israel.

²⁵Absalom had appointed Amasa over the army in place of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Jether, an Israelite who had married Abigail, the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah the mother of Joab.

²⁶The Israelites and Absalom camped in the land of Gilead.

²⁷When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Makir son of Ammiel from Lo Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim

²⁸brought bedding and bowls and articles of pottery. They also brought wheat and barley, flour and roasted grain, beans and lentils,

²⁹honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from cows’ milk for David and his people to eat. For they said, “The people have become hungry and tired and thirsty in the desert.”

18David mustered the men who were with him and appointed over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds.

²David sent the troops out-a third under the command of Joab, a third under Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. The king told the troops, “I myself will surely march out with you.”

³But the men said, “You must not go out; if we are forced to flee, they won’t care about us. Even if half of us die, they won’t care; but you are worth ten thousand of us. It would be better now for you to give us support from the city.”

⁴The king answered, “I will do whatever seems best to you.” So the king stood beside the gate while all the men marched out in units of hundreds and of thousands.

⁵The king commanded Joab, Abishai and Ittai, “Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake.” And all the troops heard the king giving orders concerning Absalom to each of the commanders.

⁶The army marched into the field to fight Israel, and the battle took place in the forest of Ephraim.

⁷There the army of Israel was defeated by David’s men, and the casualties that day were great-twenty thousand men.

⁸The battle spread out over the whole countryside, and the forest claimed more lives that day than the sword.

⁹Now Absalom happened to meet David’s men. He was riding his mule, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom’s head got caught in the tree. He was left hanging in midair, while the mule he was riding kept on going.

¹⁰When one of the men saw this, he told Joab, “I just saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree.”

¹¹Joab said to the man who had told him this, “What! You saw him? Why didn’t you strike him to the ground right there? Then I would have had to give you ten shekels of silver and a warrior’s belt.”

¹²But the man replied, “Even if a thousand shekels were weighed out into my hands, I would not lift my hand against the king’s son. In our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake. ‘

¹³And if I had put my life in jeopardy – and nothing is hidden from the king-you would have kept your distance from me.”

¹⁴Joab said, “I’m not going to wait like this for you.” So he took three javelins in his hand and plunged them into

Absalom’s heart while Absalom was still alive in the oak tree.

¹⁵And ten of Joab’s armor-bearers surrounded Absalom, struck him and killed him.

¹⁶Then Joab sounded the trumpet, and the troops stopped pursuing Israel, for Joab halted them.

¹⁷They took Absalom, threw him into a big pit in the forest and piled up a large heap of rocks over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled to their homes.

¹⁸During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.

¹⁹Now Ahimaaz son of Zadok said, “Let me run and take the news to the king that the Lord has delivered him from the hand of his enemies.”

²⁰“You are not the one to take the news today,” Joab told him. “You may take the news another time, but you must not do so today, because the king’s son is dead.”

²¹Then Joab said to a Cushite, “Go, tell the king what you have seen.” The Cushite bowed down before Joab and ran off.

²²Ahimaaz son of Zadok again said to Joab, “Come what may, please let me run behind the Cushite.” But Joab

replied, “My son, why do you want to go? You don’t have any news that will bring you a reward.”

²³He said, “Come what may, I want to run.” So Joab said, “Run!” Then Ahimaaz ran by way of the plain and outran the Cushite.

²⁴While David was sitting between the inner and outer gates, the watchman went up to the roof of the gateway by the wall. As he looked out, he saw a man running alone.

²⁵The watchman called out to the king and reported it. The king said, “If he is alone, he must have good news.” And the man came closer and closer.

²⁶Then the watchman saw another man running, and he called down to the gatekeeper, “Look, another man running alone!” The king said, “He must be bringing good news, too.”

²⁷The watchman said, “It seems to me that the first one runs like Ahimaaz son of Zadok.” “He’s a good man,” the king said. “He comes with good news.”

²⁸Then Ahimaaz called out to the king, “All is well!” He bowed down before the king with his face to the ground and said, “Praise be to the Lord your God! He has delivered up the men who lifted their hands against my lord the king.”

²⁹The king asked, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” Ahimaaz answered, “I saw great confusion just as Joab was about to send the king’s servant and me,

your servant, but I don’t know what it was.”

³⁰The king said, “Stand aside and wait here.” So he stepped aside and stood there.

³¹Then the Cushite arrived and said, “My lord the king, hear the good news! The Lord has delivered you today from all who rose up against you.”

³²The king asked the Cushite, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” The Cushite replied, “May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up to harm you be like that young man.”

³³The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you-O Absalom, my son, my son!”

19Joab was told, “The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.”

²And for the whole army the victory that day was turned into mourning, because on that day the troops heard it said, “The king is grieving for his son.”

³The men stole into the city that day as men steal in who are ashamed when they flee from battle.

⁴The king covered his face and cried aloud, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”

⁵Then Joab went into the house to the king and said, “Today you have humiliated all your men, who have just saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters and the lives of your wives and concubines.

⁶You love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have made it clear today that the commanders and their men mean nothing to you. I see that you would be pleased if Absalom were alive today and all of us were dead.

⁷Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a man will be left with you by nightfall. This will be worse for you than all the calamities that have come upon you from your youth till now.”

⁸So the king got up and took his seat in the gateway. When the men were told, “The king is sitting in the gateway,” they all came before him. Meanwhile, the Israelites had fled to their homes.

⁹Throughout the tribes of Israel, the people were all arguing with each other, saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies; he is the one who rescued us from the hand of the Philistines. But now he has fled the country because of Absalom;

¹⁰and Absalom, whom we anointed to rule over us, has died in battle. So why do you say nothing about bringing the king back?”

¹¹King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests: “Ask the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his

palace, since what is being said throughout Israel has reached the king at his quarters?

¹²You are my brothers, my own flesh and blood. So why should you be the last to bring back the king?’

¹³And say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my own flesh and blood? May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if from now on you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab.’ “

¹⁴He won over the hearts of all the men of Judah as though they were one man. They sent word to the king, “Return, you and all your men.”

¹⁵Then the king returned and went as far as the Jordan. Now the men of Judah had come to Gilgal to go out and meet the king and bring him across the Jordan.

¹⁶Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, hurried down with the men of Judah to meet King David.

¹⁷With him were a thousand Benjamites, along with Ziba, the steward of Saul’s household, and his fifteen sons and twenty servants. They rushed to the Jordan, where the king was.

¹⁸They crossed at the ford to take the king’s household over and to do whatever he wished. When Shimei son of Gera crossed the Jordan, he fell prostrate before the king

¹⁹and said to him, “May my lord not hold me guilty. Do not remember how your

servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. May the king put it out of his mind.

²⁰For I your servant know that I have sinned, but today I have come here as the first of the whole house of Joseph to come down and meet my lord the king.”

²¹Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said, “Shouldn’t Shimei be put to death for this? He cursed the Lord ‘s anointed.”

²²David replied, “What do you and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah? This day you have become my adversaries! Should anyone be put to death in Israel today? Do I not know that today I am king over Israel?”

²³So the king said to Shimei, “You shall not die.” And the king promised him on oath.

²⁴Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, also went down to meet the king. He had not taken care of his feet or trimmed his mustache or washed his clothes from the day the king left until the day he returned safely.

²⁵When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, “Why didn’t you go with me, Mephibosheth?”

²⁶He said, “My lord the king, since I your servant am lame, I said, ‘I will have my donkey saddled and will ride on it, so I can go with the king.’ But Ziba my servant betrayed me.

²⁷And he has slandered your servant to my lord the king. My lord the king is like

an angel of God; so do whatever pleases you.

²⁸All my grandfather’s descendants deserved nothing but death from my lord the king, but you gave your servant a place among those who eat at your table. So what right do I have to make any more appeals to the king?”

²⁹The king said to him, “Why say more? I order you and Ziba to divide the fields.”

³⁰Mephibosheth said to the king, “Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has arrived home safely.”

³¹Barzillai the Gileadite also came down from Rogelim to cross the Jordan with the king and to send him on his way from there.

³²Now Barzillai was a very old man, eighty years of age. He had provided for the king during his stay in Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man.

³³The king said to Barzillai, “Cross over with me and stay with me in Jerusalem, and I will provide for you.”

³⁴But Barzillai answered the king, “How many more years will I live, that I should go up to Jerusalem with the king?

³⁵I am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between what is good and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats and drinks? Can I still hear the voices of men and women singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?

³⁶Your servant will cross over the Jordan with the king for a short distance, but why should the king reward me in this way?

³⁷Let your servant return, that I may die in my own town near the tomb of my father and mother. But here is your servant Kimham. Let him cross over with my lord the king. Do for him whatever pleases you.”

³⁸The king said, “Kimham shall cross over with me, and I will do for him whatever pleases you. And anything you desire from me I will do for you.”

³⁹So all the people crossed the Jordan, and then the king crossed over. The king kissed Barzillai and gave him his blessing, and Barzillai returned to his home.

⁴⁰When the king crossed over to Gilgal, Kimham crossed with him. All the troops of Judah and half the troops of Israel had taken the king over.

⁴¹Soon all the men of Israel were coming to the king and saying to him, “Why did our brothers, the men of Judah, steal the king away and bring him and his household across the Jordan, together with all his men?”

⁴²All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, “We did this because the king is closely related to us. Why are you angry about it? Have we eaten any of the king’s provisions? Have we taken anything for ourselves?”

⁴³Then the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, “We have ten shares in the king; and besides, we have a greater claim on David than you have. So why do you treat us with contempt? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king?” But the men of Judah responded even more harshly than the men of Israel.

20Now a troublemaker named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjamite, happened to be there. He sounded the trumpet and shouted, “We have no share in David, no part in Jesse’s son! Every man to his tent, O Israel!”

²So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stayed by their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

³When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them, but did not lie with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.

⁴Then the king said to Amasa, “Summon the men of Judah to come to me within three days, and be here yourself.”

⁵But when Amasa went to summon Judah, he took longer than the time the king had set for him.

⁶David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will do us more harm than Absalom did. Take your master’s men

and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and escape from us.”

⁷So Joab’s men and the Kerethites and Pelethites and all the mighty warriors went out under the command of Abishai. They marched out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bicri.

⁸While they were at the great rock in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was wearing his military tunic, and strapped over it at his waist was a belt with a dagger in its sheath. As he stepped forward, it dropped out of its sheath.

⁹Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” Then Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.

¹⁰Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab plunged it into his belly, and his intestines spilled out on the ground. Without being stabbed again, Amasa died. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bicri.

¹¹One of Joab’s men stood beside Amasa and said, “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab!”

¹²Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the road, and the man saw that all the troops came to a halt there. When he realized that everyone who came up to Amasa stopped, he dragged him from the road into a field and threw a garment over him.

¹³After Amasa had been removed from the road, all the men went on with Joab to pursue Sheba son of Bicri.

¹⁴Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel Beth Maacah and through the entire region of the Berites, who gathered together and followed him.

¹⁵All the troops with Joab came and besieged Sheba in Abel Beth Maacah. They built a siege ramp up to the city, and it stood against the outer fortifications. While they were battering the wall to bring it down,

¹⁶a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab to come here so I can speak to him.”

¹⁷He went toward her, and she asked, “Are you Joab?” “I am,” he answered. She said, “Listen to what your servant has to say.” “I’m listening,” he said.

¹⁸She continued, “Long ago they used to say, ‘Get your answer at Abel,’ and that settled it.

¹⁹We are the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You are trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the Lord ‘s inheritance?”

²⁰“Far be it from me!” Joab replied, “Far be it from me to swallow up or destroy!

²¹That is not the case. A man named Sheba son of Bicri, from the hill country of Ephraim, has lifted up his hand against the king, against David. Hand over this one man, and I’ll withdraw from

the city.” The woman said to Joab, “His head will be thrown to you from the wall.”

²²Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice, and they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bicri and threw it to Joab. So he sounded the trumpet, and his men dispersed from the city, each returning to his home. And Joab went back to the king in Jerusalem.

²³Joab was over Israel’s entire army; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites;

²⁴Adoniram was in charge of forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder;

²⁵Sheva was secretary; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

²⁶and Ira the Jairite was David’s priest.

21During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord . The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

²The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.)

³David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make amends so that you will bless the Lord ‘s inheritance?”

⁴The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.” “What do you want me to do for you?” David asked.

⁵They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel,

⁶let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul-the Lord ‘s chosen one.” So the king said, “I will give them to you.”

⁷The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

⁸But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

⁹He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord . All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.

¹⁰Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds of the air touch them by day or the wild animals by night.

¹¹When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done,

¹²he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had taken them secretly from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.)

¹³David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up.

¹⁴They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.

¹⁵Once again there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, and he became exhausted.

¹⁶And Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, whose bronze spearhead weighed three hundred shekels and who was armed with a new sword , said he would kill David.

¹⁷But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.”

¹⁸In the course of time, there was another battle with the Philistines, at Gob. At that time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, one of the descendants of Rapha.

¹⁹In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

²⁰In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot-twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha.

²¹When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him.

²²These four were descendants of Rapha in Gath, and they fell at the hands of David and his men.

22David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

²He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

³my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my

salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior- from violent men you save me.

⁴I call to the Lord , who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.

⁵“The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

⁶The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.

⁷In my distress I called to the Lord ; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.

⁸“The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry.

⁹Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

¹⁰He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.

¹¹He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.

¹²He made darkness his canopy around him- the dark rain clouds of the sky.

¹³Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.

¹⁴The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.

¹⁵He shot arrows and scattered the enemies , bolts of lightning and routed them.

¹⁶The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord , at the blast of breath from his nostrils.

¹⁷“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

¹⁸He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

¹⁹They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.

²⁰He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

²¹“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

²²For I have kept the ways of the Lord ; I have not done evil by turning from my God.

²³All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees.

²⁴I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.

²⁵The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.

²⁶“To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

²⁷to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.

²⁸You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.

²⁹You are my lamp, O Lord ; the Lord turns my darkness into light.

³⁰With your help I can advance against a troop ; with my God I can scale a wall.

³¹“As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

³²For who is God besides the Lord ? And who is the Rock except our God?

³³It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

³⁴He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.

³⁵He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

³⁶You give me your shield of victory; you stoop down to make me great.

³⁷You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.

³⁸“I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.

³⁹I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet.

⁴⁰You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet.

⁴¹You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes.

⁴²They cried for help, but there was no one to save them- to the Lord , but he did not answer.

⁴³I beat them as fine as the dust of the earth; I pounded and trampled them like mud in the streets.

⁴⁴“You have delivered me from the attacks of my people; you have preserved me as the head of nations. People I did not know are subject to me,

⁴⁵and foreigners come cringing to me; as soon as they hear me, they obey me.

⁴⁶They all lose heart; they come trembling from their strongholds.

⁴⁷“The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!

⁴⁸He is the God who avenges me, who puts the nations under me,

⁴⁹who sets me free from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes; from violent men you rescued me.

⁵⁰Therefore I will praise you, O Lord , among the nations; I will sing praises to your name.

⁵¹He gives his king great victories; he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.”

23These are the last words of David: “The oracle of David son of Jesse, the oracle of the man exalted by the Most High, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, Israel’s singer of songs :

²“The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; his word was on my tongue.

³The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: ‘When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God,

⁴he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.’

⁵“Is not my house right with God? Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part? Will he not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire?

⁶But evil men are all to be cast aside like thorns, which are not gathered with the hand.

⁷Whoever touches thorns uses a tool of iron or the shaft of a spear; they are burned up where they lie.”

⁸These are the names of David’s mighty men: Josheb-Basshebeth, a Tahkemonite, was chief of the Three; he raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter.

⁹Next to him was Eleazar son of Dodai the Ahohite. As one of the three mighty men, he was with David when they taunted the Philistines gathered at Pas Dammim for battle. Then the men of Israel retreated,

¹⁰but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day. The troops returned to Eleazar, but only to strip the dead.

¹¹Next to him was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines banded together at a place where there was a field full of lentils, Israel’s troops fled from them.

¹²But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the Lord brought about a great victory.

¹³During harvest time, three of the thirty chief men came down to David at the cave of Adullam, while a band of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim.

¹⁴At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem.

¹⁵David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of

water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!”

¹⁶So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the Lord .

¹⁷“Far be it from me, O Lord , to do this!” he said. “Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?” And David would not drink it. Such were the exploits of the three mighty men.

¹⁸Abishai the brother of Joab son of Zeruiah was chief of the Three. He raised his spear against three hundred men, whom he killed, and so he became as famous as the Three.

¹⁹Was he not held in greater honor than the Three? He became their commander, even though he was not included among them.

²⁰Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab’s best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.

²¹And he struck down a huge Egyptian. Although the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club. He snatched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.

²²Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he too was as famous as the three mighty men.

²³He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty, but he was not included among the Three. And David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

²⁴Among the Thirty were: Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem,

²⁵Shammah the Harodite, Elika the Harodite,

²⁶Helez the Paltite, Ira son of Ikkesh from Tekoa,

²⁷Abiezer from Anathoth, Mebunnai the Hushathite,

²⁸Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite,

²⁹Heled son of Baanah the Netophathite, Ithai son of Ribai from Gibeah in Benjamin,

³⁰Benaiah the Pirathonite, Hiddai from the ravines of Gaash,

³¹Abi-Albon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite,

³²Eliahba the Shaalbonite, the sons of Jashen, Jonathan

³³son of Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam son of Sharar the Hararite,

³⁴Eliphelet son of Ahasbai the Maacathite, Eliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite,

³⁵Hezro the Carmelite, Paarai the Arbite,

³⁶Igal son of Nathan from Zobah, the son of Hagri,

³⁷Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, the armor-bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah,

³⁸Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite

³⁹and Uriah the Hittite. There were thirty- seven in all.

24Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

²So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.”

³But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”

⁴The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel.

⁵After crossing the Jordan, they camped near Aroer, south of the town in the gorge, and then went through Gad and on to Jazer.

⁶They went to Gilead and the region of Tahtim Hodshi, and on to Dan Jaan and around toward Sidon.

⁷Then they went toward the fortress of Tyre and all the towns of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went on to Beersheba in the Negev of Judah.

⁸After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

⁹Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: In Israel there were eight hundred thousand able- bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.

¹⁰David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord , “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord , I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”

¹¹Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer:

¹²“Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ “

¹³So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months

of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”

¹⁴David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord , for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

¹⁵So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

¹⁶When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord , “I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall upon me and my family.”

¹⁸On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

¹⁹So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad.

²⁰When Araunah looked and saw the king and his men coming toward him, he

went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.

²¹Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” “To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the Lord , that the plague on the people may be stopped.”

²²Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.

²³O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the Lord your God accept you.”

²⁴But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them.

²⁵David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.

1st Samuel

Posted on March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

1st Samuel

⁸Elkanah her husband would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why

1There was a certain man from

Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.

²He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

³Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord .

⁴Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters.

⁵But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb.

⁶And because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.

⁷This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord , her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat.

don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

⁹Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord ‘s temple.

¹⁰In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord .

¹¹And she made a vow, saying, “O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

¹²As she kept on praying to the Lord , Eli observed her mouth.

¹³Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk

¹⁴and said to her, “How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine.”

¹⁵“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord .

¹⁶Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

¹⁷Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

¹⁸She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

¹⁹Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her.

²⁰So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

²¹When the man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow,

²²Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord , and he will live there always.”

²³“Do what seems best to you,” Elkanah her husband told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

²⁴After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour

and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh.

²⁵When they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli,

²⁶and she said to him, “As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord .

²⁷I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.

²⁸So now I give him to the Lord . For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord .” And he worshiped the Lord there.

2Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the Lord ; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.

²“There is no one holy like the Lord ; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

³“Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.

⁴“The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.

⁵Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.

⁶“The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.

⁸He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. “For the foundations of the earth are the Lord ‘s; upon them he has set the world.

⁹He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails;

¹⁰those who oppose the Lord will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

¹¹Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest.

¹²Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord .

¹³Now it was the practice of the priests with the people that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice and while the meat was being boiled, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand.

¹⁴He would plunge it into the pan or kettle or caldron or pot, and the priest would take for himself whatever the fork

brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

¹⁵But even before the fat was burned, the servant of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give the priest some meat to roast; he won’t accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.”

¹⁶If the man said to him, “Let the fat be burned up first, and then take whatever you want,” the servant would then answer, “No, hand it over now; if you don’t, I’ll take it by force.”

¹⁷This sin of the young men was very great in the Lord ‘s sight, for they were treating the Lord ‘s offering with contempt.

¹⁸But Samuel was ministering before the Lord -a boy wearing a linen ephod.

¹⁹Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.

²⁰Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, “May the Lord give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord .” Then they would go home.

²¹And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord .

²²Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to

all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

²³So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours.

²⁴No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lord ‘s people.

²⁵If a man sins against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the Lord , who will intercede for him?” His sons, however, did not listen to their father’s rebuke, for it was the Lord ‘s will to put them to death.

²⁶And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.

²⁷Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Did I not clearly reveal myself to your father’s house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh?

²⁸I chose your father out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your father’s house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites.

²⁹Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’

³⁰“Therefore the Lord , the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and your father’s house would minister before me forever.’ But now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.

³¹The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line

³²and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, in your family line there will never be an old man.

³³Every one of you that I do not cut off from my altar will be spared only to blind your eyes with tears and to grieve your heart, and all your descendants will die in the prime of life.

³⁴” ‘And what happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be a sign to you-they will both die on the same day.

³⁵I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always.

³⁶Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him for a piece of silver and a crust of bread and plead, “Appoint me to some priestly office so I can have food to eat.” ‘ “

3The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the

word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

²One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.

³The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord , where the ark of God was.

⁴Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.”

⁵And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.

⁶Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” “My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”

⁷Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord : The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

⁸The Lord called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.

⁹So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord , for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel!

Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

¹¹And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.

¹²At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family- from beginning to end.

¹³For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.

¹⁴Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’ “

¹⁵Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord . He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,

¹⁶but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.” Samuel answered, “Here I am.”

¹⁷“What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.”

¹⁸So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the Lord ; let him do what is good in his eyes.”

¹⁹The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.

²⁰And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord .

²¹The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.

4And Samuel’s word came to all Israel. Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek.

²The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield.

³When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

⁴So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim. And Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

⁵When the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised

such a great shout that the ground shook.

⁶Hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, “What’s all this shouting in the Hebrew camp?” When they learned that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp,

⁷the Philistines were afraid. “A god has come into the camp,” they said. “We’re in trouble! Nothing like this has happened before.

⁸Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the desert.

⁹Be strong, Philistines! Be men, or you will be subject to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Be men, and fight!”

¹⁰So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers.

¹¹The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

¹²That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line and went to Shiloh, his clothes torn and dust on his head.

¹³When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair by the side of the road, watching, because his heart feared for the ark of God. When the man entered the town and told what had happened, the whole town sent up a cry.

¹⁴Eli heard the outcry and asked, “What is the meaning of this uproar?” The man hurried over to Eli,

¹⁵who was ninety-eight years old and whose eyes were set so that he could not see.

¹⁶He told Eli, “I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day.” Eli asked, “What happened, my son?”

¹⁷The man who brought the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

¹⁸When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.

¹⁹His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains.

²⁰As she was dying, the women attending her said, “Don’t despair; you have given birth to a son.” But she did not respond or pay any attention.

²¹She named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel”- because of the capture of the ark of God

and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

²²She said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.”

5After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

²Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon.

³When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord ! They took Dagon and put him back in his place.

⁴But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord ! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained.

⁵That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.

⁶The Lord ‘s hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors.

⁷When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god.”

⁸So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, “What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?” They answered, “Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.

⁹But after they had moved it, the Lord ‘s hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors.

¹⁰So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to us to kill us and our people.”

¹¹So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people.” For death had filled the city with panic; God’s hand was very heavy upon it.

¹²Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.

6When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months,

²the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord ? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”

³They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means send a guilt

offering to him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand has not been lifted from you.”

⁴The Philistines asked, “What guilt offering should we send to him?” They replied, “Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers.

⁵Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and pay honor to Israel’s god. Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land.

⁶Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When he treated them harshly, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?

⁷“Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.

⁸Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way,

⁹but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves.

¹¹They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors.

¹²Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.

¹³Now the people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they rejoiced at the sight.

¹⁴The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and there it stopped beside a large rock. The people chopped up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord .

¹⁵The Levites took down the ark of the Lord , together with the chest containing the gold objects, and placed them on the large rock. On that day the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord .

¹⁶The five rulers of the Philistines saw all this and then returned that same day to Ekron.

¹⁷These are the gold tumors the Philistines sent as a guilt offering to the Lord -one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron.

¹⁸And the number of the gold rats was according to the number of Philistine towns belonging to the five rulers-the fortified towns with their country villages. The large rock, on which they set the ark of the Lord , is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.

¹⁹But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the Lord . The people mourned because of the heavy blow the Lord had dealt them,

²⁰and the men of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord , this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?”

²¹Then they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord . Come down and take it up to your place.”

7So the men of Kiriath Jearim came and took up the ark of the Lord . They took it to Abinadab’s house on the hill and consecrated Eleazar his son to guard the ark of the Lord .

²It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord .

³And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and

serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

⁴So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.

⁵Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the Lord for you.”

⁶When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord . On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord .” And Samuel was leader of Israel at Mizpah.

⁷When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. And when the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines.

⁸They said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.”

⁹Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it up as a whole burnt offering to the Lord . He cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.

¹⁰While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites.

¹¹The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car.

¹²Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the Lord helped us.”

¹³So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines.

¹⁴The towns from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to her, and Israel delivered the neighboring territory from the power of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

¹⁵Samuel continued as judge over Israel all the days of his life.

¹⁶From year to year he went on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all those places.

¹⁷But he always went back to Ramah, where his home was, and there he also judged Israel. And he built an altar there to the Lord .

8When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel.

²The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba.

³But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

⁴So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah.

⁵They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

⁶But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord .

⁷And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.

⁸As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.

⁹Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”

¹⁰Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.

¹¹He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.

¹²Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and

commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

¹³He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

¹⁴He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.

¹⁵He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants.

¹⁶Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.

¹⁷He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.

¹⁸When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

¹⁹But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.

²⁰Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

²¹When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord .

²²The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.” Then Samuel

said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go back to his town.”

9There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.

²He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites-a head taller than any of the others.

³Now the donkeys belonging to Saul’s father Kish were lost, and Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants with you and go and look for the donkeys.”

⁴So he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and through the area around Shalisha, but they did not find them. They went on into the district of Shaalim, but the donkeys were not there. Then he passed through the territory of Benjamin, but they did not find them.

⁵When they reached the district of Zuph, Saul said to the servant who was with him, “Come, let’s go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us.”

⁶But the servant replied, “Look, in this town there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true. Let’s go there now. Perhaps he will tell us what way to take.”

⁷Saul said to his servant, “If we go, what can we give the man? The food in our

sacks is gone. We have no gift to take to the man of God. What do we have?”

⁸The servant answered him again. “Look,” he said, “I have a quarter of a shekel of silver. I will give it to the man of God so that he will tell us what way to take.”

⁹(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.)

¹⁰“Good,” Saul said to his servant. “Come, let’s go.” So they set out for the town where the man of God was.

¹¹As they were going up the hill to the town, they met some girls coming out to draw water, and they asked them, “Is the seer here?”

¹²“He is,” they answered. “He’s ahead of you. Hurry now; he has just come to our town today, for the people have a sacrifice at the high place.

¹³As soon as you enter the town, you will find him before he goes up to the high place to eat. The people will not begin eating until he comes, because he must bless the sacrifice; afterward, those who are invited will eat. Go up now; you should find him about this time.”

¹⁴They went up to the town, and as they were entering it, there was Samuel, coming toward them on his way up to the high place.

¹⁵Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed this to Samuel:

¹⁶“About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin. Anoint him leader over my people Israel; he will deliver my people from the hand of the Philistines. I have looked upon my people, for their cry has reached me.”

¹⁷When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.”

¹⁸Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and asked, “Would you please tell me where the seer’s house is?”

¹⁹“I am the seer,” Samuel replied. “Go up ahead of me to the high place, for today you are to eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is in your heart.

²⁰As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, do not worry about them; they have been found. And to whom is all the desire of Israel turned, if not to you and all your father’s family?”

²¹Saul answered, “But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?”

²²Then Samuel brought Saul and his servant into the hall and seated them at the head of those who were invited- about thirty in number.

²³Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the piece of meat I gave you, the one I told you to lay aside.”

²⁴So the cook took up the leg with what was on it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel said, “Here is what has been kept for you. Eat, because it was set aside for you for this occasion, from the time I said, ‘I have invited guests.’ ” And Saul dined with Samuel that day.

²⁵After they came down from the high place to the town, Samuel talked with Saul on the roof of his house.

²⁶They rose about daybreak and Samuel called to Saul on the roof, “Get ready, and I will send you on your way.” When Saul got ready, he and Samuel went outside together.

²⁷As they were going down to the edge of the town, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to go on ahead of us”-and the servant did so-“but you stay here awhile, so that I may give you a message from God.”

10Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you leader over his inheritance?

²When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you set out to look for have been found. And now your father has stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is

asking, “What shall I do about my son?” ‘

³“Then you will go on from there until you reach the great tree of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there. One will be carrying three young goats, another three loaves of bread, and another a skin of wine.

⁴They will greet you and offer you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from them.

⁵“After that you will go to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, tambourines, flutes and harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying.

⁶The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person.

⁷Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

⁸“Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.”

⁹As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day.

¹⁰When they arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he joined in their prophesying.

¹¹When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, “What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹²A man who lived there answered, “And who is their father?” So it became a saying: “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹³After Saul stopped prophesying, he went to the high place.

¹⁴Now Saul’s uncle asked him and his servant, “Where have you been?” “Looking for the donkeys,” he said. “But when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel.”

¹⁵Saul’s uncle said, “Tell me what Samuel said to you.”

¹⁶Saul replied, “He assured us that the donkeys had been found.” But he did not tell his uncle what Samuel had said about the kingship.

¹⁷Samuel summoned the people of Israel to the Lord at Mizpah

¹⁸and said to them, “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’

¹⁹But you have now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your calamities and distresses. And you have said, ‘No, set a king over us.’ So now present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and clans.”

²⁰When Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, the tribe of Benjamin was chosen.

²¹Then he brought forward the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, and Matri’s clan was chosen. Finally Saul son of Kish was chosen. But when they looked for him, he was not to be found.

²²So they inquired further of the Lord , “Has the man come here yet?” And the Lord said, “Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

²³They ran and brought him out, and as he stood among the people he was a head taller than any of the others.

²⁴Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the man the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” Then the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

²⁵Samuel explained to the people the regulations of the kingship. He wrote them down on a scroll and deposited it before the Lord . Then Samuel dismissed the people, each to his own home.

²⁶Saul also went to his home in Gibeah, accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.

²⁷But some troublemakers said, “How can this fellow save us?” They despised him and brought him no gifts. But Saul kept silent.

11Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will be subject to you.”

²But Nahash the Ammonite replied, “I will make a treaty with you only on the condition that I gouge out the right eye of every one of you and so bring disgrace on all Israel.”

³The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days so we can send messengers throughout Israel; if no one comes to rescue us, we will surrender to you.”

⁴When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and reported these terms to the people, they all wept aloud.

⁵Just then Saul was returning from the fields, behind his oxen, and he asked, “What is wrong with the people? Why are they weeping?” Then they repeated to him what the men of Jabesh had said.

⁶When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he burned with anger.

⁷He took a pair of oxen, cut them into pieces, and sent the pieces by messengers throughout Israel, proclaiming, “This is what will be done to the oxen of anyone who does not follow

Saul and Samuel.” Then the terror of the Lord fell on the people, and they turned out as one man.

⁸When Saul mustered them at Bezek, the men of Israel numbered three hundred thousand and the men of Judah thirty thousand.

⁹They told the messengers who had come, “Say to the men of Jabesh Gilead, ‘By the time the sun is hot tomorrow, you will be delivered.’ ” When the messengers went and reported this to the men of Jabesh, they were elated.

¹⁰They said to the Ammonites, “Tomorrow we will surrender to you, and you can do to us whatever seems good to you.”

¹¹The next day Saul separated his men into three divisions; during the last watch of the night they broke into the camp of the Ammonites and slaughtered them until the heat of the day. Those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.

¹²The people then said to Samuel, “Who was it that asked, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring these men to us and we will put them to death.”

¹³But Saul said, “No one shall be put to death today, for this day the Lord has rescued Israel.”

¹⁴Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there reaffirm the kingship.”

¹⁵So all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord . There they sacrificed fellowship offerings before the Lord , and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration.

12Samuel said to all Israel, “I have listened to everything you said to me and have set a king over you.

²Now you have a king as your leader. As for me, I am old and gray, and my sons are here with you. I have been your leader from my youth until this day.

³Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right.”

⁴“You have not cheated or oppressed us,” they replied. “You have not taken anything from anyone’s hand.”

⁵Samuel said to them, “The Lord is witness against you, and also his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” “He is witness,” they said.

⁶Then Samuel said to the people, “It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your forefathers up out of Egypt.

⁷Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence

before the Lord as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord for you and your fathers.

⁸“After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the Lord for help, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your forefathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place.

⁹“But they forgot the Lord their God; so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.

¹⁰They cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned; we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.’

¹¹Then the Lord sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of your enemies on every side, so that you lived securely.

¹²“But when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, ‘No, we want a king to rule over us’-even though the Lord your God was your king.

¹³Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you.

¹⁴If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God-good!

¹⁵But if you do not obey the Lord , and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

¹⁶“Now then, stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes!

¹⁷Is it not wheat harvest now? I will call upon the Lord to send thunder and rain. And you will realize what an evil thing you did in the eyes of the Lord when you asked for a king.”

¹⁸Then Samuel called upon the Lord , and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel.

¹⁹The people all said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.”

²⁰“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord , but serve the Lord with all your heart.

²¹Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.

²²For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.

²³As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to

pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.

²⁴But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you.

²⁵Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away.”

13Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty- two years.

²Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes.

³Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, “Let the Hebrews hear!”

⁴So all Israel heard the news: “Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines.” And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.

⁵The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven.

⁶When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns.

⁷Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear.

⁸He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter.

⁹So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings. ” And Saul offered up the burnt offering.

¹⁰Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

¹¹“What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash,

¹²I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord ‘s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

¹³“You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

¹⁴But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his

own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord ‘s command.”

¹⁵Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about six hundred.

¹⁶Saul and his son Jonathan and the men with them were staying in Gibeah in Benjamin, while the Philistines camped at Micmash.

¹⁷Raiding parties went out from the Philistine camp in three detachments. One turned toward Ophrah in the vicinity of Shual,

¹⁸another toward Beth Horon, and the third toward the borderland overlooking the Valley of Zeboim facing the desert.

¹⁹Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!”

²⁰So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plowshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened.

²¹The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening plowshares and mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.

²²So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

²³Now a detachment of Philistines had gone out to the pass at Micmash.

14One day Jonathan son of Saul said to the young man bearing his armor, “Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.

²Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about six hundred men,

³among whom was Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was a son of Ichabod’s brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord ‘s priest in Shiloh. No one was aware that Jonathan had left.

⁴On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a cliff; one was called Bozez, and the other Seneh.

⁵One cliff stood to the north toward Micmash, the other to the south toward Geba.

⁶Jonathan said to his young armor- bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.”

⁷“Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”

⁸Jonathan said, “Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us.

⁹If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them.

¹⁰But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.”

¹¹So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. “Look!” said the Philistines. “The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.”

¹²The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.” So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.”

¹³Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him.

¹⁴In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.

¹⁵Then panic struck the whole army- those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties-and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God.

¹⁶Saul’s lookouts at Gibeah in Benjamin saw the army melting away in all directions.

¹⁷Then Saul said to the men who were with him, “Muster the forces and see who has left us.” When they did, it was Jonathan and his armor-bearer who were not there.

¹⁸Saul said to Ahijah, “Bring the ark of God.” (At that time it was with the Israelites.)

¹⁹While Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the Philistine camp increased more and more. So Saul said to the priest, “Withdraw your hand.”

²⁰Then Saul and all his men assembled and went to the battle. They found the Philistines in total confusion, striking each other with their swords.

²¹Those Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.

²²When all the Israelites who had hidden in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were on the run, they joined the battle in hot pursuit.

²³So the Lord rescued Israel that day, and the battle moved on beyond Beth Aven.

²⁴Now the men of Israel were in distress that day, because Saul had bound the people under an oath, saying, “Cursed be any man who eats food before

evening comes, before I have avenged myself on my enemies!” So none of the troops tasted food.

²⁵The entire army entered the woods, and there was honey on the ground.

²⁶When they went into the woods, they saw the honey oozing out, yet no one put his hand to his mouth, because they feared the oath.

²⁷But Jonathan had not heard that his father had bound the people with the oath, so he reached out the end of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb. He raised his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened.

²⁸Then one of the soldiers told him, “Your father bound the army under a strict oath, saying, ‘Cursed be any man who eats food today!’ That is why the men are faint.”

²⁹Jonathan said, “My father has made trouble for the country. See how my eyes brightened when I tasted a little of this honey.

³⁰How much better it would have been if the men had eaten today some of the plunder they took from their enemies. Would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been even greater?”

³¹That day, after the Israelites had struck down the Philistines from Micmash to Aijalon, they were exhausted.

³²They pounced on the plunder and, taking sheep, cattle and calves, they

butchered them on the ground and ate them, together with the blood.

³³Then someone said to Saul, “Look, the men are sinning against the Lord by eating meat that has blood in it.” “You have broken faith,” he said. “Roll a large stone over here at once.”

³⁴Then he said, “Go out among the men and tell them, ‘Each of you bring me your cattle and sheep, and slaughter them here and eat them. Do not sin against the Lord by eating meat with blood still in it.’ ” So everyone brought his ox that night and slaughtered it there.

³⁵Then Saul built an altar to the Lord ; it was the first time he had done this.

³⁶Saul said, “Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them till dawn, and let us not leave one of them alive.” “Do whatever seems best to you,” they replied. But the priest said, “Let us inquire of God here.”

³⁷So Saul asked God, “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into Israel’s hand?” But God did not answer him that day.

³⁸Saul therefore said, “Come here, all you who are leaders of the army, and let us find out what sin has been committed today.

³⁹As surely as the Lord who rescues Israel lives, even if it lies with my son Jonathan, he must die.” But not one of the men said a word.

⁴⁰Saul then said to all the Israelites, “You stand over there; I and Jonathan my son will stand over here.” “Do what seems best to you,” the men replied.

⁴¹Then Saul prayed to the Lord , the God of Israel, “Give me the right answer.” And Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot, and the men were cleared.

⁴²Saul said, “Cast the lot between me and Jonathan my son.” And Jonathan was taken.

⁴³Then Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.” So Jonathan told him, “I merely tasted a little honey with the end of my staff. And now must I die?”

⁴⁴Saul said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if you do not die, Jonathan.”

⁴⁵But the men said to Saul, “Should Jonathan die-he who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel? Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help.” So the men rescued Jonathan, and he was not put to death.

⁴⁶Then Saul stopped pursuing the Philistines, and they withdrew to their own land.

⁴⁷After Saul had assumed rule over Israel, he fought against their enemies on every side: Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment on them.

⁴⁸He fought valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, delivering Israel from the hands of those who had plundered them.

⁴⁹Saul’s sons were Jonathan, Ishvi and Malki-Shua. The name of his older daughter was Merab, and that of the younger was Michal.

⁵⁰His wife’s name was Ahinoam daughter of Ahimaaz. The name of the commander of Saul’s army was Abner son of Ner, and Ner was Saul’s uncle.

⁵¹Saul’s father Kish and Abner’s father Ner were sons of Abiel.

⁵²All the days of Saul there was bitter war with the Philistines, and whenever Saul saw a mighty or brave man, he took him into his service.

15Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord .

²This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.

³Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ “

⁴So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim-two hundred

thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men from Judah.

⁵Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine.

⁶Then he said to the Kenites, “Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

⁷Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt.

⁸He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.

⁹But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs-everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

¹⁰Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel:

¹¹“I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

¹²Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor

and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”

¹³When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord ‘s instructions.”

¹⁴But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”

¹⁵Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

¹⁶“Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied.

¹⁷Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.

¹⁸And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’

¹⁹Why did you not obey the Lord ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord ?”

²⁰“But I did obey the Lord ,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king.

²¹The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

²²But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

²³For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord , he has rejected you as king.”

²⁴Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord ‘s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.

²⁵Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord .”

²⁶But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the Lord , and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel!”

²⁷As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore.

²⁸Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors-to one better than you.

²⁹He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”

³⁰Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.”

³¹So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord .

³²Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him confidently, thinking, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”

³³But Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal.

³⁴Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.

³⁵Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.

16The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”

²But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.” The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord .’

³Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

⁴Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”

⁵Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord . Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

⁶When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord ‘s anointed stands here before the Lord .”

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

⁸Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.”

⁹Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the Lord chosen this one.”

¹⁰Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.”

¹¹So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is

tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.”

¹²So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; he is the one.”

¹³So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.

¹⁴Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.

¹⁵Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.

¹⁶Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better.”

¹⁷So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”

¹⁸One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”

¹⁹Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.”

²⁰So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.

²¹David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers.

²²Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”

²³Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

17Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

²Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines.

³The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

⁴A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall.

⁵He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels ;

⁶on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

⁷His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

⁸Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me.

⁹If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.”

¹⁰Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.”

¹¹On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

¹²Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was old and well advanced in years.

¹³Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah.

¹⁴David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul,

¹⁵but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

¹⁶For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

¹⁷Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

¹⁸Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them.

¹⁹They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

²⁰Early in the morning David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.

²¹Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other.

²²David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers.

²³As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it.

²⁴When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear.

²⁵Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father’s family from taxes in Israel.”

²⁶David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

²⁷They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

²⁸When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

²⁹“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?”

³⁰He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.

³¹What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

³²David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

³³Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

³⁴But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,

³⁵I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.

³⁶Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

³⁷The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

³⁸Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.

³⁹David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.

⁴⁰Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

⁴¹Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David.

⁴²He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him.

⁴³He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

⁴⁴“Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”

⁴⁵David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

⁴⁶This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

⁴⁷All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord ‘s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

⁴⁸As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.

⁴⁹Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone

sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

⁵⁰So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

⁵¹David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

⁵²Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.

⁵³When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.

⁵⁴David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent.

⁵⁵As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is that young man?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”

⁵⁶The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.”

⁵⁷As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and

brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine’s head.

⁵⁸“Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him. David said, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”

18After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

²From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father’s house.

³And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.

⁴Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.

⁵Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the people, and Saul’s officers as well.

⁶When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes.

⁷As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

⁸Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with

tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?”

⁹And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.

¹⁰The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the harp, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand

¹¹and he hurled it, saying to himself, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice.

¹²Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had left Saul.

¹³So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns.

¹⁴In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him.

¹⁵When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him.

¹⁶But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns.

¹⁷Saul said to David, “Here is my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you in marriage; only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the Lord .” For Saul said to himself, “I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that!”

¹⁸But David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my family or my father’s clan in

Israel, that I should become the king’s son-in-law?”

¹⁹So when the time came for Merab, Saul’s daughter, to be given to David, she was given in marriage to Adriel of Meholah.

²⁰Now Saul’s daughter Michal was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased.

²¹“I will give her to him,” he thought, “so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “Now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law.”

²²Then Saul ordered his attendants: “Speak to David privately and say, ‘Look, the king is pleased with you, and his attendants all like you; now become his son-in-law.’ “

²³They repeated these words to David. But David said, “Do you think it is a small matter to become the king’s son- in-law? I’m only a poor man and little known.”

²⁴When Saul’s servants told him what David had said,

²⁵Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’ ” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines.

²⁶When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the

king’s son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed,

²⁷David and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

²⁸When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David,

²⁹Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days.

³⁰The Philistine commanders continued to go out to battle, and as often as they did, David met with more success than the rest of Saul’s officers, and his name became well known.

19Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan was very fond of David

²and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there.

³I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”

⁴Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he

has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly.

⁵He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The Lord won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”

⁶Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be put to death.”

⁷So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before.

⁸Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him.

⁹But an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the harp,

¹⁰Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.

¹¹Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.”

¹²So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped.

¹³Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head.

¹⁴When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said, “He is ill.”

¹⁵Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.”

¹⁶But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats’ hair.

¹⁷Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?” Michal told him, “He said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’ “

¹⁸When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there.

¹⁹Word came to Saul: “David is in Naioth at Ramah”;

²⁰so he sent men to capture him. But when they saw a group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came upon Saul’s men and they also prophesied.

²¹Saul was told about it, and he sent more men, and they prophesied too. Saul sent men a third time, and they also prophesied.

²²Finally, he himself left for Ramah and went to the great cistern at Secu. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” “Over in Naioth at Ramah,” they said.

²³So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even upon him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth.

²⁴He stripped off his robes and also prophesied in Samuel’s presence. He lay that way all that day and night. This is why people say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

20Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?”

²“Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without confiding in me. Why would he hide this from me? It’s not so!”

³But David took an oath and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”

⁴Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”

⁵So David said, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon festival, and I am supposed

to dine with the king; but let me go and hide in the field until the evening of the day after tomorrow.

⁶If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David earnestly asked my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because an annual sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.’

⁷If he says, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper, you can be sure that he is determined to harm me.

⁸As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the Lord . If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?”

⁹“Never!” Jonathan said. “If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn’t I tell you?”

¹⁰David asked, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

¹¹“Come,” Jonathan said, “let’s go out into the field.” So they went there together.

¹²Then Jonathan said to David: “By the Lord , the God of Israel, I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know?

¹³But if my father is inclined to harm you, may the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and

send you away safely. May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father.

¹⁴But show me unfailing kindness like that of the Lord as long as I live, so that I may not be killed,

¹⁵and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family-not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”

¹⁶So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.”

¹⁷And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.

¹⁸Then Jonathan said to David: “Tomorrow is the New Moon festival. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty.

¹⁹The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel.

²⁰I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target.

²¹Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,’ then come, because, as surely as the Lord lives, you are safe; there is no danger.

²²But if I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, because the Lord has sent you away.

²³And about the matter you and I discussed-remember, the Lord is witness between you and me forever.”

²⁴So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon festival came, the king sat down to eat.

²⁵He sat in his customary place by the wall, opposite Jonathan, and Abner sat next to Saul, but David’s place was empty.

²⁶Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean-surely he is unclean.”

²⁷But the next day, the second day of the month, David’s place was empty again. Then Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”

²⁸Jonathan answered, “David earnestly asked me for permission to go to Bethlehem.

²⁹He said, ‘Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrifice in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away to see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”

³⁰Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to

your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?

³¹As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he must die!”

³²“Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father.

³³But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David.

³⁴Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the month he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of David.

³⁵In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David. He had a small boy with him,

³⁶and he said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him.

³⁷When the boy came to the place where Jonathan’s arrow had fallen, Jonathan called out after him, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?”

³⁸Then he shouted, “Hurry! Go quickly! Don’t stop!” The boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master.

³⁹(The boy knew nothing of all this; only Jonathan and David knew.)

⁴⁰Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, “Go, carry them back to town.”

⁴¹After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together-but David wept the most.

⁴²Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord , saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’ ” Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.

21David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”

²David answered Ahimelech the priest, “The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.

³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

⁴But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here-provided the men have kept themselves from women.”

⁵David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!”

⁶So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

⁷Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord ; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s head shepherd.

⁸David asked Ahimelech, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s business was urgent.”

⁹The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.” David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

¹⁰That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.

¹¹But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances: ” ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”

¹²David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath.

¹³So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

¹⁴Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me?

¹⁵Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

22David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.

²All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.

³From there David went to Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, “Would you let my father and mother come and stay with you until I learn what God will do for me?”

⁴So he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him as long as David was in the stronghold.

⁵But the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Go into the

land of Judah.” So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.

⁶Now Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. And Saul, spear in hand, was seated under the tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, with all his officials standing around him.

⁷Saul said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds?

⁸Is that why you have all conspired against me? No one tells me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie in wait for me, as he does today.”

⁹But Doeg the Edomite, who was standing with Saul’s officials, said, “I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelech son of Ahitub at Nob.

¹⁰Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for him; he also gave him provisions and the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

¹¹Then the king sent for the priest Ahimelech son of Ahitub and his father’s whole family, who were the priests at Nob, and they all came to the king.

¹²Saul said, “Listen now, son of Ahitub.” “Yes, my lord,” he answered.

¹³Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son

of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword and inquiring of God for him, so that he has rebelled against me and lies in wait for me, as he does today?”

¹⁴Ahimelech answered the king, “Who of all your servants is as loyal as David, the king’s son-in-law, captain of your bodyguard and highly respected in your household?

¹⁵Was that day the first time I inquired of God for him? Of course not! Let not the king accuse your servant or any of his father’s family, for your servant knows nothing at all about this whole affair.”

¹⁶But the king said, “You will surely die, Ahimelech, you and your father’s whole family.”

¹⁷Then the king ordered the guards at his side: “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord , because they too have sided with David. They knew he was fleeing, yet they did not tell me.” But the king’s officials were not willing to raise a hand to strike the priests of the Lord .

¹⁸The king then ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests.” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.

¹⁹He also put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys and sheep.

²⁰But Abiathar, a son of Ahimelech son of Ahitub, escaped and fled to join David.

²¹He told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord .

²²Then David said to Abiathar: “That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family.

²³Stay with me; don’t be afraid; the man who is seeking your life is seeking mine also. You will be safe with me.”

23When David was told, “Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are looting the threshing floors,”

²he inquired of the Lord , saying, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” The Lord answered him, “Go, attack the Philistines and save Keilah.”

³But David’s men said to him, “Here in Judah we are afraid. How much more, then, if we go to Keilah against the Philistine forces!”

⁴Once again David inquired of the Lord , and the Lord answered him, “Go down to Keilah, for I am going to give the Philistines into your hand.”

⁵So David and his men went to Keilah, fought the Philistines and carried off their livestock. He inflicted heavy losses on the Philistines and saved the people of Keilah.

⁶(Now Abiathar son of Ahimelech had brought the ephod down with him when he fled to David at Keilah.)

⁷Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, and he said, “God has handed him over to me, for David has imprisoned himself by entering a town with gates and bars.”

⁸And Saul called up all his forces for battle, to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.

⁹When David learned that Saul was plotting against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod.”

¹⁰David said, “O Lord , God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me.

¹¹Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord , God of Israel, tell your servant.” And the Lord said, “He will.”

¹²Again David asked, “Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?” And the Lord said, “They will.”

¹³So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he did not go there.

¹⁴David stayed in the desert strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.

¹⁵While David was at Horesh in the Desert of Ziph, he learned that Saul had come out to take his life.

¹⁶And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.

¹⁷“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”

¹⁸The two of them made a covenant before the Lord . Then Jonathan went home, but David remained at Horesh.

¹⁹The Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hakilah, south of Jeshimon?

²⁰Now, O king, come down whenever it pleases you to do so, and we will be responsible for handing him over to the king.”

²¹Saul replied, “The Lord bless you for your concern for me.

²²Go and make further preparation. Find out where David usually goes and who has seen him there. They tell me he is very crafty.

²³Find out about all the hiding places he uses and come back to me with definite information. Then I will go with you; if he is in the area, I will track him down among all the clans of Judah.”

²⁴So they set out and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the Desert of Maon, in the Arabah south of Jeshimon.

²⁵Saul and his men began the search, and when David was told about it, he went down to the rock and stayed in the Desert of Maon. When Saul heard this, he went into the Desert of Maon in pursuit of David.

²⁶Saul was going along one side of the mountain, and David and his men were on the other side, hurrying to get away from Saul. As Saul and his forces were closing in on David and his men to capture them,

²⁷a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Come quickly! The Philistines are raiding the land.”

²⁸Then Saul broke off his pursuit of David and went to meet the Philistines. That is why they call this place Sela Hammahlekoth.

²⁹And David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of En Gedi.

24After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the Desert of En Gedi.”

²So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.

³He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave.

⁴The men said, “This is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, ‘I will give

your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’ ” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.

⁵Afterward, David was conscience- stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe.

⁶He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord ‘s anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the Lord .”

⁷With these words David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

⁸Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

⁹He said to Saul, “Why do you listen when men say, ‘David is bent on harming you’?

¹⁰This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lift my hand against my master, because he is the Lord ‘s anointed.’

¹¹See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand! I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. Now understand and recognize that I am not guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion.

I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life.

¹²May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.

¹³As the old saying goes, ‘From evildoers come evil deeds,’ so my hand will not touch you.

¹⁴“Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea?

¹⁵May the Lord be our judge and decide between us. May he consider my cause and uphold it; may he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand.”

¹⁶When David finished saying this, Saul asked, “Is that your voice, David my son?” And he wept aloud.

¹⁷“You are more righteous than I,” he said. “You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.

¹⁸You have just now told me of the good you did to me; the Lord delivered me into your hands, but you did not kill me.

¹⁹When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the Lord reward you well for the way you treated me today.

²⁰I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands.

²¹Now swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family.”

²²So David gave his oath to Saul. Then Saul returned home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.

25Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David moved down into the Desert of Maon.

²A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel.

³His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was surly and mean in his dealings.

⁴While David was in the desert, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep.

⁵So he sent ten young men and said to them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name.

⁶Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!

⁷” ‘Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not mistreat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing.

⁸Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my young men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’ “

⁹When David’s men arrived, they gave Nabal this message in David’s name. Then they waited.

¹⁰Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days.

¹¹Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

¹²David’s men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported every word.

¹³David said to his men, “Put on your swords!” So they put on their swords, and David put on his. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies.

¹⁴One of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them.

¹⁵Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing.

¹⁶Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them.

¹⁷Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him.”

¹⁸Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

¹⁹Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

²⁰As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them.

²¹David had just said, “It’s been useless- all my watching over this fellow’s property in the desert so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good.

²²May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”

²³When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.

²⁴She fell at his feet and said: “My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let

your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.

²⁵May my lord pay no attention to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name-his name is Fool, and folly goes with him. But as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my master sent.

²⁶“Now since the Lord has kept you, my master, from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, may your enemies and all who intend to harm my master be like Nabal.

²⁷And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my master, be given to the men who follow you.

²⁸Please forgive your servant’s offense, for the Lord will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my master, because he fights the Lord ‘s battles. Let no wrongdoing be found in you as long as you live.

²⁹Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my master will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.

³⁰When the Lord has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel,

³¹my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord

has brought my master success, remember your servant.”

³²David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord , the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me.

³³May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands.

³⁴Otherwise, as surely as the Lord , the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

³⁵Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

³⁶When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until daybreak.

³⁷Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone.

³⁸About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.

³⁹When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praise be to the Lord , who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant from doing wrong and

has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.” Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife.

⁴⁰His servants went to Carmel and said to Abigail, “David has sent us to you to take you to become his wife.”

⁴¹She bowed down with her face to the ground and said, “Here is your maidservant, ready to serve you and wash the feet of my master’s servants.”

⁴²Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David’s messengers and became his wife.

⁴³David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both were his wives.

⁴⁴But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Paltiel son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

26The Ziphites went to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Is not David hiding on the hill of Hakilah, which faces Jeshimon?”

²So Saul went down to the Desert of Ziph, with his three thousand chosen men of Israel, to search there for David.

³Saul made his camp beside the road on the hill of Hakilah facing Jeshimon, but David stayed in the desert. When he saw that Saul had followed him there,

⁴he sent out scouts and learned that Saul had definitely arrived.

⁵Then David set out and went to the place where Saul had camped. He saw where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the commander of the army, had lain down. Saul was lying inside the camp, with the army encamped around him.

⁶David then asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, “Who will go down into the camp with me to Saul?” “I’ll go with you,” said Abishai.

⁷So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there was Saul, lying asleep inside the camp with his spear stuck in the ground near his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying around him.

⁸Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of my spear; I won’t strike him twice.”

⁹But David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the Lord ‘s anointed and be guiltless?

¹⁰As surely as the Lord lives,” he said, “the Lord himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.

¹¹But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord ‘s anointed. Now get the spear and water jug that are near his head, and let’s go.”

¹²So David took the spear and water jug near Saul’s head, and they left. No one saw or knew about it, nor did anyone

wake up. They were all sleeping, because the Lord had put them into a deep sleep.

¹³Then David crossed over to the other side and stood on top of the hill some distance away; there was a wide space between them.

¹⁴He called out to the army and to Abner son of Ner, “Aren’t you going to answer me, Abner?” Abner replied, “Who are you who calls to the king?”

¹⁵David said, “You’re a man, aren’t you? And who is like you in Israel? Why didn’t you guard your lord the king? Someone came to destroy your lord the king.

¹⁶What you have done is not good. As surely as the Lord lives, you and your men deserve to die, because you did not guard your master, the Lord ‘s anointed. Look around you. Where are the king’s spear and water jug that were near his head?”

¹⁷Saul recognized David’s voice and said, “Is that your voice, David my son?” David replied, “Yes it is, my lord the king.”

¹⁸And he added, “Why is my lord pursuing his servant? What have I done, and what wrong am I guilty of?

¹⁹Now let my lord the king listen to his servant’s words. If the Lord has incited you against me, then may he accept an offering. If, however, men have done it, may they be cursed before the Lord ! They have now driven me from my

share in the Lord ‘s inheritance and have said, ‘Go, serve other gods.’

²⁰Now do not let my blood fall to the ground far from the presence of the Lord . The king of Israel has come out to look for a flea-as one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

²¹Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Come back, David my son. Because you considered my life precious today, I will not try to harm you again. Surely I have acted like a fool and have erred greatly.”

²²“Here is the king’s spear,” David answered. “Let one of your young men come over and get it.

²³The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and faithfulness. The Lord delivered you into my hands today, but I would not lay a hand on the Lord ‘s anointed.

²⁴As surely as I valued your life today, so may the Lord value my life and deliver me from all trouble.”

²⁵Then Saul said to David, “May you be blessed, my son David; you will do great things and surely triumph.” So David went on his way, and Saul returned home.

27But David thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.”

²So David and the six hundred men with him left and went over to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath.

³David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal.

⁴When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him.

⁵Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be assigned to me in one of the country towns, that I may live there. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?”

⁶So on that day Achish gave him Ziklag, and it has belonged to the kings of Judah ever since.

⁷David lived in Philistine territory a year and four months.

⁸Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these peoples had lived in the land extending to Shur and Egypt.)

⁹Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels, and clothes. Then he returned to Achish.

¹⁰When Achish asked, “Where did you go raiding today?” David would say, “Against the Negev of Judah” or

“Against the Negev of Jerahmeel” or “Against the Negev of the Kenites.”

¹¹He did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he thought, “They might inform on us and say, ‘This is what David did.’ ” And such was his practice as long as he lived in Philistine territory.

¹²Achish trusted David and said to himself, “He has become so odious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant forever.”

28In those days the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, “You must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army.”

²David said, “Then you will see for yourself what your servant can do.” Achish replied, “Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life.”

³Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.

⁴The Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shunem, while Saul gathered all the Israelites and set up camp at Gilboa.

⁵When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart.

⁶He inquired of the Lord , but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.

⁷Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.” “There is one in Endor,” they said.

⁸So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me,” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.”

⁹But the woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?”

¹⁰Saul swore to her by the Lord , “As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.”

¹¹Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” “Bring up Samuel,” he said.

¹²When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”

¹³The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?” The woman said, “I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.”

¹⁴“What does he look like?” he asked. “An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said. Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and

prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

¹⁵Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” “I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.”

¹⁶Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy?

¹⁷The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors-to David.

¹⁸Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today.

¹⁹The Lord will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines.”

²⁰Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel’s words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and night.

²¹When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, “Look, your maidservant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do.

²²Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.”

²³He refused and said, “I will not eat.” But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch.

²⁴The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast.

²⁵Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.

29The Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek, and Israel camped by the spring in Jezreel.

²As the Philistine rulers marched with their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men were marching at the rear with Achish.

³The commanders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish replied, “Is this not David, who was an officer of Saul king of Israel? He has already been with me for over a year, and from the day he left Saul until now, I have found no fault in him.”

⁴But the Philistine commanders were angry with him and said, “Send the man back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against us during the fighting. How better could he

regain his master’s favor than by taking the heads of our own men?

⁵Isn’t this the David they sang about in their dances: ” ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”

⁶So Achish called David and said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives, you have been reliable, and I would be pleased to have you serve with me in the army. From the day you came to me until now, I have found no fault in you, but the rulers don’t approve of you.

⁷Turn back and go in peace; do nothing to displease the Philistine rulers.”

⁸“But what have I done?” asked David. “What have you found against your servant from the day I came to you until now? Why can’t I go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?”

⁹Achish answered, “I know that you have been as pleasing in my eyes as an angel of God; nevertheless, the Philistine commanders have said, ‘He must not go up with us into battle.’

¹⁰Now get up early, along with your master’s servants who have come with you, and leave in the morning as soon as it is light.”

¹¹So David and his men got up early in the morning to go back to the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

30David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it,

²and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.

³When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.

⁴So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.

⁵David’s two wives had been captured- Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

⁶David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

⁷Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” Abiathar brought it to him,

⁸and David inquired of the Lord , “Shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them?” “Pursue them,” he answered. “You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue.”

⁹David and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Ravine, where some stayed behind,

¹⁰for two hundred men were too exhausted to cross the ravine. But David and four hundred men continued the pursuit.

¹¹They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat-

¹²part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.

¹³David asked him, “To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?” He said, “I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.

¹⁴We raided the Negev of the Kerethites and the territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of Caleb. And we burned Ziklag.”

¹⁵David asked him, “Can you lead me down to this raiding party?” He answered, “Swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to them.”

¹⁶He led David down, and there they were, scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from Judah.

¹⁷David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and none of them got away, except four hundred

young men who rode off on camels and fled.

¹⁸David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives.

¹⁹Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.

²⁰He took all the flocks and herds, and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, “This is David’s plunder.”

²¹Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Besor Ravine. They came out to meet David and the people with him. As David and his men approached, he greeted them.

²²But all the evil men and troublemakers among David’s followers said, “Because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered. However, each man may take his wife and children and go.”

²³David replied, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us.

²⁴Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.”

²⁵David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.

²⁶When David arrived in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, “Here is a present for you from the plunder of the Lord ‘s enemies.”

²⁷He sent it to those who were in Bethel, Ramoth Negev and Jattir;

²⁸to those in Aroer, Siphmoth, Eshtemoa

²⁹and Racal; to those in the towns of the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites;

³⁰to those in Hormah, Bor Ashan, Athach

³¹and Hebron; and to those in all the other places where David and his men had roamed.

31Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

²The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua.

³The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.

⁴Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.” But his armor-bearer was terrified and would

not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.

⁵When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.

⁶So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

⁷When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them.

⁸The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

⁹They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people.

¹⁰They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

¹¹When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul,

¹²all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them.

¹³Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.

Ruth

Posted on March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Ruth

1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

²The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

³Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.

⁴They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,

⁵both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

⁶When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.

⁷With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

⁸Then Naomi said to her two daughters- in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your

mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.

⁹May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them and they wept aloud

¹⁰and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

¹¹But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?

¹²Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me-even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons-

¹³would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord ‘s hand has gone out against me!”

¹⁴At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.

¹⁵“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

¹⁶But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you

stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

¹⁷Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

¹⁸When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

¹⁹So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

²⁰“Don’t call me Naomi, ” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.

²¹I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

²²So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

2Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.

²And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose

eyes I find favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”

³So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

⁴Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!” “The Lord bless you!” they called back.

⁵Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Whose young woman is that?”

⁶The foreman replied, “She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi.

⁷She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

⁸So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.

⁹Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

¹⁰At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, “Why

have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me-a foreigner?”

¹¹Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in- law since the death of your husband- how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.

¹²May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord , the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

¹³“May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant-though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls.”

¹⁴At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.

¹⁵As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her.

¹⁶Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

¹⁷So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.

¹⁸She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

¹⁹Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

²⁰“The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers.”

²¹Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’ “

²²Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in- law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”

²³So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

3One day Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you, where you will be well provided for?

²Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman of ours? Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.

³Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

⁴When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”

⁵“I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered.

⁶So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.

⁷When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down.

⁸In the middle of the night something startled the man, and he turned and discovered a woman lying at his feet.

⁹“Who are you?” he asked. “I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer.”

¹⁰“The Lord bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.

¹¹And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.

¹²Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I.

¹³Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good; let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives I will do it. Lie here until morning.”

¹⁴So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “Don’t let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.”

¹⁵He also said, “Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.” When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and put it on her. Then he went back to town.

¹⁶When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, my daughter?” Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her

¹⁷and added, “He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty- handed.’ “

¹⁸Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

4Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there. When the kinsman- redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.

²Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so.

³Then he said to the kinsman-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech.

⁴I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.” “I will redeem it,” he said.

⁵Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.”

⁶At this, the kinsman-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”

⁷(Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)

⁸So the kinsman-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal.

⁹Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Kilion and Mahlon.

¹⁰I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from the town records. Today you are witnesses!”

¹¹Then the elders and all those at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.

¹²Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”

¹³So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.

¹⁴The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord , who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!

¹⁵He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-

law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”

¹⁶Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him.

¹⁷The women living there said, “Naomi has a son.” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

¹⁸This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron,

¹⁹Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab,

²⁰Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,

²¹Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed,

²²Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Judges

Posted on March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Judges

⁸The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the

1After the death of Joshua, the

Israelites asked the LORD , “Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?”

²The LORD answered, “Judah is to go; I have given the land into their hands.”

³Then the men of Judah said to the Simeonites their brothers, “Come up with us into the territory allotted to us, to fight against the Canaanites. We in turn will go with you into yours.” So the Simeonites went with them.

⁴When Judah attacked, the LORD gave the Canaanites and Perizzites into their hands and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek.

⁵It was there that they found Adoni- Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and Perizzites.

⁶Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.

⁷Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

sword and set it on fire.

⁹After that, the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country, the Negev and the western foothills.

¹⁰They advanced against the Canaanites living in Hebron (formerly called Kiriath Arba) and defeated Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai.

¹¹From there they advanced against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher).

¹²And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.”

¹³Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage.

¹⁴One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”

¹⁵She replied, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.” Then Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

¹⁶The descendants of Moses’ father-in- law, the Kenite, went up from the City of Palms with the men of Judah to live among the people of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near Arad.

¹⁷Then the men of Judah went with the Simeonites their brothers and attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath, and they totally destroyed the city. Therefore it was called Hormah.

¹⁸The men of Judah also took Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron-each city with its territory.

¹⁹The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

²⁰As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak.

²¹The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

²²Now the house of Joseph attacked Bethel, and the LORD was with them.

²³When they sent men to spy out Bethel (formerly called Luz),

²⁴the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, “Show us how to get into the city and we will see that you are treated well.”

²⁵So he showed them, and they put the city to the sword but spared the man and his whole family.

²⁶He then went to the land of the Hittites, where he built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

²⁷But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land.

²⁸When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely.

²⁹Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them.

³⁰Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them; but they did subject them to forced labor.

³¹Nor did Asher drive out those living in Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Aczib or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob,

³²and because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land.

³³Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, and

those living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced laborers for them.

³⁴The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain.

³⁵And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon and Shaalbim, but when the power of the house of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor.

³⁶The boundary of the Amorites was from Scorpion Pass to Sela and beyond.

2The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you,

²and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?

³Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.”

⁴When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud,

⁵and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the LORD .

⁶After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance.

⁷The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel.

⁸Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD , died at the age of a hundred and ten.

⁹And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

¹⁰After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.

¹¹Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals.

¹²They forsook the LORD , the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger

¹³because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

¹⁴In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

¹⁵Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

¹⁶Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.

¹⁷Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD ‘s commands.

¹⁸Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them.

¹⁹But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

²⁰Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me,

²¹I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.

²²I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did.”

²³The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.

3These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan

²(he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):

³the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath.

⁴They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD ‘s commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.

⁵The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

⁶They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.

⁷The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD ; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

⁸The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years.

⁹But when they cried out to the LORD , he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them.

¹⁰The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan- Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him.

¹¹So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.

¹²Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD , and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel.

¹³Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms.

¹⁴The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.

¹⁵Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD , and he gave them a deliverer- Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab.

¹⁶Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing.

¹⁷He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man.

¹⁸After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it.

¹⁹At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” The king said, “Quiet!” And all his attendants left him.

²⁰Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat,

²¹Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly.

²²Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it.

²³Then Ehud went out to the porch ; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

²⁴After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, “He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house.”

²⁵They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their Lord fallen to the floor, dead.

²⁶While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah.

²⁷When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.

²⁸“Follow me,” he ordered, “for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.” So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over.

²⁹At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped.

³⁰That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.

³¹After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

4After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the LORD .

²So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.

³Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the LORD for help.

⁴Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.

⁵She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided.

⁶She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The LORD , the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor.

⁷I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’ “

⁸Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”

⁹“Very well,” Deborah said, “I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh,

¹⁰where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand men followed him, and Deborah also went with him.

¹¹Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.

¹²When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,

¹³Sisera gathered together his nine hundred iron chariots and all the men with him, from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River.

¹⁴Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?” So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men.

¹⁵At Barak’s advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot.

¹⁶But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim. All the troops of Sisera fell by the sword; not a man was left.

¹⁷Sisera, however, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there were friendly relations between Jabin king of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite.

¹⁸Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my Lord , come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she put a covering over him.

¹⁹“I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

²⁰“Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say ‘No.’ “

²¹But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

²²Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple-dead.

²³On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites.

²⁴And the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the Canaanite king, until they destroyed him.

5On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:

²“When the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves- praise the LORD !

³“Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers! I will sing to the LORD , I will sing; I will make music to the LORD , the God of Israel.

⁴“O LORD , when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water.

⁵The mountains quaked before the LORD , the One of Sinai, before the LORD , the God of Israel.

⁶“In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the roads were abandoned; travelers took to winding paths.

⁷Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel.

⁸When they chose new gods, war came to the city gates, and not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel.

⁹My heart is with Israel’s princes, with the willing volunteers among the people. Praise the LORD !

¹⁰“You who ride on white donkeys, sitting on your saddle blankets, and you who walk along the road, consider

¹¹the voice of the singers at the watering places. They recite the righteous acts of the LORD , the righteous acts of his warriors in Israel. “Then the people of the LORD went down to the city gates.

¹²‘Wake up, wake up, Deborah! Wake up, wake up, break out in song! Arise, O Barak! Take captive your captives, O son of Abinoam.’

¹³“Then the men who were left came down to the nobles; the people of the LORD came to me with the mighty.

¹⁴Some came from Ephraim, whose roots were in Amalek; Benjamin was with the people who followed you. From Makir captains came down, from Zebulun those who bear a commander’s staff.

¹⁵The princes of Issachar were with Deborah; yes, Issachar was with Barak, rushing after him into the valley. In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart.

¹⁶Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks? In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart.

¹⁷Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. And Dan, why did he linger by the ships? Asher remained on the coast and stayed in his coves.

¹⁸The people of Zebulun risked their very lives; so did Naphtali on the heights of the field.

¹⁹“Kings came, they fought; the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, but they carried off no silver, no plunder.

²⁰From the heavens the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

²¹The river Kishon swept them away, the age-old river, the river Kishon. March on, my soul; be strong!

²²Then thundered the horses’ hoofs- galloping, galloping go his mighty steeds.

²³‘Curse Meroz,’ said the angel of the LORD . ‘Curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the LORD , to help the LORD against the mighty.’

²⁴“Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women.

²⁵He asked for water, and she gave him milk; in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.

²⁶Her hand reached for the tent peg, her right hand for the workman’s hammer. She struck Sisera, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.

²⁷At her feet he sank, he fell; there he lay. At her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell-dead.

²⁸“Through the window peered Sisera’s mother; behind the lattice she cried out, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?’

²⁹The wisest of her ladies answer her; indeed, she keeps saying to herself,

³⁰‘Are they not finding and dividing the spoils: a girl or two for each man, colorful garments as plunder for Sisera, colorful garments embroidered, highly embroidered garments for my neck- all this as plunder?’

³¹“So may all your enemies perish, O LORD ! But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had peace forty years.

6Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD , and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.

²Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.

³Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country.

⁴They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys.

⁵They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.

⁶Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.

⁷When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian,

⁸he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD , the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

⁹I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land.

¹⁰I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

¹¹The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.

¹²When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

¹³“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

¹⁴The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

¹⁵“But Lord , ” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

¹⁶The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

¹⁷Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.

¹⁸Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.” And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.”

¹⁹Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

²⁰The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so.

²¹With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared.

²²When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD , he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign LORD ! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”

²³But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”

²⁴So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

²⁵That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.

²⁶Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.”

²⁷So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.

²⁸In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

²⁹They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

³⁰The men of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”

³¹But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”

³²So that day they called Gideon “Jerub- Baal, ” saying, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he broke down Baal’s altar.

³³Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel.

³⁴Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.

³⁵He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.

³⁶Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised-

³⁷look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”

³⁸And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew-a bowlful of water.

³⁹Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew.”

⁴⁰That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

7Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh.

²The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her,

³announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty- two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

⁴But the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

⁵So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.”

⁶Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.

⁷The LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place.”

⁸So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley.

⁹During that night the LORD said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the

camp, because I am going to give it into your hands.

¹⁰If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah

¹¹and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp.

¹²The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.

¹³Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”

¹⁴His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”

¹⁵When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The LORD has given the Midianite camp into your hands.”

¹⁶Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.

¹⁷“Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do.

¹⁸When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the LORD and for Gideon.’ “

¹⁹Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands.

²⁰The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!”

²¹While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.

²²When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the LORD caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.

²³Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites.

²⁴Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and

seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they took the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah.

²⁵They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.

8Now the Ephraimites asked Gideon, “Why have you treated us like this? Why didn’t you call us when you went to fight Midian?” And they criticized him sharply.

²But he answered them, “What have I accomplished compared to you? Aren’t the gleanings of Ephraim’s grapes better than the full grape harvest of Abiezer?

³God gave Oreb and Zeeb, the Midianite leaders, into your hands. What was I able to do compared to you?” At this, their resentment against him subsided.

⁴Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan and crossed it.

⁵He said to the men of Succoth, “Give my troops some bread; they are worn out, and I am still pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.”

⁶But the officials of Succoth said, “Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your possession? Why should we give bread to your troops?”

⁷Then Gideon replied, “Just for that, when the LORD has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers.”

⁸From there he went up to Peniel and made the same request of them, but they answered as the men of Succoth had.

⁹So he said to the men of Peniel, “When I return in triumph, I will tear down this tower.”

¹⁰Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with a force of about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of the armies of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.

¹¹Gideon went up by the route of the nomads east of Nobah and Jogbehah and fell upon the unsuspecting army.

¹²Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian, fled, but he pursued them and captured them, routing their entire army.

¹³Gideon son of Joash then returned from the battle by the Pass of Heres.

¹⁴He caught a young man of Succoth and questioned him, and the young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven officials of Succoth, the elders of the town.

¹⁵Then Gideon came and said to the men of Succoth, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me by saying, ‘Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your

possession? Why should we give bread to your exhausted men?’ “

¹⁶He took the elders of the town and taught the men of Succoth a lesson by punishing them with desert thorns and briers.

¹⁷He also pulled down the tower of Peniel and killed the men of the town.

¹⁸Then he asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?” “Men like you,” they answered, “each one with the bearing of a prince.”

¹⁹Gideon replied, “Those were my brothers, the sons of my own mother. As surely as the LORD lives, if you had spared their lives, I would not kill you.”

²⁰Turning to Jether, his oldest son, he said, “Kill them!” But Jether did not draw his sword, because he was only a boy and was afraid.

²¹Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Come, do it yourself. ‘As is the man, so is his strength.’ ” So Gideon stepped forward and killed them, and took the ornaments off their camels’ necks.

²²The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us-you, your son and your grandson-because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.”

²³But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you.”

²⁴And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from

your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)

²⁵They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each man threw a ring from his plunder onto it.

²⁶The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks.

²⁷Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

²⁸Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land enjoyed peace forty years.

²⁹Jerub-Baal son of Joash went back home to live.

³⁰He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives.

³¹His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech.

³²Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

³³No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and

³⁴did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

³⁵They also failed to show kindness to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he had done for them.

9Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan,

²“Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood.”

³When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.”

⁴They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelech used it to hire reckless adventurers, who became his followers.

⁵He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding.

⁶Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great

tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelech king.

⁷When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.

⁸One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king.’

⁹“But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’

¹⁰“Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’

¹¹“But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’

¹²“Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’

¹³“But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and men, to hold sway over the trees?’

¹⁴“Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’

¹⁵“The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’

¹⁶“Now if you have acted honorably and in good faith when you made Abimelech king, and if you have been fair to Jerub- Baal and his family, and if you have treated him as he deserves-

¹⁷and to think that my father fought for you, risked his life to rescue you from the hand of Midian

¹⁸(but today you have revolted against my father’s family, murdered his seventy sons on a single stone, and made Abimelech, the son of his slave girl, king over the citizens of Shechem because he is your brother)-

¹⁹if then you have acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today, may Abimelech be your joy, and may you be his, too!

²⁰But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelech and consume you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelech!”

²¹Then Jotham fled, escaping to Beer, and he lived there because he was afraid of his brother Abimelech.

²²After Abimelech had governed Israel three years,

²³God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, who acted treacherously against Abimelech.

²⁴God did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons, the

shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelech and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.

²⁵In opposition to him these citizens of Shechem set men on the hilltops to ambush and rob everyone who passed by, and this was reported to Abimelech.

²⁶Now Gaal son of Ebed moved with his brothers into Shechem, and its citizens put their confidence in him.

²⁷After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelech.

²⁸Then Gaal son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should be subject to him? Isn’t he Jerub-Baal’s son, and isn’t Zebul his deputy? Serve the men of Hamor, Shechem’s father! Why should we serve Abimelech?

²⁹If only this people were under my command! Then I would get rid of him. I would say to Abimelech, ‘Call out your whole army!’ “

³⁰When Zebul the governor of the city heard what Gaal son of Ebed said, he was very angry.

³¹Under cover he sent messengers to Abimelech, saying, “Gaal son of Ebed and his brothers have come to Shechem and are stirring up the city against you.

³²Now then, during the night you and your men should come and lie in wait in the fields.

³³In the morning at sunrise, advance against the city. When Gaal and his men come out against you, do whatever your hand finds to do.”

³⁴So Abimelech and all his troops set out by night and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four companies.

³⁵Now Gaal son of Ebed had gone out and was standing at the entrance to the city gate just as Abimelech and his soldiers came out from their hiding place.

³⁶When Gaal saw them, he said to Zebul, “Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains!” Zebul replied, “You mistake the shadows of the mountains for men.”

³⁷But Gaal spoke up again: “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and a company is coming from the direction of the soothsayers’ tree.”

³⁸Then Zebul said to him, “Where is your big talk now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should be subject to him?’ Aren’t these the men you ridiculed? Go out and fight them!”

³⁹So Gaal led out the citizens of Shechem and fought Abimelech.

⁴⁰Abimelech chased him, and many fell wounded in the flight-all the way to the entrance to the gate.

⁴¹Abimelech stayed in Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his brothers out of Shechem.

⁴²The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields, and this was reported to Abimelech.

⁴³So he took his men, divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he rose to attack them.

⁴⁴Abimelech and the companies with him rushed forward to a position at the entrance to the city gate. Then two companies rushed upon those in the fields and struck them down.

⁴⁵All that day Abimelech pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.

⁴⁶On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of El-Berith.

⁴⁷When Abimelech heard that they had assembled there,

⁴⁸he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and cut off some branches, which he lifted to his shoulders. He ordered the men with him, “Quick! Do what you have seen me do!”

⁴⁹So all the men cut branches and followed Abimelech. They piled them against the stronghold and set it on fire over the people inside. So all the people

in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, also died.

⁵⁰Next Abimelech went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it.

⁵¹Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women- all the people of the city-fled. They locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof.

⁵²Abimelech went to the tower and stormed it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire,

⁵³a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull.

⁵⁴Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’ ” So his servant ran him through, and he died.

⁵⁵When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.

⁵⁶Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers.

⁵⁷God also made the men of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.

10After the time of Abimelech a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.

²He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.

³He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years.

⁴He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair.

⁵When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.

⁶Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD . They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the LORD and no longer served him,

⁷he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites,

⁸who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.

⁹The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim; and Israel was in great distress.

¹⁰Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD , “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”

¹¹The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,

¹²the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands?

¹³But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you.

¹⁴Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

¹⁵But the Israelites said to the LORD , “We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.”

¹⁶Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD . And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.

¹⁷When the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah.

¹⁸The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, “Whoever will launch the attack against the Ammonites will be the head of all those living in Gilead.”

11Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.

²Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove

Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.”

³So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a group of adventurers gathered around him and followed him.

⁴Some time later, when the Ammonites made war on Israel,

⁵the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.

⁶“Come,” they said, “be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites.”

⁷Jephthah said to them, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now, when you’re in trouble?”

⁸The elders of Gilead said to him, “Nevertheless, we are turning to you now; come with us to fight the Ammonites, and you will be our head over all who live in Gilead.”

⁹Jephthah answered, “Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the LORD gives them to me-will I really be your head?”

¹⁰The elders of Gilead replied, “The LORD is our witness; we will certainly do as you say.”

¹¹So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And he

repeated all his words before the LORD in Mizpah.

¹²Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: “What do you have against us that you have attacked our country?”

¹³The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peaceably.”

¹⁴Jephthah sent back messengers to the Ammonite king,

¹⁵saying: “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.

¹⁶But when they came up out of Egypt, Israel went through the desert to the Red Sea and on to Kadesh.

¹⁷Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Give us permission to go through your country,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They sent also to the king of Moab, and he refused. So Israel stayed at Kadesh.

¹⁸“Next they traveled through the desert, skirted the lands of Edom and Moab, passed along the eastern side of the country of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was its border.

¹⁹“Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in

Heshbon, and said to him, ‘Let us pass through your country to our own place.’

²⁰Sihon, however, did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. He mustered all his men and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.

²¹“Then the LORD , the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his men into Israel’s hands, and they defeated them. Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country,

²²capturing all of it from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the desert to the Jordan.

²³“Now since the LORD , the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over?

²⁴Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the LORD our God has given us, we will possess.

²⁵Are you better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or fight with them?

²⁶For three hundred years Israel occupied Heshbon, Aroer, the surrounding settlements and all the towns along the Arnon. Why didn’t you retake them during that time?

²⁷I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the LORD , the Judge, decide the dispute this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

²⁸The king of Ammon, however, paid no attention to the message Jephthah sent him.

²⁹Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.

³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : “If you give the Ammonites into my hands,

³¹whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD ‘s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

³²Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands.

³³He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

³⁴When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.

³⁵When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break.”

³⁶“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD . Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites.

³⁷But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

³⁸“You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry.

³⁹After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom

⁴⁰that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

12The men of Ephraim called out their forces, crossed over to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We’re going to burn down your house over your head.”

²Jephthah answered, “I and my people were engaged in a great struggle with the Ammonites, and although I called, you didn’t save me out of their hands.

³When I saw that you wouldn’t help, I took my life in my hands and crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave me the victory over them.

Now why have you come up today to fight me?”

⁴Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.”

⁵The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,”

⁶they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’ ” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

⁷Jephthah led Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in a town in Gilead.

⁸After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem led Israel.

⁹He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters away in marriage to those outside his clan, and for his sons he brought in thirty young women as wives from outside his clan. Ibzan led Israel seven years.

¹⁰Then Ibzan died, and was buried in Bethlehem.

¹¹After him, Elon the Zebulunite led Israel ten years.

¹²Then Elon died, and was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³After him, Abdon son of Hillel, from Pirathon, led Israel.

¹⁴He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel eight years.

¹⁵Then Abdon son of Hillel died, and was buried at Pirathon in Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

13Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD , so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

²A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless.

³The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son.

⁴Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean,

⁵because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

⁶Then the woman went to her husband and told him, “A man of God came to

me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.

⁷But he said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from birth until the day of his death.’ “

⁸Then Manoah prayed to the LORD : “O Lord , I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”

⁹God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her.

¹⁰The woman hurried to tell her husband, “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!”

¹¹Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the one who talked to my wife?” “I am,” he said.

¹²So Manoah asked him, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule for the boy’s life and work?”

¹³The angel of the LORD answered, “Your wife must do all that I have told her.

¹⁴She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat

anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.”

¹⁵Manoah said to the angel of the LORD , “We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you.”

¹⁶The angel of the LORD replied, “Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD .” (Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the LORD .)

¹⁷Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD , “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”

¹⁸He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. “

¹⁹Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the LORD . And the LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched:

²⁰As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.

²¹When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD .

²²“We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!”

²³But his wife answered, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this.”

²⁴The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the LORD blessed him,

²⁵and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

14Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman.

²When he returned, he said to his father and mother, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.”

³His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.”

⁴(His parents did not know that this was from the LORD , who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)

⁵Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him.

⁶The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.

⁷Then he went down and talked with the woman, and he liked her.

⁸Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey,

⁹which he scooped out with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.

¹⁰Now his father went down to see the woman. And Samson made a feast there, as was customary for bridegrooms.

¹¹When he appeared, he was given thirty companions.

¹²“Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can give me the answer within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.

¹³If you can’t tell me the answer, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they said. “Let’s hear it.”

¹⁴He replied, “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong,

something sweet.” For three days they could not give the answer.

¹⁵On the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”

¹⁶Then Samson’s wife threw herself on him, sobbing, “You hate me! You don’t really love me. You’ve given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.” “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother,” he replied, “so why should I explain it to you?”

¹⁷She cried the whole seven days of the feast. So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people.

¹⁸Before sunset on the seventh day the men of the town said to him, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” Samson said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.”

¹⁹Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of their belongings and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he went up to his father’s house.

²⁰And Samson’s wife was given to the friend who had attended him at his wedding.

15Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father would not let him go in.

²“I was so sure you thoroughly hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your friend. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”

³Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.”

⁴So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails,

⁵lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his friend.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

⁷Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.”

⁸He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.

¹⁰The men of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?” “We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

¹²They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³“Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.

¹⁴As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.

¹⁵Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

¹⁶Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

¹⁷When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.

¹⁸Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD , “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

¹⁹Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.

²⁰Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

16One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.

²The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.”

³But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

⁴Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.

⁵The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”

⁶So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

⁷Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”

⁸Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh thongs that had not been dried, and she tied him with them.

⁹With men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.

¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.”

¹¹He said, “If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”

¹²So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson,

the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.

¹³Delilah then said to Samson, “Until now, you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied.” He replied, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric

¹⁴and tightened it with the pin. Again she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.

¹⁵Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.”

¹⁶With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

¹⁷So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.

¹⁹Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.

²⁰Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.

²¹Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison.

²²But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

²³Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, “Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.”

²⁴When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, “Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste our land and multiplied our slain.”

²⁵While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars,

²⁶Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.”

²⁷Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.

²⁸Then Samson prayed to the LORD , “O Sovereign LORD , remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

²⁹Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other,

³⁰Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.

³¹Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years.

17Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim

²said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse-I have that silver with me; I took it.” Then his mother said, “The LORD bless you, my son!”

³When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you.”

⁴So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into the image and the idol. And they were put in Micah’s house.

⁵Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest.

⁶In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

⁷A young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who had been living within the clan of Judah,

⁸left that town in search of some other place to stay. On his way he came to Micah’s house in the hill country of Ephraim.

⁹Micah asked him, “Where are you from?” “I’m a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah,” he said, “and I’m looking for a place to stay.”

¹⁰Then Micah said to him, “Live with me and be my father and priest, and I’ll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food.”

¹¹So the Levite agreed to live with him, and the young man was to him like one of his sons.

¹²Then Micah installed the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house.

¹³And Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”

18In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

²So the Danites sent five warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it. These men represented all their clans. They told them, “Go, explore the land.” The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

³When they were near Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite; so they turned in there and asked him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? Why are you here?”

⁴He told them what Micah had done for him, and said, “He has hired me and I am his priest.”

⁵Then they said to him, “Please inquire of God to learn whether our journey will be successful.”

⁶The priest answered them, “Go in peace. Your journey has the LORD ‘s approval.”

⁷So the five men left and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living in safety, like the Sidonians, unsuspecting and secure. And since their land lacked nothing, they were prosperous. Also, they lived a long way from the Sidonians and had no relationship with anyone else.

⁸When they returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “How did you find things?”

⁹They answered, “Come on, let’s attack them! We have seen that the land is very good. Aren’t you going to do something? Don’t hesitate to go there and take it over.

¹⁰When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land that God has put into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatever.”

¹¹Then six hundred men from the clan of the Danites, armed for battle, set out from Zorah and Eshtaol.

¹²On their way they set up camp near Kiriath Jearim in Judah. This is why the place west of Kiriath Jearim is called Mahaneh Dan to this day.

¹³From there they went on to the hill country of Ephraim and came to Micah’s house.

¹⁴Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image and a cast idol? Now you know what to do.”

¹⁵So they turned in there and went to the house of the young Levite at Micah’s place and greeted him.

¹⁶The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance to the gate.

¹⁷The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance to the gate.

¹⁸When these men went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

¹⁹They answered him, “Be quiet! Don’t say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn’t it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man’s household?”

²⁰Then the priest was glad. He took the ephod, the other household gods and the carved image and went along with the people.

²¹Putting their little children, their livestock and their possessions in front of them, they turned away and left.

²²When they had gone some distance from Micah’s house, the men who lived near Micah were called together and overtook the Danites.

²³As they shouted after them, the Danites turned and said to Micah,

“What’s the matter with you that you called out your men to fight?”

²⁴He replied, “You took the gods I made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have? How can you ask, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ “

²⁵The Danites answered, “Don’t argue with us, or some hot-tempered men will attack you, and you and your family will lose your lives.”

²⁶So the Danites went their way, and Micah, seeing that they were too strong for him, turned around and went back home.

²⁷Then they took what Micah had made, and his priest, and went on to Laish, against a peaceful and unsuspecting people. They attacked them with the sword and burned down their city.

²⁸There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Sidon and had no relationship with anyone else. The city was in a valley near Beth Rehob. The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there.

²⁹They named it Dan after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel- though the city used to be called Laish.

³⁰There the Danites set up for themselves the idols, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land.

³¹They continued to use the idols Micah had made, all the time the house of God was in Shiloh.

19In those days Israel had no king. Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

²But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem, Judah. After she had been there four months,

³her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with him his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her father’s house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him.

⁴His father-in-law, the girl’s father, prevailed upon him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there.

⁵On the fourth day they got up early and he prepared to leave, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself with something to eat; then you can go.”

⁶So the two of them sat down to eat and drink together. Afterward the girl’s father said, “Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself.”

⁷And when the man got up to go, his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed there that night.

⁸On the morning of the fifth day, when he rose to go, the girl’s father said,

“Refresh yourself. Wait till afternoon!” So the two of them ate together.

⁹Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said, “Now look, it’s almost evening. Spend the night here; the day is nearly over. Stay and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow morning you can get up and be on your way home.”

¹⁰But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.

¹¹When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”

¹²His master replied, “No. We won’t go into an alien city, whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.”

¹³He added, “Come, let’s try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.”

¹⁴So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin.

¹⁵There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them into his home for the night.

¹⁶That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the men of the place were

Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields.

¹⁷When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”

¹⁸He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the LORD . No one has taken me into his house.

¹⁹We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants-me, your maidservant, and the young man with us. We don’t need anything.”

²⁰“You are welcome at my house,” the old man said. “Let me supply whatever you need. Only don’t spend the night in the square.”

²¹So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink.

²²While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”

²³The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t

be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this disgraceful thing.

²⁴Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”

²⁵But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

²⁶At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

²⁷When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

²⁸He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

²⁹When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.

³⁰Everyone who saw it said, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!”

20Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out as one man and assembled before the LORD in Mizpah.

²The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand soldiers armed with swords.

³(The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this awful thing happened.”

⁴So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, said, “I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night.

⁵During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died.

⁶I took my concubine, cut her into pieces and sent one piece to each region of Israel’s inheritance, because they committed this lewd and disgraceful act in Israel.

⁷Now, all you Israelites, speak up and give your verdict.”

⁸All the people rose as one man, saying, “None of us will go home. No, not one of us will return to his house.

⁹But now this is what we’ll do to Gibeah: We’ll go up against it as the lot directs.

¹⁰We’ll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred from a thousand, and a thousand from ten thousand, to get provisions for the army. Then, when the army arrives at Gibeah in Benjamin, it can give them what they deserve for all this vileness done in Israel.”

¹¹So all the men of Israel got together and united as one man against the city.

¹²The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What about this awful crime that was committed among you?

¹³Now surrender those wicked men of Gibeah so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel.” But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.

¹⁴From their towns they came together at Gibeah to fight against the Israelites.

¹⁵At once the Benjamites mobilized twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, in addition to seven hundred chosen men from those living in Gibeah.

¹⁶Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

¹⁷Israel, apart from Benjamin, mustered four hundred thousand swordsmen, all of them fighting men.

¹⁸The Israelites went up to Bethel and inquired of God. They said, “Who of us shall go first to fight against the

Benjamites?” The LORD replied, “Judah shall go first.”

¹⁹The next morning the Israelites got up and pitched camp near Gibeah.

²⁰The men of Israel went out to fight the Benjamites and took up battle positions against them at Gibeah.

²¹The Benjamites came out of Gibeah and cut down twenty-two thousand Israelites on the battlefield that day.

²²But the men of Israel encouraged one another and again took up their positions where they had stationed themselves the first day.

²³The Israelites went up and wept before the LORD until evening, and they inquired of the LORD . They said, “Shall we go up again to battle against the Benjamites, our brothers?” The LORD answered, “Go up against them.”

²⁴Then the Israelites drew near to Benjamin the second day.

²⁵This time, when the Benjamites came out from Gibeah to oppose them, they cut down another eighteen thousand Israelites, all of them armed with swords.

²⁶Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD . They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD .

²⁷And the Israelites inquired of the LORD . (In those days the ark of the covenant of God was there,

²⁸with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, ministering before it.) They asked, “Shall we go up again to battle with Benjamin our brother, or not?” The LORD responded, “Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands.”

²⁹Then Israel set an ambush around Gibeah.

³⁰They went up against the Benjamites on the third day and took up positions against Gibeah as they had done before.

³¹The Benjamites came out to meet them and were drawn away from the city. They began to inflict casualties on the Israelites as before, so that about thirty men fell in the open field and on the roads-the one leading to Bethel and the other to Gibeah.

³²While the Benjamites were saying, “We are defeating them as before,” the Israelites were saying, “Let’s retreat and draw them away from the city to the roads.”

³³All the men of Israel moved from their places and took up positions at Baal Tamar, and the Israelite ambush charged out of its place on the west of Gibeah.

³⁴Then ten thousand of Israel’s finest men made a frontal attack on Gibeah. The fighting was so heavy that the Benjamites did not realize how near disaster was.

³⁵The LORD defeated Benjamin before Israel, and on that day the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords.

³⁶Then the Benjamites saw that they were beaten. Now the men of Israel had given way before Benjamin, because they relied on the ambush they had set near Gibeah.

³⁷The men who had been in ambush made a sudden dash into Gibeah, spread out and put the whole city to the sword.

³⁸The men of Israel had arranged with the ambush that they should send up a great cloud of smoke from the city,

³⁹and then the men of Israel would turn in the battle. The Benjamites had begun to inflict casualties on the men of Israel (about thirty), and they said, “We are defeating them as in the first battle.”

⁴⁰But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjamites turned and saw the smoke of the whole city going up into the sky.

⁴¹Then the men of Israel turned on them, and the men of Benjamin were terrified, because they realized that disaster had come upon them.

⁴²So they fled before the Israelites in the direction of the desert, but they could not escape the battle. And the men of Israel who came out of the towns cut them down there.

⁴³They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them and easily overran them in the vicinity of Gibeah on the east.

⁴⁴Eighteen thousand Benjamites fell, all of them valiant fighters.

⁴⁵As they turned and fled toward the desert to the rock of Rimmon, the Israelites cut down five thousand men along the roads. They kept pressing after the Benjamites as far as Gidom and struck down two thousand more.

⁴⁶On that day twenty-five thousand Benjamite swordsmen fell, all of them valiant fighters.

⁴⁷But six hundred men turned and fled into the desert to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months.

⁴⁸The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire.

21The men of Israel had taken an oath at Mizpah: “Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.”

²The people went to Bethel, where they sat before God until evening, raising their voices and weeping bitterly.

³“O LORD , the God of Israel,” they cried, “why has this happened to Israel? Why should one tribe be missing from Israel today?”

⁴Early the next day the people built an altar and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.

⁵Then the Israelites asked, “Who from all the tribes of Israel has failed to assemble before the LORD ?” For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to assemble before the LORD at Mizpah should certainly be put to death.

⁶Now the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites. “Today one tribe is cut off from Israel,” they said.

⁷“How can we provide wives for those who are left, since we have taken an oath by the LORD not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?”

⁸Then they asked, “Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to assemble before the LORD at Mizpah?” They discovered that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the camp for the assembly.

⁹For when they counted the people, they found that none of the people of Jabesh Gilead were there.

¹⁰So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children.

¹¹“This is what you are to do,” they said. “Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin.”

¹²They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young

women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan.

¹³Then the whole assembly sent an offer of peace to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon.

¹⁴So the Benjamites returned at that time and were given the women of Jabesh Gilead who had been spared. But there were not enough for all of them.

¹⁵The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel.

¹⁶And the elders of the assembly said, “With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left?

¹⁷The Benjamite survivors must have heirs,” they said, “so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out.

¹⁸We can’t give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: ‘Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.’

¹⁹But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, to the north of Bethel, and east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and to the south of Lebonah.”

²⁰So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards

²¹and watch. When the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, then

rush from the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the girls of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin.

²²When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Do us a kindness by helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war, and you are innocent, since you did not give your daughters to them.’ “

²³So that is what the Benjamites did. While the girls were dancing, each man

caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them.

²⁴At that time the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance.

²⁵In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

Joshua

Posted on March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Joshua

1After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord , the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide:

²“Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites.

³I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.

⁴Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates-all the Hittite country-to the Great Sea on the west.

⁵No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

⁶“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.

⁷Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

⁸Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do

everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

⁹Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

¹⁰So Joshua ordered the officers of the people:

¹¹“Go through the camp and tell the people, ‘Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own.’ “

¹²But to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said,

¹³“Remember the command that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: ‘The Lord your God is giving you rest and has granted you this land.’

¹⁴Your wives, your children and your livestock may stay in the land that Moses gave you east of the Jordan, but all your fighting men, fully armed, must cross over ahead of your brothers. You are to help your brothers

¹⁵until the Lord gives them rest, as he has done for you, and until they too have taken possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. After that, you may go back and occupy your own land, which Moses the servant of

the Lord gave you east of the Jordan toward the sunrise.”

¹⁶Then they answered Joshua, “Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

¹⁷Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

¹⁸Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey your words, whatever you may command them, will be put to death. Only be strong and courageous!”

2Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

²The king of Jericho was told, “Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.”

³So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”

⁴But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

⁵At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don’t know

which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.”

⁶(But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)

⁷So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

⁸Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof

⁹and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.

¹⁰We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.

¹¹When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

¹²Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign

¹³that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death.”

¹⁴“Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”

¹⁵So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall.

¹⁶Now she had said to them, “Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way.”

¹⁷The men said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us

¹⁸unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.

¹⁹If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him.

²⁰But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.”

²¹“Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.” So she sent them away and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

²²When they left, they went into the hills and stayed there three days, until the

pursuers had searched all along the road and returned without finding them.

²³Then the two men started back. They went down out of the hills, forded the river and came to Joshua son of Nun and told him everything that had happened to them.

²⁴They said to Joshua, “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.”

3Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over.

²After three days the officers went throughout the camp,

³giving orders to the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it.

⁴Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the ark; do not go near it.”

⁵Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

⁶Joshua said to the priests, “Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people.” So they took it up and went ahead of them.

⁷And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.

⁸Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’ “

⁹Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.

¹⁰This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites.

¹¹See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.

¹²Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.

¹³And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord -the Lord of all the earth-set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

¹⁴So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them.

¹⁵Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,

¹⁶the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

¹⁷The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

4When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,

²“Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,

³and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

⁴So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,

⁵and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,

⁶to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’

⁷tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord . When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

⁸So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down.

⁹Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.

¹⁰Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua. The people hurried over,

¹¹and as soon as all of them had crossed, the ark of the Lord and the priests came to the other side while the people watched.

¹²The men of Reuben, Gad and the half- tribe of Manasseh crossed over, armed, in front of the Israelites, as Moses had directed them.

¹³About forty thousand armed for battle crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for war.

¹⁴That day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they revered him all the days of his life, just as they had revered Moses.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to Joshua,

¹⁶“Command the priests carrying the ark of the Testimony to come up out of the Jordan.”

¹⁷So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.”

¹⁸And the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord . No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before.

¹⁹On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.

²⁰And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan.

²¹He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’

²²tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’

²³For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.

²⁴He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

5Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

²At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.”

³So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.

⁴Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt-all the men of military age-died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt.

⁵All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not.

⁶The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord . For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁷So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way.

⁸And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed.

⁹Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

¹⁰On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover.

¹¹The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain.

¹²The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.

¹³Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

¹⁴“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

¹⁵The commander of the Lord ‘s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

6Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

²Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.

³March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.

⁴Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.

⁵When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.”

⁶So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.”

⁷And he ordered the people, “Advance! March around the city, with the armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord .”

⁸When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward,

blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant followed them.

⁹The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding.

¹⁰But Joshua had commanded the people, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!”

¹¹So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the people returned to camp and spent the night there.

¹²Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord .

¹³The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord , while the trumpets kept sounding.

¹⁴So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.

¹⁶The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast,

Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!

¹⁷The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord . Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.

¹⁸But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.

¹⁹All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”

²⁰When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.

²¹They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it-men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

²²Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.”

²³So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought

out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.

²⁴Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord ‘s house.

²⁵But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho-and she lives among the Israelites to this day.

²⁶At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: “Cursed before the Lord is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: “At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates.”

²⁷So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

7But the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things ; Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord ‘s anger burned against Israel.

²Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.

³When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the people will have to go

up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary all the people, for only a few men are there.”

⁴So about three thousand men went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai,

⁵who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord , remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads.

⁷And Joshua said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord , why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

⁸O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies?

⁹The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?”

¹⁰The Lord said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?

¹¹Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the

devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.

¹²That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

¹³“Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: That which is devoted is among you, O Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it.

¹⁴” ‘In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the Lord takes shall come forward clan by clan; the clan that the Lord takes shall come forward family by family; and the family that the Lord takes shall come forward man by man.

¹⁵He who is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done a disgraceful thing in Israel!’ “

¹⁶Early the next morning Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was taken.

¹⁷The clans of Judah came forward, and he took the Zerahites. He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by families, and Zimri was taken.

¹⁸Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.

¹⁹Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord , the God of Israel, and give him the praise. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

²⁰Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord , the God of Israel. This is what I have done:

²¹When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

²²So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath.

²³They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the Lord .

²⁴Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor.

²⁵Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.” Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them.

²⁶Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.

8Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.

²You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”

³So Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out at night

⁴with these orders: “Listen carefully. You are to set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from it. All of you be on the alert.

⁵I and all those with me will advance on the city, and when the men come out against us, as they did before, we will flee from them.

⁶They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them,

⁷you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The Lord your God will give it into your hand.

⁸When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the Lord has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.”

⁹Then Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place of ambush and lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai-but Joshua spent that night with the people.

¹⁰Early the next morning Joshua mustered his men, and he and the leaders of Israel marched before them to Ai.

¹¹The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city.

¹²Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.

¹³They had the soldiers take up their positions-all those in the camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley.

¹⁴When the king of Ai saw this, he and all the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle at a certain place overlooking the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush had been set against him behind the city.

¹⁵Joshua and all Israel let themselves be driven back before them, and they fled toward the desert.

¹⁶All the men of Ai were called to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were lured away from the city.

¹⁷Not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go after Israel. They left the city open and went in pursuit of Israel.

¹⁸Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out his javelin toward Ai.

¹⁹As soon as he did this, the men in the ambush rose quickly from their position and rushed forward. They entered the city and captured it and quickly set it on fire.

²⁰The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising against the sky, but they had no chance to escape in any direction, for the Israelites who had been fleeing toward the desert had turned back against their pursuers.

²¹For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that smoke was going up from the city, they turned around and attacked the men of Ai.

²²The men of the ambush also came out of the city against them, so that they were caught in the middle, with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down, leaving them neither survivors nor fugitives.

²³But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it.

²⁵Twelve thousand men and women fell that day-all the people of Ai.

²⁶For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.

²⁷But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.

²⁸So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day.

²⁹He hung the king of Ai on a tree and left him there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take his body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

³⁰Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord , the God of Israel,

³¹as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses-an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings.

³²There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua copied on stones the law of Moses, which he had written.

³³All Israel, aliens and citizens alike, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord , facing those who carried it-the priests, who were Levites. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.

³⁴Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law-the blessings and the curses- just as it is written in the Book of the Law.

³⁵There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the aliens who lived among them.

9Now when all the kings west of the Jordan heard about these things-those in the hill country, in the western foothills, and along the entire coast of the Great Sea as far as Lebanon (the kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites)-

²they came together to make war against Joshua and Israel.

³However, when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,

⁴they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

⁵The men put worn and patched sandals on their feet and wore old clothes. All the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy.

⁶Then they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant country; make a treaty with us.”

⁷The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “But perhaps you live near us. How then can we make a treaty with you?”

⁸“We are your servants,” they said to Joshua. But Joshua asked, “Who are you and where do you come from?”

⁹They answered: “Your servants have come from a very distant country because of the fame of the Lord your God. For we have heard reports of him: all that he did in Egypt,

¹⁰and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan-Sihon king of Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth.

¹¹And our elders and all those living in our country said to us, ‘Take provisions for your journey; go and meet them and say to them, “We are your servants; make a treaty with us.” ‘

¹²This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to

come to you. But now see how dry and moldy it is.

¹³And these wineskins that we filled were new, but see how cracked they are. And our clothes and sandals are worn out by the very long journey.”

¹⁴The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord .

¹⁵Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.

¹⁶Three days after they made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites heard that they were neighbors, living near them.

¹⁷So the Israelites set out and on the third day came to their cities: Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath Jearim.

¹⁸But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the assembly had sworn an oath to them by the Lord , the God of Israel. The whole assembly grumbled against the leaders,

¹⁹but all the leaders answered, “We have given them our oath by the Lord , the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now.

²⁰This is what we will do to them: We will let them live, so that wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath we swore to them.”

²¹They continued, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for the entire community.” So the leaders’ promise to them was kept.

²²Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live a long way from you,’ while actually you live near us?

²³You are now under a curse: You will never cease to serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

²⁴They answered Joshua, “Your servants were clearly told how the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you the whole land and to wipe out all its inhabitants from before you. So we feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this.

²⁵We are now in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you.”

²⁶So Joshua saved them from the Israelites, and they did not kill them.

²⁷That day he made the Gibeonites woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the place the Lord would choose. And that is what they are to this day.

10Now Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and totally destroyed it, doing to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and that the people of

Gibeon had made a treaty of peace with Israel and were living near them.

²He and his people were very much alarmed at this, because Gibeon was an important city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were good fighters.

³So Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem appealed to Hoham king of Hebron, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish and Debir king of Eglon.

⁴“Come up and help me attack Gibeon,” he said, “because it has made peace with Joshua and the Israelites.”

⁵Then the five kings of the Amorites-the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon-joined forces. They moved up with all their troops and took up positions against Gibeon and attacked it.

⁶The Gibeonites then sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Do not abandon your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us, because all the Amorite kings from the hill country have joined forces against us.”

⁷So Joshua marched up from Gilgal with his entire army, including all the best fighting men.

⁸The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.”

⁹After an all-night march from Gilgal, Joshua took them by surprise.

¹⁰The Lord threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great victory at Gibeon. Israel pursued them along the road going up to Beth Horon and cut them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah.

¹¹As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.

¹²On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

¹³So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.

¹⁴There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!

¹⁵Then Joshua returned with all Israel to the camp at Gilgal.

¹⁶Now the five kings had fled and hidden in the cave at Makkedah.

¹⁷When Joshua was told that the five kings had been found hiding in the cave at Makkedah,

¹⁸he said, “Roll large rocks up to the mouth of the cave, and post some men there to guard it.

¹⁹But don’t stop! Pursue your enemies, attack them from the rear and don’t let them reach their cities, for the Lord your God has given them into your hand.”

²⁰So Joshua and the Israelites destroyed them completely-almost to a man-but the few who were left reached their fortified cities.

²¹The whole army then returned safely to Joshua in the camp at Makkedah, and no one uttered a word against the Israelites.

²²Joshua said, “Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me.”

²³So they brought the five kings out of the cave-the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon.

²⁴When they had brought these kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, “Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks.

²⁵Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.”

²⁶Then Joshua struck and killed the kings and hung them on five trees, and

they were left hanging on the trees until evening.

²⁷At sunset Joshua gave the order and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had been hiding. At the mouth of the cave they placed large rocks, which are there to this day.

²⁸That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

²⁹Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it.

³⁰The Lord also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

³¹Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish; he took up positions against it and attacked it.

³²The Lord handed Lachish over to Israel, and Joshua took it on the second day. The city and everyone in it he put to the sword, just as he had done to Libnah.

³³Meanwhile, Horam king of Gezer had come up to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and his army-until no survivors were left.

³⁴Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Lachish to Eglon; they took up positions against it and attacked it.

³⁵They captured it that same day and put it to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it, just as they had done to Lachish.

³⁶Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron and attacked it.

³⁷They took the city and put it to the sword, together with its king, its villages and everyone in it. They left no survivors. Just as at Eglon, they totally destroyed it and everyone in it.

³⁸Then Joshua and all Israel with him turned around and attacked Debir.

³⁹They took the city, its king and its villages, and put them to the sword. Everyone in it they totally destroyed. They left no survivors. They did to Debir and its king as they had done to Libnah and its king and to Hebron.

⁴⁰So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord , the God of Israel, had commanded.

⁴¹Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon.

⁴²All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the Lord , the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

⁴³Then Joshua returned with all Israel to the camp at Gilgal.

11When Jabin king of Hazor heard of this, he sent word to Jobab king of Madon, to the kings of Shimron and Acshaph,

²and to the northern kings who were in the mountains, in the Arabah south of Kinnereth, in the western foothills and in Naphoth Dor on the west;

³to the Canaanites in the east and west; to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites and Jebusites in the hill country; and to the Hivites below Hermon in the region of Mizpah.

⁴They came out with all their troops and a large number of horses and chariots-a huge army, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

⁵All these kings joined forces and made camp together at the Waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.

⁶The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them over to Israel, slain. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.”

⁷So Joshua and his whole army came against them suddenly at the Waters of Merom and attacked them,

⁸and the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel. They defeated them and pursued them all the way to Greater Sidon, to Misrephoth Maim, and to the Valley of Mizpah on the east, until no survivors were left.

⁹Joshua did to them as the Lord had directed: He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots.

¹⁰At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword. (Hazor had been the head of all these kingdoms.)

¹¹Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself.

¹²Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded.

¹³Yet Israel did not burn any of the cities built on their mounds-except Hazor, which Joshua burned.

¹⁴The Israelites carried off for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities, but all the people they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.

¹⁵As the Lord commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses.

¹⁶So Joshua took this entire land: the hill country, all the Negev, the whole region of Goshen, the western foothills, the Arabah and the mountains of Israel with their foothills,

¹⁷from Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir, to Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. He captured all their kings and struck them down, putting them to death.

¹⁸Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time.

¹⁹Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle.

²⁰For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

²¹At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns.

²²No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive.

²³So Joshua took the entire land, just as the Lord had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war.

12These are the kings of the land whom the Israelites had defeated and whose territory they took over east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon, including all the eastern side of the Arabah:

²Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon. He ruled from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge- from the middle of the gorge-to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. This included half of Gilead.

³He also ruled over the eastern Arabah from the Sea of Kinnereth to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ), to Beth Jeshimoth, and then southward below the slopes of Pisgah.

⁴And the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaites, who reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei.

⁵He ruled over Mount Hermon, Salecah, all of Bashan to the border of the people of Geshur and Maacah, and half of Gilead to the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.

⁶Moses, the servant of the Lord , and the Israelites conquered them. And Moses the servant of the Lord gave their land to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to be their possession.

⁷These are the kings of the land that Joshua and the Israelites conquered on the west side of the Jordan, from Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir (their

lands Joshua gave as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel according to their tribal divisions-

⁸the hill country, the western foothills, the Arabah, the mountain slopes, the desert and the Negev-the lands of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites):

⁹the king of Jericho one the king of Ai (near Bethel) one

¹⁰the king of Jerusalem one the king of Hebronp one

¹¹the king of Jarmuth one the king of Lachish one

¹²the king of Eglon one the king of Gezer one

¹³the king of Debir one the king of Geder one

¹⁴the king of Hormah one the king of Arad one

¹⁵the king of Libnah one the king of Adullam one

¹⁶the king of Makkedah one the king of Bethel one

¹⁷the king of Tappuah one the king of Hepher one

¹⁸the king of Aphek one the king of Lasharon one

¹⁹the king of Madon one the king of Hazor one

²⁰the king of Shimron Meron one the king of Acshaph one

²¹the king of Taanach one the king of Megiddo one

²²the king of Kedesh one the king of Jokneam in Carmel one

²³the king of Dor (in Naphoth Dor ) one the king of Goyim in Gilgal one

²⁴the king of Tirzah one thirty-one kings in all.

13When Joshua was old and well advanced in years, the Lord said to him, “You are very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over.

²“This is the land that remains: all the regions of the Philistines and Geshurites:

³from the Shihor River on the east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north, all of it counted as Canaanite (the territory of the five Philistine rulers in Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron-that of the Avvites);

⁴from the south, all the land of the Canaanites, from Arah of the Sidonians as far as Aphek, the region of the Amorites,

⁵the area of the Gebalites ; and all Lebanon to the east, from Baal Gad below Mount Hermon to Lebo Hamath.

⁶“As for all the inhabitants of the mountain regions from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, that is, all the Sidonians, I myself will drive them out before the Israelites. Be sure to allocate this land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have instructed you,

⁷and divide it as an inheritance among the nine tribes and half of the tribe of Manasseh.”

⁸The other half of Manasseh, the Reubenites and the Gadites had received the inheritance that Moses had given them east of the Jordan, as he, the servant of the Lord , had assigned it to them.

⁹It extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the middle of the gorge, and included the whole plateau of Medeba as far as Dibon,

¹⁰and all the towns of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, out to the border of the Ammonites.

¹¹It also included Gilead, the territory of the people of Geshur and Maacah, all of Mount Hermon and all Bashan as far as Salecah-

¹²that is, the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who had reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei and had survived as one of the last of the Rephaites. Moses had defeated them and taken over their land.

¹³But the Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maacah, so they

continue to live among the Israelites to this day.

¹⁴But to the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance, since the offerings made by fire to the Lord , the God of Israel, are their inheritance, as he promised them.

¹⁵This is what Moses had given to the tribe of Reuben, clan by clan:

¹⁶The territory from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the middle of the gorge, and the whole plateau past Medeba

¹⁷to Heshbon and all its towns on the plateau, including Dibon, Bamoth Baal, Beth Baal Meon,

¹⁸Jahaz, Kedemoth, Mephaath,

¹⁹Kiriathaim, Sibmah, Zereth Shahar on the hill in the valley,

²⁰Beth Peor, the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth Jeshimoth

²¹-all the towns on the plateau and the entire realm of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled at Heshbon. Moses had defeated him and the Midianite chiefs, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba- princes allied with Sihon-who lived in that country.

²²In addition to those slain in battle, the Israelites had put to the sword Balaam son of Beor, who practiced divination.

²³The boundary of the Reubenites was the bank of the Jordan. These towns

and their villages were the inheritance of the Reubenites, clan by clan.

²⁴This is what Moses had given to the tribe of Gad, clan by clan:

²⁵The territory of Jazer, all the towns of Gilead and half the Ammonite country as far as Aroer, near Rabbah;

²⁶and from Heshbon to Ramath Mizpah and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the territory of Debir;

²⁷and in the valley, Beth Haram, Beth Nimrah, Succoth and Zaphon with the rest of the realm of Sihon king of Heshbon (the east side of the Jordan, the territory up to the end of the Sea of Kinnereth ).

²⁸These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the Gadites, clan by clan.

²⁹This is what Moses had given to the half-tribe of Manasseh, that is, to half the family of the descendants of Manasseh, clan by clan:

³⁰The territory extending from Mahanaim and including all of Bashan, the entire realm of Og king of Bashan-all the settlements of Jair in Bashan, sixty towns,

³¹half of Gilead, and Ashtaroth and Edrei (the royal cities of Og in Bashan). This was for the descendants of Makir son of Manasseh-for half of the sons of Makir, clan by clan.

³²This is the inheritance Moses had given when he was in the plains of Moab across the Jordan east of Jericho.

³³But to the tribe of Levi, Moses had given no inheritance; the Lord , the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he promised them.

14Now these are the areas the Israelites received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel allotted to them.

²Their inheritances were assigned by lot to the nine-and-a-half tribes, as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

³Moses had granted the two-and-a-half tribes their inheritance east of the Jordan but had not granted the Levites an inheritance among the rest,

⁴for the sons of Joseph had become two tribes-Manasseh and Ephraim. The Levites received no share of the land but only towns to live in, with pasturelands for their flocks and herds.

⁵So the Israelites divided the land, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

⁶Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me.

⁷I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions,

⁸but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.

⁹So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’

¹⁰“Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old!

¹¹I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.

¹²Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

¹³Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.

¹⁴So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since,

because he followed the Lord , the God of Israel, wholeheartedly.

¹⁵(Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites.) Then the land had rest from war.

15The allotment for the tribe of Judah, clan by clan, extended down to the territory of Edom, to the Desert of Zin in the extreme south.

²Their southern boundary started from the bay at the southern end of the Salt Sea,

³crossed south of Scorpion Pass, continued on to Zin and went over to the south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it ran past Hezron up to Addar and curved around to Karka.

⁴It then passed along to Azmon and joined the Wadi of Egypt, ending at the sea. This is their southern boundary.

⁵The eastern boundary is the Salt Sea as far as the mouth of the Jordan. The northern boundary started from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan,

⁶went up to Beth Hoglah and continued north of Beth Arabah to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben.

⁷The boundary then went up to Debir from the Valley of Achor and turned north to Gilgal, which faces the Pass of Adummim south of the gorge. It continued along to the waters of En Shemesh and came out at En Rogel.

⁸Then it ran up the Valley of Ben Hinnom along the southern slope of the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem). From there it climbed to the top of the hill west of the Hinnom Valley at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim.

⁹From the hilltop the boundary headed toward the spring of the waters of Nephtoah, came out at the towns of Mount Ephron and went down toward Baalah (that is, Kiriath Jearim).

¹⁰Then it curved westward from Baalah to Mount Seir, ran along the northern slope of Mount Jearim (that is, Kesalon), continued down to Beth Shemesh and crossed to Timnah.

¹¹It went to the northern slope of Ekron, turned toward Shikkeron, passed along to Mount Baalah and reached Jabneel. The boundary ended at the sea.

¹²The western boundary is the coastline of the Great Sea. These are the boundaries around the people of Judah by their clans.

¹³In accordance with the Lord ‘s command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion in Judah- Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.)

¹⁴From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites-Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai-descendants of Anak.

¹⁵From there he marched against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher).

¹⁶And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.”

¹⁷Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage.

¹⁸One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”

¹⁹She replied, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

²⁰This is the inheritance of the tribe of Judah, clan by clan:

²¹The southernmost towns of the tribe of Judah in the Negev toward the boundary of Edom were: Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur,

²²Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah, ²³Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan, ²⁴Ziph, Telem, Bealoth,

²⁵Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (that is, Hazor),

²⁶Amam, Shema, Moladah,

²⁷Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet,

²⁸Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah,

²⁹Baalah, Iim, Ezem,

³⁰Eltolad, Kesil, Hormah,

³¹Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah,

³²Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain and Rimmon-a total of twenty-nine towns and their villages.

³³In the western foothills: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah,

³⁴Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam,

³⁵Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,

³⁶Shaaraim, Adithaim and Gederah (or Gederothaim) -fourteen towns and their villages.

³⁷Zenan, Hadashah, Migdal Gad, ³⁸Dilean, Mizpah, Joktheel, ³⁹Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon, ⁴⁰Cabbon, Lahmas, Kitlish,

⁴¹Gederoth, Beth Dagon, Naamah and Makkedah-sixteen towns and their villages.

⁴²Libnah, Ether, Ashan,

⁴³Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib,

⁴⁴Keilah, Aczib and Mareshah-nine towns and their villages.

⁴⁵Ekron, with its surrounding settlements and villages;

⁴⁶west of Ekron, all that were in the vicinity of Ashdod, together with their villages;

⁴⁷Ashdod, its surrounding settlements and villages; and Gaza, its settlements and villages, as far as the Wadi of Egypt and the coastline of the Great Sea.

⁴⁸In the hill country: Shamir, Jattir, Socoh,

⁴⁹Dannah, Kiriath Sannah (that is, Debir),

⁵⁰Anab, Eshtemoh, Anim,

⁵¹Goshen, Holon and Giloh-eleven towns and their villages.

⁵²Arab, Dumah, Eshan,

⁵³Janim, Beth Tappuah, Aphekah,

⁵⁴Humtah, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) and Zior-nine towns and their villages.

⁵⁵Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah,

⁵⁶Jezreel, Jokdeam, Zanoah,

⁵⁷Kain, Gibeah and Timnah-ten towns and their villages.

⁵⁸Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor,

⁵⁹Maarath, Beth Anoth and Eltekon-six towns and their villages.

⁶⁰Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim) and Rabbah-two towns and their villages.

⁶¹In the desert: Beth Arabah, Middin, Secacah,

⁶²Nibshan, the City of Salt and En Gedi- six towns and their villages.

⁶³Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah.

16The allotment for Joseph began at the Jordan of Jericho, east of the waters of Jericho, and went up from there through the desert into the hill country of Bethel.

²It went on from Bethel (that is, Luz), crossed over to the territory of the Arkites in Ataroth,

³descended westward to the territory of the Japhletites as far as the region of Lower Beth Horon and on to Gezer, ending at the sea.

⁴So Manasseh and Ephraim, the descendants of Joseph, received their inheritance.

⁵This was the territory of Ephraim, clan by clan: The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon

⁶and continued to the sea. From Micmethath on the north it curved

eastward to Taanath Shiloh, passing by it to Janoah on the east.

⁷Then it went down from Janoah to Ataroth and Naarah, touched Jericho and came out at the Jordan.

⁸From Tappuah the border went west to the Kanah Ravine and ended at the sea. This was the inheritance of the tribe of the Ephraimites, clan by clan.

⁹It also included all the towns and their villages that were set aside for the Ephraimites within the inheritance of the Manassites.

¹⁰They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim but are required to do forced labor.

17This was the allotment for the tribe of Manasseh as Joseph’s firstborn, that is, for Makir, Manasseh’s firstborn. Makir was the ancestor of the Gileadites, who had received Gilead and Bashan because the Makirites were great soldiers.

²So this allotment was for the rest of the people of Manasseh-the clans of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher and Shemida. These are the other male descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph by their clans.

³Now Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons but only

daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.

⁴They went to Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders and said, “The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers.” So Joshua gave them an inheritance along with the brothers of their father, according to the Lord ‘s command.

⁵Manasseh’s share consisted of ten tracts of land besides Gilead and Bashan east of the Jordan,

⁶because the daughters of the tribe of Manasseh received an inheritance among the sons. The land of Gilead belonged to the rest of the descendants of Manasseh.

⁷The territory of Manasseh extended from Asher to Micmethath east of Shechem. The boundary ran southward from there to include the people living at En Tappuah.

⁸(Manasseh had the land of Tappuah, but Tappuah itself, on the boundary of Manasseh, belonged to the Ephraimites.)

⁹Then the boundary continued south to the Kanah Ravine. There were towns belonging to Ephraim lying among the towns of Manasseh, but the boundary of Manasseh was the northern side of the ravine and ended at the sea.

¹⁰On the south the land belonged to Ephraim, on the north to Manasseh. The territory of Manasseh reached the sea

and bordered Asher on the north and Issachar on the east.

¹¹Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also had Beth Shan, Ibleam and the people of Dor, Endor, Taanach and Megiddo, together with their surrounding settlements (the third in the list is Naphoth ).

¹²Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region.

¹³However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely.

¹⁴The people of Joseph said to Joshua, “Why have you given us only one allotment and one portion for an inheritance? We are a numerous people and the Lord has blessed us abundantly.”

¹⁵“If you are so numerous,” Joshua answered, “and if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites.”

¹⁶The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have iron chariots, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

¹⁷But Joshua said to the house of Joseph-to Ephraim and Manasseh-“You

are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment

¹⁸but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have iron chariots and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”

18The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. The country was brought under their control,

²but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had not yet received their inheritance.

³So Joshua said to the Israelites: “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord , the God of your fathers, has given you?

⁴Appoint three men from each tribe. I will send them out to make a survey of the land and to write a description of it, according to the inheritance of each. Then they will return to me.

⁵You are to divide the land into seven parts. Judah is to remain in its territory on the south and the house of Joseph in its territory on the north.

⁶After you have written descriptions of the seven parts of the land, bring them here to me and I will cast lots for you in the presence of the Lord our God.

⁷The Levites, however, do not get a portion among you, because the priestly

service of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan. Moses the servant of the Lord gave it to them.”

⁸As the men started on their way to map out the land, Joshua instructed them, “Go and make a survey of the land and write a description of it. Then return to me, and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord .”

⁹So the men left and went through the land. They wrote its description on a scroll, town by town, in seven parts, and returned to Joshua in the camp at Shiloh.

¹⁰Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh in the presence of the Lord , and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions.

¹¹The lot came up for the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan. Their allotted territory lay between the tribes of Judah and Joseph:

¹²On the north side their boundary began at the Jordan, passed the northern slope of Jericho and headed west into the hill country, coming out at the desert of Beth Aven.

¹³From there it crossed to the south slope of Luz (that is, Bethel) and went down to Ataroth Addar on the hill south of Lower Beth Horon.

¹⁴From the hill facing Beth Horon on the south the boundary turned south along

the western side and came out at Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim), a town of the people of Judah. This was the western side.

¹⁵The southern side began at the outskirts of Kiriath Jearim on the west, and the boundary came out at the spring of the waters of Nephtoah.

¹⁶The boundary went down to the foot of the hill facing the Valley of Ben Hinnom, north of the Valley of Rephaim. It continued down the Hinnom Valley along the southern slope of the Jebusite city and so to En Rogel.

¹⁷It then curved north, went to En Shemesh, continued to Geliloth, which faces the Pass of Adummim, and ran down to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben.

¹⁸It continued to the northern slope of Beth Arabah and on down into the Arabah.

¹⁹It then went to the northern slope of Beth Hoglah and came out at the northern bay of the Salt Sea, at the mouth of the Jordan in the south. This was the southern boundary.

²⁰The Jordan formed the boundary on the eastern side. These were the boundaries that marked out the inheritance of the clans of Benjamin on all sides.

²¹The tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, had the following cities: Jericho, Beth Hoglah, Emek Keziz,

²²Beth Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel,

²³Avvim, Parah, Ophrah,

²⁴Kephar Ammoni, Ophni and Geba- twelve towns and their villages.

²⁵Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth, ²⁶Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah, ²⁷Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah,

²⁸Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah and Kiriath- fourteen towns and their villages. This was the inheritance of Benjamin for its clans.

19The second lot came out for the tribe of Simeon, clan by clan. Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah.

²It included: Beersheba (or Sheba), Moladah,

³Hazar Shual, Balah, Ezem,

⁴Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah,

⁵Ziklag, Beth Marcaboth, Hazar Susah,

⁶Beth Lebaoth and Sharuhen-thirteen towns and their villages;

⁷Ain, Rimmon, Ether and Ashan-four towns and their villages-

⁸and all the villages around these towns as far as Baalath Beer (Ramah in the Negev). This was the inheritance of the tribe of the Simeonites, clan by clan.

⁹The inheritance of the Simeonites was taken from the share of Judah, because Judah’s portion was more than they needed. So the Simeonites received their inheritance within the territory of Judah.

¹⁰The third lot came up for Zebulun, clan by clan: The boundary of their inheritance went as far as Sarid.

¹¹Going west it ran to Maralah, touched Dabbesheth, and extended to the ravine near Jokneam.

¹²It turned east from Sarid toward the sunrise to the territory of Kisloth Tabor and went on to Daberath and up to Japhia.

¹³Then it continued eastward to Gath Hepher and Eth Kazin; it came out at Rimmon and turned toward Neah.

¹⁴There the boundary went around on the north to Hannathon and ended at the Valley of Iphtah El.

¹⁵Included were Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah and Bethlehem. There were twelve towns and their villages.

¹⁶These towns and their villages were the inheritance of Zebulun, clan by clan.

¹⁷The fourth lot came out for Issachar, clan by clan.

¹⁸Their territory included: Jezreel, Kesulloth, Shunem,

¹⁹Hapharaim, Shion, Anaharath,

²⁰Rabbith, Kishion, Ebez,

²¹Remeth, En Gannim, En Haddah and Beth Pazzez.

²²The boundary touched Tabor, Shahazumah and Beth Shemesh, and ended at the Jordan. There were sixteen towns and their villages.

²³These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Issachar, clan by clan.

²⁴The fifth lot came out for the tribe of Asher, clan by clan.

²⁵Their territory included: Helkath, Hali, Beten, Acshaph,

²⁶Allammelech, Amad and Mishal. On the west the boundary touched Carmel and Shihor Libnath.

²⁷It then turned east toward Beth Dagon, touched Zebulun and the Valley of Iphtah El, and went north to Beth Emek and Neiel, passing Cabul on the left.

²⁸It went to Abdon, Rehob, Hammon and Kanah, as far as Greater Sidon.

²⁹The boundary then turned back toward Ramah and went to the fortified city of Tyre, turned toward Hosah and came out at the sea in the region of Aczib,

³⁰Ummah, Aphek and Rehob. There were twenty-two towns and their villages.

³¹These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Asher, clan by clan.

³²The sixth lot came out for Naphtali, clan by clan:

³³Their boundary went from Heleph and the large tree in Zaanannim, passing Adami Nekeb and Jabneel to Lakkum and ending at the Jordan.

³⁴The boundary ran west through Aznoth Tabor and came out at Hukkok. It touched Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west and the Jordan on the east.

³⁵The fortified cities were Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinnereth,

³⁶Adamah, Ramah, Hazor,

³⁷Kedesh, Edrei, En Hazor,

³⁸Iron, Migdal El, Horem, Beth Anath and Beth Shemesh. There were nineteen towns and their villages.

³⁹These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali, clan by clan.

⁴⁰The seventh lot came out for the tribe of Dan, clan by clan.

⁴¹The territory of their inheritance included: Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh,

⁴²Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,

⁴³Elon, Timnah, Ekron,

⁴⁴Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath,

⁴⁵Jehud, Bene Berak, Gath Rimmon,

⁴⁶Me Jarkon and Rakkon, with the area facing Joppa.

⁴⁷(But the Danites had difficulty taking possession of their territory, so they went up and attacked Leshem, took it, put it to the sword and occupied it. They settled in Leshem and named it Dan after their forefather.)

⁴⁸These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Dan, clan by clan.

⁴⁹When they had finished dividing the land into its allotted portions, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun an inheritance among them,

⁵⁰as the Lord had commanded. They gave him the town he asked for-Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he built up the town and settled there.

⁵¹These are the territories that Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel assigned by lot at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. And so they finished dividing the land.

20Then the Lord said to Joshua:

²“Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses,

³so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood.

⁴“When he flees to one of these cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his case before the elders of that city. Then they are to admit him into their city and give him a place to live with them.

⁵If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not surrender the one accused, because he killed his neighbor unintentionally and without malice aforethought.

⁶He is to stay in that city until he has stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then he may go back to his own home in the town from which he fled.”

⁷So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

⁸On the east side of the Jordan of Jericho they designated Bezer in the desert on the plateau in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan in the tribe of Manasseh.

⁹Any of the Israelites or any alien living among them who killed someone accidentally could flee to these designated cities and not be killed by the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.

21Now the family heads of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the other tribal families of Israel

²at Shiloh in Canaan and said to them, “The Lord commanded through Moses that you give us towns to live in, with pasturelands for our livestock.”

³So, as the Lord had commanded, the Israelites gave the Levites the following towns and pasturelands out of their own inheritance:

⁴The first lot came out for the Kohathites, clan by clan. The Levites who were descendants of Aaron the priest were allotted thirteen towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin.

⁵The rest of Kohath’s descendants were allotted ten towns from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan and half of Manasseh.

⁶The descendants of Gershon were allotted thirteen towns from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.

⁷The descendants of Merari, clan by clan, received twelve towns from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Zebulun.

⁸So the Israelites allotted to the Levites these towns and their pasturelands, as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

⁹From the tribes of Judah and Simeon they allotted the following towns by name

¹⁰(these towns were assigned to the descendants of Aaron who were from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them):

¹¹They gave them Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), with its surrounding pastureland, in the hill country of Judah. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.)

¹²But the fields and villages around the city they had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.

¹³So to the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Libnah,

¹⁴Jattir, Eshtemoa,

¹⁵Holon, Debir,

¹⁶Ain, Juttah and Beth Shemesh, together with their pasturelands-nine towns from these two tribes.

¹⁷And from the tribe of Benjamin they gave them Gibeon, Geba,

¹⁸Anathoth and Almon, together with their pasturelands-four towns.

¹⁹All the towns for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were thirteen, together with their pasturelands.

²⁰The rest of the Kohathite clans of the Levites were allotted towns from the tribe of Ephraim:

²¹In the hill country of Ephraim they were given Shechem (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Gezer,

²²Kibzaim and Beth Horon, together with their pasturelands-four towns.

²³Also from the tribe of Dan they received Eltekeh, Gibbethon,

²⁴Aijalon and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands-four towns.

²⁵From half the tribe of Manasseh they received Taanach and Gath Rimmon, together with their pasturelands-two towns.

²⁶All these ten towns and their pasturelands were given to the rest of the Kohathite clans.

²⁷The Levite clans of the Gershonites were given: from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan (a city of refuge for one accused of murder) and Be Eshtarah, together with their pasturelands-two towns;

²⁸from the tribe of Issachar, Kishion, Daberath,

²⁹Jarmuth and En Gannim, together with their pasturelands-four towns;

³⁰from the tribe of Asher, Mishal, Abdon,

³¹Helkath and Rehob, together with their pasturelands-four towns;

³²from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Hammoth Dor and Kartan, together with their pasturelands-three towns.

³³All the towns of the Gershonite clans were thirteen, together with their pasturelands.

³⁴The Merarite clans (the rest of the Levites) were given: from the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam, Kartah,

³⁵Dimnah and Nahalal, together with their pasturelands-four towns;

³⁶from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer, Jahaz,

³⁷Kedemoth and Mephaath, together with their pasturelands-four towns;

³⁸from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead (a city of refuge for one accused of murder), Mahanaim,

³⁹Heshbon and Jazer, together with their pasturelands-four towns in all.

⁴⁰All the towns allotted to the Merarite clans, who were the rest of the Levites, were twelve.

⁴¹The towns of the Levites in the territory held by the Israelites were forty-eight in all, together with their pasturelands.

⁴²Each of these towns had pasturelands surrounding it; this was true for all these towns.

⁴³So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there.

⁴⁴The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them.

⁴⁵Not one of all the Lord ‘s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

22Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half- tribe of Manasseh

²and said to them, “You have done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and you have obeyed me in everything I commanded.

³For a long time now-to this very day- you have not deserted your brothers but have carried out the mission the Lord your God gave you.

⁴Now that the Lord your God has given your brothers rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan.

⁵But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love

the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”

⁶Then Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their homes.

⁷(To the half-tribe of Manasseh Moses had given land in Bashan, and to the other half of the tribe Joshua gave land on the west side of the Jordan with their brothers.) When Joshua sent them home, he blessed them,

⁸saying, “Return to your homes with your great wealth-with large herds of livestock, with silver, gold, bronze and iron, and a great quantity of clothing-and divide with your brothers the plunder from your enemies.”

⁹So the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the Israelites at Shiloh in Canaan to return to Gilead, their own land, which they had acquired in accordance with the command of the Lord through Moses.

¹⁰When they came to Geliloth near the Jordan in the land of Canaan, the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half- tribe of Manasseh built an imposing altar there by the Jordan.

¹¹And when the Israelites heard that they had built the altar on the border of Canaan at Geliloth near the Jordan on the Israelite side,

¹²the whole assembly of Israel gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them.

¹³So the Israelites sent Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, to the land of Gilead- to Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

¹⁴With him they sent ten of the chief men, one for each of the tribes of Israel, each the head of a family division among the Israelite clans.

¹⁵When they went to Gilead-to Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh-they said to them:

¹⁶“The whole assembly of the Lord says: ‘How could you break faith with the God of Israel like this? How could you turn away from the Lord and build yourselves an altar in rebellion against him now?

¹⁷Was not the sin of Peor enough for us? Up to this very day we have not cleansed ourselves from that sin, even though a plague fell on the community of the Lord !

¹⁸And are you now turning away from the Lord ? ” ‘If you rebel against the Lord today, tomorrow he will be angry with the whole community of Israel.

¹⁹If the land you possess is defiled, come over to the Lord ‘s land, where the Lord ‘s tabernacle stands, and share the land with us. But do not rebel against the Lord or against us by building an altar for yourselves, other than the altar of the Lord our God.

²⁰When Achan son of Zerah acted unfaithfully regarding the devoted things, did not wrath come upon the whole

community of Israel? He was not the only one who died for his sin.’ “

²¹Then Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh replied to the heads of the clans of Israel:

²²“The Mighty One, God, the Lord ! The Mighty One, God, the Lord ! He knows! And let Israel know! If this has been in rebellion or disobedience to the Lord , do not spare us this day.

²³If we have built our own altar to turn away from the Lord and to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, or to sacrifice fellowship offerings on it, may the Lord himself call us to account.

²⁴“No! We did it for fear that some day your descendants might say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the Lord , the God of Israel?

²⁵The Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you-you Reubenites and Gadites! You have no share in the Lord .’ So your descendants might cause ours to stop fearing the Lord .

²⁶“That is why we said, ‘Let us get ready and build an altar-but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices.’

²⁷On the contrary, it is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow, that we will worship the Lord at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices and fellowship offerings. Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to ours, ‘You have no share in the Lord .’

²⁸“And we said, ‘If they ever say this to us, or to our descendants, we will answer: Look at the replica of the Lord ‘s altar, which our fathers built, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices, but as a witness between us and you.’

²⁹“Far be it from us to rebel against the Lord and turn away from him today by building an altar for burnt offerings, grain offerings and sacrifices, other than the altar of the Lord our God that stands before his tabernacle.”

³⁰When Phinehas the priest and the leaders of the community-the heads of the clans of the Israelites-heard what Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had to say, they were pleased.

³¹And Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, said to Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is with us, because you have not acted unfaithfully toward the Lord in this matter. Now you have rescued the Israelites from the Lord ‘s hand.”

³²Then Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, and the leaders returned to Canaan from their meeting with the Reubenites and Gadites in Gilead and reported to the Israelites.

³³They were glad to hear the report and praised God. And they talked no more about going to war against them to devastate the country where the Reubenites and the Gadites lived.

³⁴And the Reubenites and the Gadites gave the altar this name: A Witness Between Us that the Lord is God.

23After a long time had passed and the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years,

²summoned all Israel-their elders, leaders, judges and officials-and said to them: “I am old and well advanced in years.

³You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you.

⁴Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain-the nations I conquered-between the Jordan and the Great Sea in the west.

⁵The Lord your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the Lord your God promised you.

⁶“Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left.

⁷Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.

⁸But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.

⁹“The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you.

¹⁰One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised.

¹¹So be very careful to love the Lord your God.

¹²“But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them,

¹³then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴“Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.

¹⁵But just as every good promise of the Lord your God has come true, so the Lord will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you.

¹⁶If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord ‘s anger will burn

against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”

24Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

²Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.

³But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac,

⁴and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

⁵” ‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out.

⁶When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea.

⁷But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the desert for a long time.

⁸” ‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land.

⁹When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you.

¹⁰But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

¹¹” ‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands.

¹²I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you-also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow.

¹³So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

¹⁴“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord .

¹⁵But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers

served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord .”

¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!

¹⁷It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled.

¹⁸And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord , because he is our God.”

¹⁹Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord . He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.

²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

²¹But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord .”

²²Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord .” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

²³“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you

and yield your hearts to the Lord , the God of Israel.”

²⁴And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

²⁵On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.

²⁶And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the Lord .

²⁷“See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”

²⁸Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.

²⁹After these things, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord , died at the age of a hundred and ten.

³⁰And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

³¹Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the Lord had done for Israel.

³²And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of

land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.

³³And Eleazar son of Aaron died and was buried at Gibeah, which had been allotted to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

Deuteronomy

Posted on March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Deuteronomy

⁸See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the

1These are the words Moses spoke to

all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan-that is, in the Arabah-opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab.

²(It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)

³In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.

⁴This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth.

⁵East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying:

⁶The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain.

⁷Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates.

Lord swore he would give to your fathers-to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- and to their descendants after them.”

⁹At that time I said to you, “You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone.

¹⁰The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky.

¹¹May the Lord , the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!

¹²But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself?

¹³Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.”

¹⁴You answered me, “What you propose to do is good.”

¹⁵So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you-as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.

¹⁶And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien.

¹⁷Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it.

¹⁸And at that time I told you everything you were to do.

¹⁹Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea.

²⁰Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

²¹See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord , the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

²²Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.”

²³The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.

²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it.

²⁵Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and

reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.

²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’ “

²⁹Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.

³⁰The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,

³¹and in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

³²In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God,

³³who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.

³⁴When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore:

³⁵“Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers,

³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

³⁷Because of you the Lord became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.

³⁸But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.

³⁹And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad-they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.

⁴⁰But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea. “

⁴¹Then you replied, “We have sinned against the Lord . We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

⁴²But the Lord said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.’ “

⁴³So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the Lord ‘s

command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country.

⁴⁴The Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you; they chased you like a swarm of bees and beat you down from Seir all the way to Hormah.

⁴⁵You came back and wept before the Lord , but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you.

⁴⁶And so you stayed in Kadesh many days-all the time you spent there.

2Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir.

²Then the Lord said to me,

³“You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north.

⁴Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.

⁵Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.

⁶You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’ “

⁷The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

⁸So we went on past our brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab.

⁹Then the Lord said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.”

¹⁰(The Emites used to live there-a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites.

¹¹Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites.

¹²Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their possession.)

¹³And the Lord said, “Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.” So we crossed the valley.

¹⁴Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had

perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

¹⁵The Lord ‘s hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.

¹⁶Now when the last of these fighting men among the people had died,

¹⁷the Lord said to me,

¹⁸“Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar.

¹⁹When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.”

²⁰(That too was considered a land of the Rephaites, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites.

²¹They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. The Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place.

²²The Lord had done the same for the descendants of Esau, who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day.

²³And as for the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites coming out from Caphtor destroyed them and settled in their place.)

²⁴“Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle.

²⁵This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

²⁶From the desert of Kedemoth I sent messengers to Sihon king of Heshbon offering peace and saying,

²⁷“Let us pass through your country. We will stay on the main road; we will not turn aside to the right or to the left.

²⁸Sell us food to eat and water to drink for their price in silver. Only let us pass through on foot-

²⁹as the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, did for us-until we cross the Jordan into the land the Lord our God is giving us.”

³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the Lord your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done.

³¹The Lord said to me, “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land.”

³²When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz,

³³the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army.

³⁴At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them-men, women and children. We left no survivors.

³⁵But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves.

³⁶From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the gorge, even as far as Gilead, not one town was too strong for us. The Lord our God gave us all of them.

³⁷But in accordance with the command of the Lord our God, you did not encroach on any of the land of the Ammonites, neither the land along the course of the Jabbok nor that around the towns in the hills.

3Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei.

²The Lord said to me, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.”

³So the Lord our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors.

⁴At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them-the whole region of Argob, Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

⁵All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages.

⁶We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city-men, women and children.

⁷But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities we carried off for ourselves.

⁸So at that time we took from these two kings of the Amorites the territory east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge as far as Mount Hermon.

⁹(Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.)

¹⁰We took all the towns on the plateau, and all Gilead, and all Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

¹¹(Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites. His bed was made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide. It is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)

¹²Of the land that we took over at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer by the Arnon Gorge, including half the hill

country of Gilead, together with its towns.

¹³The rest of Gilead and also all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh. (The whole region of Argob in Bashan used to be known as a land of the Rephaites.

¹⁴Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites; it was named after him, so that to this day Bashan is called Havvoth Jair. )

¹⁵And I gave Gilead to Makir.

¹⁶But to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory extending from Gilead down to the Arnon Gorge (the middle of the gorge being the border) and out to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites.

¹⁷Its western border was the Jordan in the Arabah, from Kinnereth to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ), below the slopes of Pisgah.

¹⁸I commanded you at that time: “The Lord your God has given you this land to take possession of it. But all your able- bodied men, armed for battle, must cross over ahead of your brother Israelites.

¹⁹However, your wives, your children and your livestock (I know you have much livestock) may stay in the towns I have given you,

²⁰until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they too have taken over the land that the Lord your God is giving them, across the Jordan. After that, each of you may go back to the possession I have given you.”

²¹At that time I commanded Joshua: “You have seen with your own eyes all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same to all the kingdoms over there where you are going.

²²Do not be afraid of them; the Lord your God himself will fight for you.”

²³At that time I pleaded with the Lord :

²⁴“O Sovereign Lord , you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?

²⁵Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan-that fine hill country and Lebanon.”

²⁶But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. “That is enough,” the Lord said. “Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

²⁷Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan.

²⁸But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.”

²⁹So we stayed in the valley near Beth Peor.

4Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord , the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

³You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Peor. The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,

⁴but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today.

⁵See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it.

⁶Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

⁷What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

⁸And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

⁹Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

¹⁰Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

¹¹You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness.

¹²Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

¹³He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets.

¹⁴And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

¹⁵You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully,

¹⁶so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman,

¹⁷or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air,

¹⁸or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.

¹⁹And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars-all the heavenly array-do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.

²⁰But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

²¹The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance.

²²I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land.

²³Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol

in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden.

²⁴For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

²⁵After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time-if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger,

²⁶I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

²⁷The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

²⁸There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

²⁹But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

³⁰When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.

³¹For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your

forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.

³²Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?

³³Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?

³⁴Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

³⁵You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.

³⁶From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

³⁷Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength,

³⁸to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

³⁹Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.

⁴⁰Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time.

⁴¹Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan,

⁴²to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if he had unintentionally killed his neighbor without malice aforethought. He could flee into one of these cities and save his life.

⁴³The cities were these: Bezer in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.

⁴⁴This is the law Moses set before the Israelites.

⁴⁵These are the stipulations, decrees and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt

⁴⁶and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt.

⁴⁷They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan.

⁴⁸This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Siyon (that is, Hermon),

⁴⁹and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.

5Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.

²The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

³It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today.

⁴The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain.

⁵(At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord , because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

⁶“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

⁷“You shall have no other gods before me.

⁸“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

⁹You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

¹⁰but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

¹²“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.

¹³Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹⁴but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do.

¹⁵Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has

commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

¹⁶“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷“You shall not murder.

¹⁸“You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁹“You shall not steal.

²⁰“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

²¹“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

²²These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

²³When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me.

²⁴And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him.

²⁵But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer.

²⁶For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived?

²⁷Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”

²⁸The Lord heard you when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good.

²⁹Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

³⁰“Go, tell them to return to their tents.

³¹But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

³²So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left.

³³Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.

6These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,

²so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

³Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord , the God of your fathers, promised you.

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

⁵Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

⁶These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

⁷Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

⁸Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

⁹Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

¹⁰When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you- a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build,

¹¹houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-then when you eat and are satisfied,

¹²be careful that you do not forget the Lord , who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

¹³Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.

¹⁴Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you;

¹⁵for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.

¹⁶Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah.

¹⁷Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you.

¹⁸Do what is right and good in the Lord ‘s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers,

¹⁹thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.

²⁰In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations,

decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?”

²¹tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²²Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders-great and terrible-upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.

²³But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers.

²⁴The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.

²⁵And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

7When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-

²and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

³Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

⁴for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord ‘s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

⁵This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

⁶For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

⁷The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

⁸But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.

¹⁰But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

¹¹Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

¹²If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers.

¹³He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land-your grain, new wine and oil-the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you.

¹⁴You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.

¹⁵The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.

¹⁶You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

¹⁷You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?”

¹⁸But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.

¹⁹You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders,

the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.

²⁰Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.

²¹Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.

²²The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.

²³But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed.

²⁴He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them.

²⁵The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God.

²⁶Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

8Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers.

²Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

³He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord .

⁴Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

⁵Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

⁶Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and revering him.

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land-a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills;

⁸a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey;

⁹a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

¹⁰When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

¹¹Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

¹²Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,

¹³and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,

¹⁴then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

¹⁵He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.

¹⁶He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.

¹⁷You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

¹⁸But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

¹⁹If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.

²⁰Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

9Hear, O Israel. You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky.

²The people are strong and tall- Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: “Who can stand up against the Anakites?”

³But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

⁴After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.

⁵It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

⁶Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

⁷Remember this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the desert. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord .

⁸At Horeb you aroused the Lord ‘s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you.

⁹When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.

¹⁰The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.

¹¹At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

¹²Then the Lord told me, “Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made a cast idol for themselves.”

¹³And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed!

¹⁴Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.”

¹⁵So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands.

¹⁶When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you.

¹⁷So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes.

¹⁸Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord ‘s sight and so provoking him to anger.

¹⁹I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord , for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me.

²⁰And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too.

²¹Also I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.

²²You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah.

²³And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, “Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him.

²⁴You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.

²⁵I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you.

²⁶I prayed to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord , do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²⁷Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the

stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin.

²⁸Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the desert.’

²⁹But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.”

10At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden chest.

²I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the chest.”

³So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.

⁴The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me.

⁵Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.

⁶(The Israelites traveled from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him as priest.

⁷From there they traveled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water.

⁸At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord , to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.

⁹That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God told them.)

¹⁰Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you.

¹¹“Go,” the Lord said to me, “and lead the people on their way, so that they may enter and possess the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.”

¹²And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

¹³and to observe the Lord ‘s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

¹⁴To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.

¹⁵Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today.

¹⁶Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.

¹⁷For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

¹⁸He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

¹⁹And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

²⁰Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.

²¹He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.

²²Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

11Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

²Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm;

³the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country;

⁴what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them.

⁵It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place,

⁶and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them.

⁷But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.

⁸Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,

⁹and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.

¹¹But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.

¹²It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

¹³So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today-to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-

¹⁴then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil.

¹⁵I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.

¹⁶Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.

¹⁷Then the Lord ‘s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

¹⁹Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

²⁰Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,

²¹so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

²²If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow-to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to hold fast to him-

²³then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you.

²⁴Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea.

²⁵No man will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.

²⁶See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse-

²⁷the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today;

²⁸the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and

turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

²⁹When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.

³⁰As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, west of the road, toward the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal.

³¹You are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you have taken it over and are living there,

³²be sure that you obey all the decrees and laws I am setting before you today.

12These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord , the God of your fathers, has given you to possess-as long as you live in the land.

²Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods.

³Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of

their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

⁴You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.

⁵But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go;

⁶there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

⁷There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit,

⁹since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁰But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety.

¹¹Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name- there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord .

¹²And there rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

¹³Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please.

¹⁴Offer them only at the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.

¹⁵Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it.

¹⁶But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.

¹⁷You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.

¹⁸Instead, you are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose-you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns-and you are to rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you put your hand to.

¹⁹Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.

²⁰When the Lord your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, “I would like some meat,” then you may eat as much of it as you want.

²¹If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his Name is too far away from you, you may slaughter animals from the herds and flocks the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and in your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want.

²²Eat them as you would gazelle or deer. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat.

²³But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.

²⁴You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.

²⁵Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord .

²⁶But take your consecrated things and whatever you have vowed to give, and go to the place the Lord will choose.

²⁷Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat.

²⁸Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

²⁹The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land,

³⁰and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.”

³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

³²See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

13If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder,

²and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,”

³you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you

love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

⁴It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.

⁵That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.

⁶If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known,

⁷gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other),

⁸do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him.

⁹You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

¹⁰Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

¹¹Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

¹²If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in

¹³that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known),

¹⁴then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you,

¹⁵you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock.

¹⁶Gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt.

¹⁷None of those condemned things shall be found in your hands, so that the Lord will turn from his fierce anger; he will show you mercy, have compassion on you, and increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your forefathers,

¹⁸because you obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.

14You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead,

²for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.

³Do not eat any detestable thing.

⁴These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,

⁵the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.

⁶You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud.

⁷However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the coney. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a split hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you.

⁸The pig is also unclean; although it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.

⁹Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales.

¹⁰But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.

¹¹You may eat any clean bird.

¹²But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,

¹³the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon,

¹⁴any kind of raven,

¹⁵the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,

¹⁶the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,

¹⁷the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant,

¹⁸the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

¹⁹All flying insects that swarm are unclean to you; do not eat them.

²⁰But any winged creature that is clean you may eat.

²¹Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

²²Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.

²³Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord

your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.

²⁴But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away),

²⁵then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose.

²⁶Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.

²⁷And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

²⁸At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns,

²⁹so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

15At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.

²This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the Lord ‘s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.

³You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you.

⁴However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,

⁵if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.

⁶For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

⁷If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.

⁸Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.

⁹Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.

¹⁰Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

¹¹There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

¹²If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free.

¹³And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.

¹⁴Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you.

¹⁵Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.

¹⁶But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you,

¹⁷then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant.

¹⁸Do not consider it a hardship to set your servant free, because his service to you these six years has been worth

twice as much as that of a hired hand. And the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

¹⁹Set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male of your herds and flocks. Do not put the firstborn of your oxen to work, and do not shear the firstborn of your sheep.

²⁰Each year you and your family are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose.

²¹If an animal has a defect, is lame or blind, or has any serious flaw, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.

²²You are to eat it in your own towns. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it, as if it were gazelle or deer.

²³But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.

16Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God, because in the month of Abib he brought you out of Egypt by night.

²Sacrifice as the Passover to the Lord your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his Name.

³Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste-so that all the days of your life you may

remember the time of your departure from Egypt.

⁴Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days. Do not let any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until morning.

⁵You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the Lord your God gives you

⁶except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name. There you must sacrifice the Passover in the evening, when the sun goes down, on the anniversary of your departure from Egypt.

⁷Roast it and eat it at the place the Lord your God will choose. Then in the morning return to your tents.

⁸For six days eat unleavened bread and on the seventh day hold an assembly to the Lord your God and do no work.

⁹Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.

¹⁰Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.

¹¹And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name-you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, the Levites in your towns, and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows living among you.

¹²Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees.

¹³Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.

¹⁴Be joyful at your Feast-you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.

¹⁵For seven days celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.

¹⁶Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the Lord empty- handed:

¹⁷Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.

¹⁸Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.

¹⁹Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

²⁰Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.

²¹Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God,

²²and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates.

17Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him.

²If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant,

³and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky,

⁴and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,

⁵take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death.

⁶On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

⁷The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

⁸If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge-whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults-take them to the place the Lord your God will choose.

⁹Go to the priests, who are Levites, and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.

¹⁰You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the Lord will choose. Be careful to do everything they direct you to do.

¹¹Act according to the law they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.

¹²The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.

¹³All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.

¹⁴When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,”

¹⁵be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be

from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite.

¹⁶The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.”

¹⁷He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

¹⁸When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites.

¹⁹It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees

²⁰and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

18The priests, who are Levites- indeed the whole tribe of Levi-are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the offerings made to the Lord by fire, for that is their inheritance.

²They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.

³This is the share due the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the jowls and the inner parts.

⁴You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep,

⁵for the Lord your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the Lord ‘s name always.

⁶If a Levite moves from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he is living, and comes in all earnestness to the place the Lord will choose,

⁷he may minister in the name of the Lord his God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of the Lord .

⁸He is to share equally in their benefits, even though he has received money from the sale of family possessions.

⁹When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

¹⁰Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft,

¹¹or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.

¹²Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord , and because of these detestable practices the Lord your

God will drive out those nations before you.

¹³You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

¹⁴The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.

¹⁵The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.

¹⁶For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

¹⁷The Lord said to me: “What they say is good.

¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

¹⁹If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.

²⁰But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.”

²¹You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord ?”

²²If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

19When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses,

²then set aside for yourselves three cities centrally located in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

³Build roads to them and divide into three parts the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that anyone who kills a man may flee there.

⁴This is the rule concerning the man who kills another and flees there to save his life-one who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without malice aforethought.

⁵For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life.

⁶Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbor without malice aforethought.

⁷This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

⁸If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he promised on oath to your forefathers, and gives you the whole land he promised them,

⁹because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today-to love the Lord your God and to walk always in his ways-then you are to set aside three more cities.

¹⁰Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.

¹¹But if a man hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him, assaults and kills him, and then flees to one of these cities,

¹²the elders of his town shall send for him, bring him back from the city, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to die.

¹³Show him no pity. You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁴Do not move your neighbor’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be

established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

¹⁶If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime,

¹⁷the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.

¹⁸The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother,

¹⁹then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you.

²⁰The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.

²¹Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

20When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.

²When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army.

³He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or

afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.

⁴For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

⁵The officers shall say to the army: “Has anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.

⁶Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.

⁷Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.”

⁸Then the officers shall add, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too.”

⁹When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.

¹⁰When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.

¹¹If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

¹²If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city.

¹³When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.

¹⁴As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies.

¹⁵This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

¹⁶However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

¹⁷Completely destroy them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the Lord your God has commanded you.

¹⁸Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?

²⁰However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.

21If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,

²your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns.

³Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke

⁴and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck.

⁵The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault.

⁶Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,

⁷and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.

⁸Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O Lord , and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for.

⁹So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord .

¹⁰When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,

¹¹if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.

¹²Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails

¹³and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love,

¹⁶when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.

¹⁷He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That

son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

¹⁸If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,

¹⁹his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.

²⁰They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.”

²¹Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

²²If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree,

²³you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

22If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to him.

²If the brother does not live near you or if you do not know who he is, take it home with you and keep it until he

comes looking for it. Then give it back to him.

³Do the same if you find your brother’s donkey or his cloak or anything he loses. Do not ignore it.

⁴If you see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him get it to its feet.

⁵A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.

⁶If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.

⁷You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

⁸When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

⁹Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.

¹⁰Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

¹¹Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

¹²Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

¹³If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her

¹⁴and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,”

¹⁵then the girl’s father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate.

¹⁶The girl’s father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her.

¹⁷Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,

¹⁸and the elders shall take the man and punish him.

¹⁹They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found,

²¹she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her

father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

²²If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

²³If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,

²⁴you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death-the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

²⁵But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die.

²⁶Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor,

²⁷for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

²⁸If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,

²⁹he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

³⁰A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not dishonor his father’s bed.

23No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord .

²No one born of a forbidden marriage nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord , even down to the tenth generation.

³No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord , even down to the tenth generation.

⁴For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you.

⁵However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you.

⁶Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.

⁷Do not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as an alien in his country.

⁸The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord .

⁹When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure.

¹⁰If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there.

¹¹But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp.

¹²Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself.

¹³As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

¹⁴For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

¹⁵If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master.

¹⁶Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.

¹⁷No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.

¹⁸You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both.

¹⁹Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest.

²⁰You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.

²¹If you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the Lord your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin.

²²But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty.

²³Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the Lord your God with your own mouth.

²⁴If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket.

²⁵If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.

24If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,

²and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man,

³and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies,

⁴then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord . Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

⁵If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.

⁶Do not take a pair of millstones-not even the upper one-as security for a debt, because that would be taking a man’s livelihood as security.

⁷If a man is caught kidnapping one of his brother Israelites and treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.

⁸In cases of leprous diseases be very careful to do exactly as the priests, who are Levites, instruct you. You must follow carefully what I have commanded them.

⁹Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge.

¹¹Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you.

¹²If the man is poor, do not go to sleep with his pledge in your possession.

¹³Return his cloak to him by sunset so that he may sleep in it. Then he will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.

¹⁴Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns.

¹⁵Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

¹⁶Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

¹⁷Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.

¹⁸Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.

¹⁹When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the

Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

²¹When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

²²Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.

25When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

²If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves,

³but he must not give him more than forty lashes. If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes.

⁴Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

⁵If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.

⁶The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

⁷However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.”

⁸Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,”

⁹his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.”

¹⁰That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

¹¹If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts,

¹²you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

¹³Do not have two differing weights in your bag-one heavy, one light.

¹⁴Do not have two differing measures in your house-one large, one small.

¹⁵You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may

live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁶For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

¹⁷Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt.

¹⁸When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God.

¹⁹When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

26When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it,

²take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name

³and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us.”

⁴The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.

⁵Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.

⁶But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor.

⁷Then we cried out to the Lord , the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression.

⁸So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.

⁹He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey;

¹⁰and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O Lord , have given me.” Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him.

¹¹And you and the Levites and the aliens among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.

¹²When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless

and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

¹³Then say to the Lord your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them.

¹⁴I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while I was in mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything you commanded me.

¹⁵Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

¹⁶The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.

¹⁷You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him.

¹⁸And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands.

¹⁹He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all

the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.

27Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people: “Keep all these commands that I give you today.

²When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster.

³Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord , the God of your fathers, promised you.

⁴And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster.

⁵Build there an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool upon them.

⁶Build the altar of the Lord your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God.

⁷Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the Lord your God.

⁸And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up.”

⁹Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, said to all Israel, “Be silent, O Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the Lord your God.

¹⁰Obey the Lord your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today.”

¹¹On the same day Moses commanded the people:

¹²When you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin.

¹³And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce curses: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali.

¹⁴The Levites shall recite to all the people of Israel in a loud voice:

¹⁵“Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol-a thing detestable to the Lord , the work of the craftsman’s hands-and sets it up in secret.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

¹⁶“Cursed is the man who dishonors his father or his mother.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

¹⁷“Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

¹⁸“Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the road.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

¹⁹“Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²⁰“Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he dishonors his father’s bed.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²¹“Cursed is the man who has sexual relations with any animal.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²²“Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²³“Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²⁴“Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²⁵“Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

²⁶“Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

28If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

²All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

³You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

⁴The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock-the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

⁵Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

⁶You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

⁷The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

⁸The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

⁹The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.

¹⁰Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord , and they will fear you.

¹¹The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity-in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground-in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.

¹²The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.

¹³The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.

¹⁴Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

¹⁵However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁷Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

¹⁸The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

²⁰The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.

²¹The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.

²²The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

²³The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.

²⁴The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.

²⁶Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

²⁷The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.

²⁸The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.

²⁹At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

³⁰You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.

³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.

³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.

³³A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.

³⁴The sights you see will drive you mad.

³⁵The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

³⁶The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.

³⁷You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the Lord will drive you.

³⁸You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.

³⁹You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.

⁴¹You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.

⁴²Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

⁴³The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.

⁴⁴He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.

⁴⁶They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,

⁴⁸therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

⁴⁹The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,

⁵⁰a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young.

⁵¹They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.

⁵²They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.

⁵³Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.

⁵⁴Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,

⁵⁵and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because

of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.

⁵⁶The most gentle and sensitive woman among you-so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot-will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter

⁵⁷the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

⁵⁸If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name-the Lord your God-

⁵⁹the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.

⁶⁰He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.

⁶¹The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

⁶²You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God.

⁶³Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so

it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods-gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.

⁶⁶You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”-because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

⁶⁸The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

29These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

²Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all

that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land.

³With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders.

⁴But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.

⁵During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.

⁶You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.

⁷When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them.

⁸We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁹Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.

¹⁰All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God-your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel,

¹¹together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water.

¹²You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath,

¹³to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

¹⁴I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you

¹⁵who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.

¹⁶You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here.

¹⁷You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold.

¹⁸Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

¹⁹When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.” This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

²⁰The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this

book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.

²¹The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

²²Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it.

²³The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur-nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.

²⁴All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”

²⁵And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord , the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.

²⁶They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.

²⁷Therefore the Lord ‘s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.

²⁸In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”

²⁹The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

30When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations,

²and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today,

³then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.

⁴Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

⁵He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

⁶The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him

with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

⁷The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you.

⁸You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today.

⁹Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers,

¹⁰if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. The Offer of Life or Death

¹¹Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

¹²It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”

¹³Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”

¹⁴No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

¹⁵See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.

¹⁶For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

¹⁷But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,

¹⁸I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

¹⁹This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live

²⁰and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

31Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel:

²“I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I am no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not cross the Jordan.’

³The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said.

⁴And the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land.

⁵The Lord will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I have commanded you.

⁶Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

⁷Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance.

⁸The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

⁹So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord , and to all the elders of Israel.

¹⁰Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Feast of Tabernacles,

¹¹when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing.

¹²Assemble the people-men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns-so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.

¹³Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses, “Now the day of your death is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, where I will commission him.” So Moses and Joshua came and presented themselves at the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁵Then the Lord appeared at the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them.

¹⁷On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these

disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’

¹⁸And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.

¹⁹“Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them.

²⁰When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.

²¹And when many disasters and difficulties come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.”

²²So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.

²³The Lord gave this command to Joshua son of Nun: “Be strong and courageous, for you will bring the Israelites into the land I promised them on oath, and I myself will be with you.”

²⁴After Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end,

²⁵he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord :

²⁶“Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. There it will remain as a witness against you.

²⁷For I know how rebellious and stiff- necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die!

²⁸Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials, so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to testify against them.

²⁹For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall upon you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord and provoke him to anger by what your hands have made.”

³⁰And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:

32Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

²Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.

³I will proclaim the name of the Lord . Oh, praise the greatness of our God!

⁴He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

⁵They have acted corruptly toward him; to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation.

⁶Is this the way you repay the Lord , O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?

⁷Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you.

⁸When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.

⁹For the Lord ‘s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.

¹⁰In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye,

¹¹like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.

¹²The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.

¹³He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag,

¹⁴with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape.

¹⁵Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.

¹⁶They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, which are not God- gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear.

¹⁸You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹The Lord saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters.

²⁰“I will hide my face from them,” he said, “and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful.

²¹They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.

²²For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

²³“I will heap calamities upon them and spend my arrows against them.

²⁴I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

²⁵In the street the sword will make them childless; in their homes terror will reign. Young men and young women will perish, infants and gray-haired men.

²⁶I said I would scatter them and blot out their memory from mankind,

²⁷but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.’ “

²⁸They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them.

²⁹If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!

³⁰How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?

³¹For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.

³²Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.

³³Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

³⁴“Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vaults?

³⁵It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.”

³⁶The Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free.

³⁷He will say: “Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in,

³⁸the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter!

³⁹“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.

⁴⁰I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

⁴¹when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.

⁴²I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”

⁴³Rejoice, O nations, with his people, , for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

⁴⁴Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.

⁴⁵When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

⁴⁶he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law.

⁴⁷They are not just idle words for you- they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

⁴⁸On that same day the Lord told Moses,

⁴⁹“Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am

giving the Israelites as their own possession.

⁵⁰There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

⁵¹This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites.

⁵²Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”

33This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death.

²He said: “The Lord came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes.

³Surely it is you who love the people; all the holy ones are in your hand. At your feet they all bow down, and from you receive instruction,

⁴the law that Moses gave us, the possession of the assembly of Jacob.

⁵He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel.

⁶“Let Reuben live and not die, nor his men be few.”

⁷And this he said about Judah: “Hear, O Lord , the cry of Judah; bring him to his people. With his own hands he defends his cause. Oh, be his help against his foes!”

⁸About Levi he said: “Your Thummim and Urim belong to the man you favored. You tested him at Massah; you contended with him at the waters of Meribah.

⁹He said of his father and mother, ‘I have no regard for them.’ He did not recognize his brothers or acknowledge his own children, but he watched over your word and guarded your covenant.

¹⁰He teaches your precepts to Jacob and your law to Israel. He offers incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.

¹¹Bless all his skills, O Lord , and be pleased with the work of his hands. Smite the loins of those who rise up against him; strike his foes till they rise no more.”

¹²About Benjamin he said: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”

¹³About Joseph he said: “May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below;

¹⁴with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield;

¹⁵with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills;

¹⁶with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers.

¹⁷In majesty he is like a firstborn bull; his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations, even those at the ends of the earth. Such are the ten thousands of Ephraim; such are the thousands of Manasseh.”

¹⁸About Zebulun he said: “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out, and you, Issachar, in your tents.

¹⁹They will summon peoples to the mountain and there offer sacrifices of righteousness; they will feast on the abundance of the seas, on the treasures hidden in the sand.”

²⁰About Gad he said: “Blessed is he who enlarges Gad’s domain! Gad lives there like a lion, tearing at arm or head.

²¹He chose the best land for himself; the leader’s portion was kept for him. When the heads of the people assembled, he carried out the Lord ‘s righteous will, and his judgments concerning Israel.”

²²About Dan he said: “Dan is a lion’s cub, springing out of Bashan.”

²³About Naphtali he said: “Naphtali is abounding with the favor of the Lord and is full of his blessing; he will inherit southward to the lake.”

²⁴About Asher he said: “Most blessed of sons is Asher; let him be favored by his brothers, and let him bathe his feet in oil.

²⁵The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze, and your strength will equal your days.

²⁶“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty.

²⁷The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, ‘Destroy him!’

²⁸So Israel will live in safety alone; Jacob’s spring is secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew.

²⁹Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord ? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places. “

34Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land-from Gilead to Dan,

²all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea,

³the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar.

⁴Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

⁵And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said.

⁶He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.

⁷Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

⁸The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

⁹Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,

¹¹who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt-to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land.

¹²For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

Numbers

Posted on March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Numbers

¹²from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai;

1The Lord spoke to Moses in the Tent

of Meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said:

²“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one.

³You and Aaron are to number by their divisions all the men in Israel twenty years old or more who are able to serve in the army.

⁴One man from each tribe, each the head of his family, is to help you.

⁵These are the names of the men who are to assist you: from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur;

⁶from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai;

⁷from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab;

⁸from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar;

⁹from Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon;

¹⁰from the sons of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;

¹¹from Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni;

¹³from Asher, Pagiel son of Ocran; ¹⁴from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel; ¹⁵from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.”

¹⁶These were the men appointed from the community, the leaders of their ancestral tribes. They were the heads of the clans of Israel.

¹⁷Moses and Aaron took these men whose names had been given,

¹⁸and they called the whole community together on the first day of the second month. The people indicated their ancestry by their clans and families, and the men twenty years old or more were listed by name, one by one,

¹⁹as the Lord commanded Moses. And so he counted them in the Desert of Sinai:

²⁰From the descendants of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families.

²¹The number from the tribe of Reuben was 46,500.

²²From the descendants of Simeon: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were counted and listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families.

²³The number from the tribe of Simeon was 59,300.

²⁴From the descendants of Gad: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

²⁵The number from the tribe of Gad was 45,650.

²⁶From the descendants of Judah: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

²⁷The number from the tribe of Judah was 74,600.

²⁸From the descendants of Issachar: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

²⁹The number from the tribe of Issachar was 54,400.

³⁰From the descendants of Zebulun: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

³¹The number from the tribe of Zebulun was 57,400.

³²From the sons of Joseph: From the descendants of Ephraim: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

³³The number from the tribe of Ephraim was 40,500.

³⁴From the descendants of Manasseh: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

³⁵The number from the tribe of Manasseh was 32,200.

³⁶From the descendants of Benjamin: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

³⁷The number from the tribe of Benjamin was 35,400.

³⁸From the descendants of Dan: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

³⁹The number from the tribe of Dan was 62,700.

⁴⁰From the descendants of Asher: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were

listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

⁴¹The number from the tribe of Asher was 41,500.

⁴²From the descendants of Naphtali: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families.

⁴³The number from the tribe of Naphtali was 53,400.

⁴⁴These were the men counted by Moses and Aaron and the twelve leaders of Israel, each one representing his family.

⁴⁵All the Israelites twenty years old or more who were able to serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families.

⁴⁶The total number was 603,550.

⁴⁷The families of the tribe of Levi, however, were not counted along with the others.

⁴⁸The Lord had said to Moses:

⁴⁹“You must not count the tribe of Levi or include them in the census of the other Israelites.

⁵⁰Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony-over all its furnishings and everything belonging to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its

furnishings; they are to take care of it and encamp around it.

⁵¹Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it. Anyone else who goes near it shall be put to death.

⁵²The Israelites are to set up their tents by divisions, each man in his own camp under his own standard.

⁵³The Levites, however, are to set up their tents around the tabernacle of the Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the Israelite community. The Levites are to be responsible for the care of the tabernacle of the Testimony.”

⁵⁴The Israelites did all this just as the Lord commanded Moses.

2The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

²“The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting some distance from it, each man under his standard with the banners of his family.”

³On the east, toward the sunrise, the divisions of the camp of Judah are to encamp under their standard. The leader of the people of Judah is Nahshon son of Amminadab.

⁴His division numbers 74,600.

⁵The tribe of Issachar will camp next to them. The leader of the people of Issachar is Nethanel son of Zuar.

⁶His division numbers 54,400.

⁷The tribe of Zebulun will be next. The leader of the people of Zebulun is Eliab son of Helon.

⁸His division numbers 57,400.

⁹All the men assigned to the camp of Judah, according to their divisions, number 186,400. They will set out first.

¹⁰On the south will be the divisions of the camp of Reuben under their standard. The leader of the people of Reuben is Elizur son of Shedeur.

¹¹His division numbers 46,500.

¹²The tribe of Simeon will camp next to them. The leader of the people of Simeon is Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.

¹³His division numbers 59,300.

¹⁴The tribe of Gad will be next. The leader of the people of Gad is Eliasaph son of Deuel.

¹⁵His division numbers 45,650.

¹⁶All the men assigned to the camp of Reuben, according to their divisions, number 151,450. They will set out second.

¹⁷Then the Tent of Meeting and the camp of the Levites will set out in the middle of the camps. They will set out in the same order as they encamp, each in his own place under his standard.

¹⁸On the west will be the divisions of the camp of Ephraim under their standard. The leader of the people of Ephraim is Elishama son of Ammihud.

¹⁹His division numbers 40,500.

²⁰The tribe of Manasseh will be next to them. The leader of the people of Manasseh is Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.

²¹His division numbers 32,200.

²²The tribe of Benjamin will be next. The leader of the people of Benjamin is Abidan son of Gideoni.

²³His division numbers 35,400.

²⁴All the men assigned to the camp of Ephraim, according to their divisions, number 108,100. They will set out third.

²⁵On the north will be the divisions of the camp of Dan, under their standard. The leader of the people of Dan is Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.

²⁶His division numbers 62,700.

²⁷The tribe of Asher will camp next to them. The leader of the people of Asher is Pagiel son of Ocran.

²⁸His division numbers 41,500.

²⁹The tribe of Naphtali will be next. The leader of the people of Naphtali is Ahira son of Enan.

³⁰His division numbers 53,400.

³¹All the men assigned to the camp of Dan number 157,600. They will set out last, under their standards.

³²These are the Israelites, counted according to their families. All those in the camps, by their divisions, number 603,550.

³³The Levites, however, were not counted along with the other Israelites, as the Lord commanded Moses.

³⁴So the Israelites did everything the Lord commanded Moses; that is the way they encamped under their standards, and that is the way they set out, each with his clan and family.

3This is the account of the family of Aaron and Moses at the time the Lord talked with Moses on Mount Sinai.

²The names of the sons of Aaron were Nadab the firstborn and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

³Those were the names of Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests, who were ordained to serve as priests.

⁴Nadab and Abihu, however, fell dead before the Lord when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the Desert of Sinai. They had no sons; so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father Aaron.

⁵The Lord said to Moses,

⁶“Bring the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron the priest to assist him.

⁷They are to perform duties for him and for the whole community at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work of the tabernacle.

⁸They are to take care of all the furnishings of the Tent of Meeting, fulfilling the obligations of the Israelites by doing the work of the tabernacle.

⁹Give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are the Israelites who are to be given wholly to him.

¹⁰Appoint Aaron and his sons to serve as priests; anyone else who approaches the sanctuary must be put to death.”

¹¹The Lord also said to Moses,

¹²“I have taken the Levites from among the Israelites in place of the first male offspring of every Israelite woman. The Levites are mine,

¹³for all the firstborn are mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set apart for myself every firstborn in Israel, whether man or animal. They are to be mine. I am the Lord .”

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses in the Desert of Sinai,

¹⁵“Count the Levites by their families and clans. Count every male a month old or more.”

¹⁶So Moses counted them, as he was commanded by the word of the Lord .

¹⁷These were the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari.

¹⁸These were the names of the Gershonite clans: Libni and Shimei.

¹⁹The Kohathite clans: Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.

²⁰The Merarite clans: Mahli and Mushi. These were the Levite clans, according to their families.

²¹To Gershon belonged the clans of the Libnites and Shimeites; these were the Gershonite clans.

²²The number of all the males a month old or more who were counted was 7,500.

²³The Gershonite clans were to camp on the west, behind the tabernacle.

²⁴The leader of the families of the Gershonites was Eliasaph son of Lael.

²⁵At the Tent of Meeting the Gershonites were responsible for the care of the tabernacle and tent, its coverings, the curtain at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,

²⁶the curtains of the courtyard, the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard surrounding the tabernacle and altar, and the ropes-and everything related to their use.

²⁷To Kohath belonged the clans of the Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites and Uzzielites; these were the Kohathite clans.

²⁸The number of all the males a month old or more was 8,600. The Kohathites were responsible for the care of the sanctuary.

²⁹The Kohathite clans were to camp on the south side of the tabernacle.

³⁰The leader of the families of the Kohathite clans was Elizaphan son of Uzziel.

³¹They were responsible for the care of the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, the articles of the sanctuary used in ministering, the curtain, and everything related to their use.

³²The chief leader of the Levites was Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest. He was appointed over those who were responsible for the care of the sanctuary.

³³To Merari belonged the clans of the Mahlites and the Mushites; these were the Merarite clans.

³⁴The number of all the males a month old or more who were counted was 6,200.

³⁵The leader of the families of the Merarite clans was Zuriel son of Abihail; they were to camp on the north side of the tabernacle.

³⁶The Merarites were appointed to take care of the frames of the tabernacle, its crossbars, posts, bases, all its equipment, and everything related to their use,

³⁷as well as the posts of the surrounding courtyard with their bases, tent pegs and ropes.

³⁸Moses and Aaron and his sons were to camp to the east of the tabernacle, toward the sunrise, in front of the Tent of Meeting. They were responsible for the care of the sanctuary on behalf of the Israelites. Anyone else who approached the sanctuary was to be put to death.

³⁹The total number of Levites counted at the Lord ‘s command by Moses and Aaron according to their clans, including every male a month old or more, was 22,000.

⁴⁰The Lord said to Moses, “Count all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more and make a list of their names.

⁴¹Take the Levites for me in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites in place of all the firstborn of the livestock of the Israelites. I am the Lord .”

⁴²So Moses counted all the firstborn of the Israelites, as the Lord commanded him.

⁴³The total number of firstborn males a month old or more, listed by name, was 22,273.

⁴⁴The Lord also said to Moses,

⁴⁵“Take the Levites in place of all the firstborn of Israel, and the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock.

The Levites are to be mine. I am the Lord .

⁴⁶To redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of the Levites,

⁴⁷collect five shekels for each one, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.

⁴⁸Give the money for the redemption of the additional Israelites to Aaron and his sons.”

⁴⁹So Moses collected the redemption money from those who exceeded the number redeemed by the Levites.

⁵⁰From the firstborn of the Israelites he collected silver weighing 1,365 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.

⁵¹Moses gave the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, as he was commanded by the word of the Lord .

4The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

²“Take a census of the Kohathite branch of the Levites by their clans and families.

³Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting.

⁴“This is the work of the Kohathites in the Tent of Meeting: the care of the most holy things.

⁵When the camp is to move, Aaron and his sons are to go in and take down the

shielding curtain and cover the ark of the Testimony with it.

⁶Then they are to cover this with hides of sea cows, spread a cloth of solid blue over that and put the poles in place.

⁷“Over the table of the Presence they are to spread a blue cloth and put on it the plates, dishes and bowls, and the jars for drink offerings; the bread that is continually there is to remain on it.

⁸Over these they are to spread a scarlet cloth, cover that with hides of sea cows and put its poles in place.

⁹“They are to take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand that is for light, together with its lamps, its wick trimmers and trays, and all its jars for the oil used to supply it.

¹⁰Then they are to wrap it and all its accessories in a covering of hides of sea cows and put it on a carrying frame.

¹¹“Over the gold altar they are to spread a blue cloth and cover that with hides of sea cows and put its poles in place.

¹²“They are to take all the articles used for ministering in the sanctuary, wrap them in a blue cloth, cover that with hides of sea cows and put them on a carrying frame.

¹³“They are to remove the ashes from the bronze altar and spread a purple cloth over it.

¹⁴Then they are to place on it all the utensils used for ministering at the altar,

including the firepans, meat forks, shovels and sprinkling bowls. Over it they are to spread a covering of hides of sea cows and put its poles in place.

¹⁵“After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites are to come to do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁶“Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, is to have charge of the oil for the light, the fragrant incense, the regular grain offering and the anointing oil. He is to be in charge of the entire tabernacle and everything in it, including its holy furnishings and articles.”

¹⁷The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

¹⁸“See that the Kohathite tribal clans are not cut off from the Levites.

¹⁹So that they may live and not die when they come near the most holy things, do this for them: Aaron and his sons are to go into the sanctuary and assign to each man his work and what he is to carry.

²⁰But the Kohathites must not go in to look at the holy things, even for a moment, or they will die.”

²¹The Lord said to Moses,

²²“Take a census also of the Gershonites by their families and clans.

²³Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting.

²⁴“This is the service of the Gershonite clans as they work and carry burdens:

²⁵They are to carry the curtains of the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, its covering and the outer covering of hides of sea cows, the curtains for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,

²⁶the curtains of the courtyard surrounding the tabernacle and altar, the curtain for the entrance, the ropes and all the equipment used in its service. The Gershonites are to do all that needs to be done with these things.

²⁷All their service, whether carrying or doing other work, is to be done under the direction of Aaron and his sons. You shall assign to them as their responsibility all they are to carry.

²⁸This is the service of the Gershonite clans at the Tent of Meeting. Their duties are to be under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron, the priest.

²⁹“Count the Merarites by their clans and families.

³⁰Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting.

³¹This is their duty as they perform service at the Tent of Meeting: to carry the frames of the tabernacle, its crossbars, posts and bases,

³²as well as the posts of the surrounding courtyard with their bases, tent pegs, ropes, all their equipment and everything related to their use. Assign to each man the specific things he is to carry.

³³This is the service of the Merarite clans as they work at the Tent of Meeting under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron, the priest.”

³⁴Moses, Aaron and the leaders of the community counted the Kohathites by their clans and families.

³⁵All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work in the Tent of Meeting,

³⁶counted by clans, were 2,750.

³⁷This was the total of all those in the Kohathite clans who served in the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron counted them according to the Lord ‘s command through Moses.

³⁸The Gershonites were counted by their clans and families.

³⁹All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting,

⁴⁰counted by their clans and families, were 2,630.

⁴¹This was the total of those in the Gershonite clans who served at the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron counted them according to the Lord ‘s command.

⁴²The Merarites were counted by their clans and families.

⁴³All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to serve in the work at the Tent of Meeting,

⁴⁴counted by their clans, were 3,200.

⁴⁵This was the total of those in the Merarite clans. Moses and Aaron counted them according to the Lord ‘s command through Moses.

⁴⁶So Moses, Aaron and the leaders of Israel counted all the Levites by their clans and families.

⁴⁷All the men from thirty to fifty years of age who came to do the work of serving and carrying the Tent of Meeting

⁴⁸numbered 8,580.

⁴⁹At the Lord ‘s command through Moses, each was assigned his work and told what to carry. Thus they were counted, as the Lord commanded Moses.

5The Lord said to Moses,

²“Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body.

³Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will

not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.”

⁴The Israelites did this; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses.

⁵The Lord said to Moses,

⁶“Say to the Israelites: ‘When a man or woman wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord , that person is guilty

⁷and must confess the sin he has committed. He must make full restitution for his wrong, add one fifth to it and give it all to the person he has wronged.

⁸But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram with which atonement is made for him.

⁹All the sacred contributions the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him.

¹⁰Each man’s sacred gifts are his own, but what he gives to the priest will belong to the priest.’ “

¹¹Then the Lord said to Moses,

¹²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him

¹³by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no

witness against her and she has not been caught in the act),

¹⁴and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure-or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure-

¹⁵then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt.

¹⁶” ‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord .

¹⁷Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water.

¹⁸After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord , he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse.

¹⁹Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you.

²⁰But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband”-

²¹here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath-“may the Lord cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell.

²²May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away. ” ” ‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

²³” ‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water.

²⁴He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering.

²⁵The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar.

²⁶The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water.

²⁷If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, and she will become accursed among her people.

²⁸If, however, the woman has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

²⁹” ‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and defiles herself while married to her husband,

³⁰or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her.

³¹The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’ “

6The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of separation to the Lord as a Nazirite,

³he must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or from other fermented drink. He must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins.

⁴As long as he is a Nazirite, he must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.

⁵” ‘During the entire period of his vow of separation no razor may be used on his head. He must be holy until the period of his separation to the Lord is over; he must let the hair of his head grow long.

⁶Throughout the period of his separation to the Lord he must not go near a dead body.

⁷Even if his own father or mother or brother or sister dies, he must not make himself ceremonially unclean on account of them, because the symbol of his separation to God is on his head.

⁸Throughout the period of his separation he is consecrated to the Lord .

⁹” ‘If someone dies suddenly in his presence, thus defiling the hair he has dedicated, he must shave his head on the day of his cleansing-the seventh day.

¹⁰Then on the eighth day he must bring two doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

¹¹The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to make atonement for him because he sinned by being in the presence of the dead body. That same day he is to consecrate his head.

¹²He must dedicate himself to the Lord for the period of his separation and must bring a year-old male lamb as a guilt offering. The previous days do not count, because he became defiled during his separation.

¹³” ‘Now this is the law for the Nazirite when the period of his separation is over. He is to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁴There he is to present his offerings to the Lord : a year-old male lamb without defect for a burnt offering, a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin

offering, a ram without defect for a fellowship offering,

¹⁵together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of bread made without yeast-cakes made of fine flour mixed with oil, and wafers spread with oil.

¹⁶” ‘The priest is to present them before the Lord and make the sin offering and the burnt offering.

¹⁷He is to present the basket of unleavened bread and is to sacrifice the ram as a fellowship offering to the Lord , together with its grain offering and drink offering.

¹⁸” ‘Then at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the Nazirite must shave off the hair that he dedicated. He is to take the hair and put it in the fire that is under the sacrifice of the fellowship offering.

¹⁹” ‘After the Nazirite has shaved off the hair of his dedication, the priest is to place in his hands a boiled shoulder of the ram, and a cake and a wafer from the basket, both made without yeast.

²⁰The priest shall then wave them before the Lord as a wave offering; they are holy and belong to the priest, together with the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.

²¹” ‘This is the law of the Nazirite who vows his offering to the Lord in accordance with his separation, in addition to whatever else he can afford.

He must fulfill the vow he has made, according to the law of the Nazirite.’ “

²²The Lord said to Moses,

²³“Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

²⁴” ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you;

²⁵the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

²⁶the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ‘

²⁷“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

7When Moses finished setting up the tabernacle, he anointed it and consecrated it and all its furnishings. He also anointed and consecrated the altar and all its utensils.

²Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of families who were the tribal leaders in charge of those who were counted, made offerings.

³They brought as their gifts before the Lord six covered carts and twelve oxen- an ox from each leader and a cart from every two. These they presented before the tabernacle.

⁴The Lord said to Moses,

⁵“Accept these from them, that they may be used in the work at the Tent of

Meeting. Give them to the Levites as each man’s work requires.”

⁶So Moses took the carts and oxen and gave them to the Levites.

⁷He gave two carts and four oxen to the Gershonites, as their work required,

⁸and he gave four carts and eight oxen to the Merarites, as their work required. They were all under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron, the priest.

⁹But Moses did not give any to the Kohathites, because they were to carry on their shoulders the holy things, for which they were responsible.

¹⁰When the altar was anointed, the leaders brought their offerings for its dedication and presented them before the altar.

¹¹For the Lord had said to Moses, “Each day one leader is to bring his offering for the dedication of the altar.”

¹²The one who brought his offering on the first day was Nahshon son of Amminadab of the tribe of Judah.

¹³His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

¹⁴one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

¹⁵one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

¹⁶one male goat for a sin offering;

¹⁷and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Nahshon son of Amminadab.

¹⁸On the second day Nethanel son of Zuar, the leader of Issachar, brought his offering.

¹⁹The offering he brought was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

²⁰one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

²¹one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

²²one male goat for a sin offering;

²³and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Nethanel son of Zuar.

²⁴On the third day, Eliab son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun, brought his offering.

²⁵His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels,

and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

²⁶one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

²⁷one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

²⁸one male goat for a sin offering;

²⁹and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Eliab son of Helon.

³⁰On the fourth day Elizur son of Shedeur, the leader of the people of Reuben, brought his offering.

³¹His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

³²one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

³³one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

³⁴one male goat for a sin offering;

³⁵and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Elizur son of Shedeur.

³⁶On the fifth day Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai, the leader of the people of Simeon, brought his offering.

³⁷His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

³⁸one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

³⁹one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁴⁰one male goat for a sin offering;

⁴¹and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.

⁴²On the sixth day Eliasaph son of Deuel, the leader of the people of Gad, brought his offering.

⁴³His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁴⁴one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁴⁵one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁴⁶one male goat for a sin offering;

⁴⁷and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Eliasaph son of Deuel.

⁴⁸On the seventh day Elishama son of Ammihud, the leader of the people of Ephraim, brought his offering.

⁴⁹His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁵⁰one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁵¹one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁵²one male goat for a sin offering;

⁵³and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Elishama son of Ammihud.

⁵⁴On the eighth day Gamaliel son of Pedahzur, the leader of the people of Manasseh, brought his offering.

⁵⁵His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁵⁶one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁵⁷one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁵⁸one male goat for a sin offering;

⁵⁹and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.

⁶⁰On the ninth day Abidan son of Gideoni, the leader of the people of Benjamin, brought his offering.

⁶¹His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁶²one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁶³one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁶⁴one male goat for a sin offering;

⁶⁵and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Abidan son of Gideoni.

⁶⁶On the tenth day Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai, the leader of the people of Dan, brought his offering.

⁶⁷His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁶⁸one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁶⁹one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁷⁰one male goat for a sin offering;

⁷¹and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.

⁷²On the eleventh day Pagiel son of Ocran, the leader of the people of Asher, brought his offering.

⁷³His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁷⁴one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁷⁵one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁷⁶one male goat for a sin offering;

⁷⁷and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering.

This was the offering of Pagiel son of Ocran.

⁷⁸On the twelfth day Ahira son of Enan, the leader of the people of Naphtali, brought his offering.

⁷⁹His offering was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering;

⁸⁰one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;

⁸¹one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;

⁸²one male goat for a sin offering;

⁸³and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Ahira son of Enan.

⁸⁴These were the offerings of the Israelite leaders for the dedication of the altar when it was anointed: twelve silver plates, twelve silver sprinkling bowls and twelve gold dishes.

⁸⁵Each silver plate weighed a hundred and thirty shekels, and each sprinkling bowl seventy shekels. Altogether, the silver dishes weighed two thousand four hundred shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.

⁸⁶The twelve gold dishes filled with incense weighed ten shekels each,

according to the sanctuary shekel. Altogether, the gold dishes weighed a hundred and twenty shekels.

⁸⁷The total number of animals for the burnt offering came to twelve young bulls, twelve rams and twelve male lambs a year old, together with their grain offering. Twelve male goats were used for the sin offering.

⁸⁸The total number of animals for the sacrifice of the fellowship offering came to twenty-four oxen, sixty rams, sixty male goats and sixty male lambs a year old. These were the offerings for the dedication of the altar after it was anointed.

⁸⁹When Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord , he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the Testimony. And he spoke with him.

8The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘When you set up the seven lamps, they are to light the area in front of the lampstand.’ “

³Aaron did so; he set up the lamps so that they faced forward on the lampstand, just as the Lord commanded Moses.

⁴This is how the lampstand was made: It was made of hammered gold-from its base to its blossoms. The lampstand was made exactly like the pattern the Lord had shown Moses.

⁵The Lord said to Moses:

⁶“Take the Levites from among the other Israelites and make them ceremonially clean.

⁷To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them; then have them shave their whole bodies and wash their clothes, and so purify themselves.

⁸Have them take a young bull with its grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil; then you are to take a second young bull for a sin offering.

⁹Bring the Levites to the front of the Tent of Meeting and assemble the whole Israelite community.

¹⁰You are to bring the Levites before the Lord , and the Israelites are to lay their hands on them.

¹¹Aaron is to present the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering from the Israelites, so that they may be ready to do the work of the Lord .

¹²“After the Levites lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, use the one for a sin offering to the Lord and the other for a burnt offering, to make atonement for the Levites.

¹³Have the Levites stand in front of Aaron and his sons and then present them as a wave offering to the Lord .

¹⁴In this way you are to set the Levites apart from the other Israelites, and the Levites will be mine.

¹⁵“After you have purified the Levites and presented them as a wave offering, they are to come to do their work at the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁶They are the Israelites who are to be given wholly to me. I have taken them as my own in place of the firstborn, the first male offspring from every Israelite woman.

¹⁷Every firstborn male in Israel, whether man or animal, is mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set them apart for myself.

¹⁸And I have taken the Levites in place of all the firstborn sons in Israel.

¹⁹Of all the Israelites, I have given the Levites as gifts to Aaron and his sons to do the work at the Tent of Meeting on behalf of the Israelites and to make atonement for them so that no plague will strike the Israelites when they go near the sanctuary.”

²⁰Moses, Aaron and the whole Israelite community did with the Levites just as the Lord commanded Moses.

²¹The Levites purified themselves and washed their clothes. Then Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the Lord and made atonement for them to purify them.

²²After that, the Levites came to do their work at the Tent of Meeting under the supervision of Aaron and his sons. They did with the Levites just as the Lord commanded Moses.

²³The Lord said to Moses,

²⁴“This applies to the Levites: Men twenty-five years old or more shall come to take part in the work at the Tent of Meeting,

²⁵but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer.

²⁶They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the Tent of Meeting, but they themselves must not do the work. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”

9The Lord spoke to Moses in the Desert of Sinai in the first month of the second year after they came out of Egypt. He said,

²“Have the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time.

³Celebrate it at the appointed time, at twilight on the fourteenth day of this month, in accordance with all its rules and regulations.”

⁴So Moses told the Israelites to celebrate the Passover,

⁵and they did so in the Desert of Sinai at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord commanded Moses.

⁶But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account

of a dead body. So they came to Moses and Aaron that same day

⁷and said to Moses, “We have become unclean because of a dead body, but why should we be kept from presenting the Lord ‘s offering with the other Israelites at the appointed time?”

⁸Moses answered them, “Wait until I find out what the Lord commands concerning you.”

⁹Then the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁰“Tell the Israelites: ‘When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they may still celebrate the Lord ‘s Passover.

¹¹They are to celebrate it on the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight. They are to eat the lamb, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

¹²They must not leave any of it till morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations.

¹³But if a man who is ceremonially clean and not on a journey fails to celebrate the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people because he did not present the Lord ‘s offering at the appointed time. That man will bear the consequences of his sin.

¹⁴” ‘An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the Lord ‘s Passover must do so in accordance with its rules and

regulations. You must have the same regulations for the alien and the native- born.’ “

¹⁵On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire.

¹⁶That is how it continued to be; the cloud covered it, and at night it looked like fire.

¹⁷Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped.

¹⁸At the Lord ‘s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.

¹⁹When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord ‘s order and did not set out.

²⁰Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord ‘s command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out.

²¹Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out.

²²Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a

year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out.

²³At the Lord ‘s command they encamped, and at the Lord ‘s command they set out. They obeyed the Lord ‘s order, in accordance with his command through Moses.

10The Lord said to Moses:

²“Make two trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community together and for having the camps set out.

³When both are sounded, the whole community is to assemble before you at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁴If only one is sounded, the leaders-the heads of the clans of Israel-are to assemble before you.

⁵When a trumpet blast is sounded, the tribes camping on the east are to set out.

⁶At the sounding of a second blast, the camps on the south are to set out. The blast will be the signal for setting out.

⁷To gather the assembly, blow the trumpets, but not with the same signal.

⁸“The sons of Aaron, the priests, are to blow the trumpets. This is to be a lasting ordinance for you and the generations to come.

⁹When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the Lord your God and rescued from your enemies.

¹⁰Also at your times of rejoicing-your appointed feasts and New Moon festivals-you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God.”

¹¹On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony.

¹²Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran.

¹³They set out, this first time, at the Lord ‘s command through Moses.

¹⁴The divisions of the camp of Judah went first, under their standard. Nahshon son of Amminadab was in command.

¹⁵Nethanel son of Zuar was over the division of the tribe of Issachar,

¹⁶and Eliab son of Helon was over the division of the tribe of Zebulun.

¹⁷Then the tabernacle was taken down, and the Gershonites and Merarites, who carried it, set out.

¹⁸The divisions of the camp of Reuben went next, under their standard. Elizur son of Shedeur was in command.

¹⁹Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai was over the division of the tribe of Simeon,

²⁰and Eliasaph son of Deuel was over the division of the tribe of Gad.

²¹Then the Kohathites set out, carrying the holy things. The tabernacle was to be set up before they arrived.

²²The divisions of the camp of Ephraim went next, under their standard. Elishama son of Ammihud was in command.

²³Gamaliel son of Pedahzur was over the division of the tribe of Manasseh,

²⁴and Abidan son of Gideoni was over the division of the tribe of Benjamin.

²⁵Finally, as the rear guard for all the units, the divisions of the camp of Dan set out, under their standard. Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai was in command.

²⁶Pagiel son of Ocran was over the division of the tribe of Asher,

²⁷and Ahira son of Enan was over the division of the tribe of Naphtali.

²⁸This was the order of march for the Israelite divisions as they set out.

²⁹Now Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in- law, “We are setting out for the place about which the Lord said, ‘I will give it

to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”

³⁰He answered, “No, I will not go; I am going back to my own land and my own people.”

³¹But Moses said, “Please do not leave us. You know where we should camp in the desert, and you can be our eyes.

³²If you come with us, we will share with you whatever good things the Lord gives us.”

³³So they set out from the mountain of the Lord and traveled for three days. The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them during those three days to find them a place to rest.

³⁴The cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp.

³⁵Whenever the ark set out, Moses said, “Rise up, O Lord ! May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you.”

³⁶Whenever it came to rest, he said, “Return, O Lord , to the countless thousands of Israel.”

11Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord , and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.

²When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down.

³So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them. Quail From the Lord

⁴The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat!

⁵We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost-also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

⁶But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”

⁷The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin.

⁸The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a handmill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.

⁹When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.

¹⁰Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.

¹¹He asked the Lord , “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?

¹²Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers?

¹³Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’

¹⁴I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.

¹⁵If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now-if I have found favor in your eyes-and do not let me face my own ruin.”

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you.

¹⁷I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.

¹⁸“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it.

¹⁹You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days,

²⁰but for a whole month-until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it- because you have rejected the Lord , who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” ‘ “

²¹But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’

²²Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”

²³The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord ‘s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”

²⁴So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent.

²⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again.

²⁶However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp.

²⁷A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”

²⁹But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord ‘s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

³⁰Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

³¹Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day’s walk in any direction.

³²All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp.

³³But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.

³⁴Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

³⁵From Kibroth Hattaavah the people traveled to Hazeroth and stayed there.

12Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.

²“Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.

³(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

⁴At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them came out.

⁵Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward,

⁶he said, “Listen to my words: “When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams.

⁷But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house.

⁸With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord . Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

⁹The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them.

¹⁰When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam-leprous, like

snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy;

¹¹and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed.

¹²Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.”

¹³So Moses cried out to the Lord , “O God, please heal her!”

¹⁴The Lord replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.”

¹⁵So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.

¹⁶After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.

13The Lord said to Moses,

²“Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”

³So at the Lord ‘s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.

⁴These are their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;

⁵from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori;

⁶from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh;

⁷from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph;

⁸from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;

⁹from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu;

¹⁰from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi;

¹¹from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;

¹²from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli;

¹³from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael;

¹⁴from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi;

¹⁵from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki.

¹⁶These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land. (Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.)

¹⁷When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country.

¹⁸See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.

¹⁹What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified?

²⁰How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)

²¹So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath.

²²They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

²³When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs.

²⁴That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there.

²⁵At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.

²⁶They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.

²⁷They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.

²⁸But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.

²⁹The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

³⁰Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”

³²And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

³³We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

14That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.

²All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert!

³Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

⁴And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there.

⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes

⁷and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good.

⁸If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us.

⁹Only do not rebel against the Lord . And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

¹⁰But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites.

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?

¹²I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”

¹³Moses said to the Lord , “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.

¹⁴And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O Lord , are with these people and that you, O Lord , have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say,

¹⁶‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.’

¹⁷“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared:

¹⁸‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’

¹⁹In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”

²⁰The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.

²¹Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth,

²²not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times-

²³not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.

²⁴But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.

²⁵Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea. “

²⁶The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

²⁷“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.

²⁸So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord , I will do to you the very things I heard you say:

²⁹In this desert your bodies will fall-every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.

³⁰Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.

³²But you-your bodies will fall in this desert.

³³Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert.

³⁴For forty years-one year for each of the forty days you explored the land-you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’

³⁵I, the Lord , have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”

³⁶So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it-

³⁷these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord .

³⁸Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.

³⁹When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly.

⁴⁰Early the next morning they went up toward the high hill country. “We have sinned,” they said. “We will go up to the place the Lord promised.”

⁴¹But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord ‘s command? This will not succeed!

⁴²Do not go up, because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies,

⁴³for the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord , he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”

⁴⁴Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the high hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the Lord ‘s covenant moved from the camp.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down

and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah.

15The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘After you enter the land I am giving you as a home

³and you present to the Lord offerings made by fire, from the herd or the flock, as an aroma pleasing to the Lord – whether burnt offerings or sacrifices, for special vows or freewill offerings or festival offerings-

⁴then the one who brings his offering shall present to the Lord a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil.

⁵With each lamb for the burnt offering or the sacrifice, prepare a quarter of a hin of wine as a drink offering.

⁶” ‘With a ram prepare a grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a third of a hin of oil,

⁷and a third of a hin of wine as a drink offering. Offer it as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

⁸” ‘When you prepare a young bull as a burnt offering or sacrifice, for a special vow or a fellowship offering to the Lord ,

⁹bring with the bull a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a hin of oil.

¹⁰Also bring half a hin of wine as a drink offering. It will be an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹¹Each bull or ram, each lamb or young goat, is to be prepared in this manner.

¹²Do this for each one, for as many as you prepare.

¹³” ‘Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when he brings an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁴For the generations to come, whenever an alien or anyone else living among you presents an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the Lord , he must do exactly as you do.

¹⁵The community is to have the same rules for you and for the alien living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the alien shall be the same before the Lord :

¹⁶The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the alien living among you.’ “

¹⁷The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land to which I am taking you

¹⁹and you eat the food of the land, present a portion as an offering to the Lord .

²⁰Present a cake from the first of your ground meal and present it as an offering from the threshing floor.

²¹Throughout the generations to come you are to give this offering to the Lord from the first of your ground meal.

²²” ‘Now if you unintentionally fail to keep any of these commands the Lord gave Moses-

²³any of the Lord ‘s commands to you through him, from the day the Lord gave them and continuing through the generations to come-

²⁴and if this is done unintentionally without the community being aware of it, then the whole community is to offer a young bull for a burnt offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord , along with its prescribed grain offering and drink offering, and a male goat for a sin offering.

²⁵The priest is to make atonement for the whole Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, for it was not intentional and they have brought to the Lord for their wrong an offering made by fire and a sin offering.

²⁶The whole Israelite community and the aliens living among them will be forgiven, because all the people were involved in the unintentional wrong.

²⁷” ‘But if just one person sins unintentionally, he must bring a year-old female goat for a sin offering.

²⁸The priest is to make atonement before the Lord for the one who erred by sinning unintentionally, and when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven.

²⁹One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he is a native-born Israelite or an alien.

³⁰” ‘But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the Lord , and that person must be cut off from his people.

³¹Because he has despised the Lord ‘s word and broken his commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him.’ “

³²While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

³³Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly,

³⁴and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him.

³⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.”

³⁶So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.

³⁷The Lord said to Moses,

³⁸“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel.

³⁹You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord , that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.

⁴⁰Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God.

⁴¹I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.’ “

16Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites-Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth-became insolent

²and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council.

³They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord ‘s assembly?”

⁴When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.

⁵Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him.

⁶You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers

⁷and tomorrow put fire and incense in them before the Lord . The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!”

⁸Moses also said to Korah, “Now listen, you Levites!

⁹Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the Lord ‘s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them?

¹⁰He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you are trying to get the priesthood too.

¹¹It is against the Lord that you and all your followers have banded together. Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?”

¹²Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, “We will not come!

¹³Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the desert? And now you also want to lord it over us?

¹⁴Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? No, we will not come!”

¹⁵Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord , “Do not accept their offering. I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them.”

¹⁶Moses said to Korah, “You and all your followers are to appear before the Lord tomorrow-you and they and Aaron.

¹⁷Each man is to take his censer and put incense in it-250 censers in all-and present it before the Lord . You and Aaron are to present your censers also.”

¹⁸So each man took his censer, put fire and incense in it, and stood with Moses and Aaron at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁹When Korah had gathered all his followers in opposition to them at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the glory of the Lord appeared to the entire assembly.

²⁰The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²¹“Separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.”

²²But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and cried out, “O God, God of the spirits of all mankind, will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins?”

²³Then the Lord said to Moses,

²⁴“Say to the assembly, ‘Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.’ “

²⁵Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him.

²⁶He warned the assembly, “Move back from the tents of these wicked men! Do not touch anything belonging to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.”

²⁷So they moved away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little ones at the entrances to their tents.

²⁸Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea:

²⁹If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the Lord has not sent me.

³⁰But if the Lord brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”

³¹As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart

³²and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households

and all Korah’s men and all their possessions.

³³They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

³⁴At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, “The earth is going to swallow us too!”

³⁵And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

³⁶The Lord said to Moses,

³⁷“Tell Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, to take the censers out of the smoldering remains and scatter the coals some distance away, for the censers are holy-

³⁸the censers of the men who sinned at the cost of their lives. Hammer the censers into sheets to overlay the altar, for they were presented before the Lord and have become holy. Let them be a sign to the Israelites.”

³⁹So Eleazar the priest collected the bronze censers brought by those who had been burned up, and he had them hammered out to overlay the altar,

⁴⁰as the Lord directed him through Moses. This was to remind the Israelites that no one except a descendant of Aaron should come to burn incense before the Lord , or he would become like Korah and his followers.

⁴¹The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the Lord ‘s people,” they said.

⁴²But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting, suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

⁴³Then Moses and Aaron went to the front of the Tent of Meeting,

⁴⁴and the Lord said to Moses,

⁴⁵“Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.” And they fell facedown.

⁴⁶Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put incense in it, along with fire from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the Lord ; the plague has started.”

⁴⁷So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them.

⁴⁸He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped.

⁴⁹But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

⁵⁰Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, for the plague had stopped.

17The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff.

³On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe.

⁴Place them in the Tent of Meeting in front of the Testimony, where I meet with you.

⁵The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.”

⁶So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them.

⁷Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony.

⁸The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Testimony and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the house of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds.

⁹Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord ‘s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each man took his own staff.

¹⁰The Lord said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die.”

¹¹Moses did just as the Lord commanded him.

¹²The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost!

¹³Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?”

18The Lord said to Aaron, “You, your sons and your father’s family are to bear the responsibility for offenses against the sanctuary, and you and your sons alone are to bear the responsibility for offenses against the priesthood.

²Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the Tent of the Testimony.

³They are to be responsible to you and are to perform all the duties of the Tent, but they must not go near the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar, or both they and you will die.

⁴They are to join you and be responsible for the care of the Tent of Meeting-all the work at the Tent-and no one else may come near where you are.

⁵“You are to be responsible for the care of the sanctuary and the altar, so that wrath will not fall on the Israelites again.

⁶I myself have selected your fellow Levites from among the Israelites as a gift to you, dedicated to the Lord to do the work at the Tent of Meeting.

⁷But only you and your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar and inside the curtain. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. Anyone else who comes near the sanctuary must be put to death.”

⁸Then the Lord said to Aaron, “I myself have put you in charge of the offerings presented to me; all the holy offerings the Israelites give me I give to you and your sons as your portion and regular share.

⁹You are to have the part of the most holy offerings that is kept from the fire. From all the gifts they bring me as most holy offerings, whether grain or sin or guilt offerings, that part belongs to you and your sons.

¹⁰Eat it as something most holy; every male shall eat it. You must regard it as holy.

¹¹“This also is yours: whatever is set aside from the gifts of all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I give this to you and your sons and daughters as your regular share. Everyone in your household who is ceremonially clean may eat it.

¹²“I give you all the finest olive oil and all the finest new wine and grain they give the Lord as the firstfruits of their harvest.

¹³All the land’s firstfruits that they bring to the Lord will be yours. Everyone in your household who is ceremonially clean may eat it.

¹⁴“Everything in Israel that is devoted to the Lord is yours.

¹⁵The first offspring of every womb, both man and animal, that is offered to the Lord is yours. But you must redeem every firstborn son and every firstborn male of unclean animals.

¹⁶When they are a month old, you must redeem them at the redemption price set at five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.

¹⁷“But you must not redeem the firstborn of an ox, a sheep or a goat; they are holy. Sprinkle their blood on the altar and burn their fat as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁸Their meat is to be yours, just as the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh are yours.

¹⁹Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord I give to you and your sons and daughters as your regular share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.”

²⁰The Lord said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites.

²¹“I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting.

²²From now on the Israelites must not go near the Tent of Meeting, or they will bear the consequences of their sin and will die.

²³It is the Levites who are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting and bear the responsibility for offenses against it. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. They will receive no inheritance among the Israelites.

²⁴Instead, I give to the Levites as their inheritance the tithes that the Israelites present as an offering to the Lord . That is why I said concerning them: ‘They will have no inheritance among the Israelites.’ “

²⁵The Lord said to Moses,

²⁶“Speak to the Levites and say to them: ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe I give you as your inheritance, you must present a tenth of that tithe as the Lord ‘s offering.

²⁷Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or juice from the winepress.

²⁸In this way you also will present an offering to the Lord from all the tithes you receive from the Israelites. From these tithes you must give the Lord ‘s portion to Aaron the priest.

²⁹You must present as the Lord ‘s portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you.’

³⁰“Say to the Levites: ‘When you present the best part, it will be reckoned to you as the product of the threshing floor or the winepress.

³¹You and your households may eat the rest of it anywhere, for it is your wages for your work at the Tent of Meeting.

³²By presenting the best part of it you will not be guilty in this matter; then you will not defile the holy offerings of the Israelites, and you will not die.’ “

19The Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

²“This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke.

³Give it to Eleazar the priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.

⁴Then Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.

⁵While he watches, the heifer is to be burned-its hide, flesh, blood and offal.

⁶The priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer.

⁷After that, the priest must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. He may then come into the camp, but he will be ceremonially unclean till evening.

⁸The man who burns it must also wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he too will be unclean till evening.

⁹“A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin.

¹⁰The man who gathers up the ashes of the heifer must also wash his clothes, and he too will be unclean till evening. This will be a lasting ordinance both for the Israelites and for the aliens living among them.

¹¹“Whoever touches the dead body of anyone will be unclean for seven days.

¹²He must purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean.

¹³Whoever touches the dead body of anyone and fails to purify himself defiles the Lord ‘s tabernacle. That person must be cut off from Israel. Because the water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean; his uncleanness remains on him.

¹⁴“This is the law that applies when a person dies in a tent: Anyone who

enters the tent and anyone who is in it will be unclean for seven days,

¹⁵and every open container without a lid fastened on it will be unclean.

¹⁶“Anyone out in the open who touches someone who has been killed with a sword or someone who has died a natural death, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.

¹⁷“For the unclean person, put some ashes from the burned purification offering into a jar and pour fresh water over them.

¹⁸Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water and sprinkle the tent and all the furnishings and the people who were there. He must also sprinkle anyone who has touched a human bone or a grave or someone who has been killed or someone who has died a natural death.

¹⁹The man who is clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third and seventh days, and on the seventh day he is to purify him. The person being cleansed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and that evening he will be clean.

²⁰But if a person who is unclean does not purify himself, he must be cut off from the community, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord . The water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, and he is unclean.

²¹This is a lasting ordinance for them. “The man who sprinkles the water of cleansing must also wash his clothes, and anyone who touches the water of cleansing will be unclean till evening.

²²Anything that an unclean person touches becomes unclean, and anyone who touches it becomes unclean till evening.”

20In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.

²Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.

³They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord !

⁴Why did you bring the Lord ‘s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?

⁵Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”

⁶Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them.

⁷The Lord said to Moses,

⁸“Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly

together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

⁹So Moses took the staff from the Lord ‘s presence, just as he commanded him.

¹⁰He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”

¹¹Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

¹²But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

¹³These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where he showed himself holy among them.

¹⁴Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: “This is what your brother Israel says: You know about all the hardships that have come upon us.

¹⁵Our forefathers went down into Egypt, and we lived there many years. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers,

¹⁶but when we cried out to the Lord , he heard our cry and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt. “Now we are

here at Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory.

¹⁷Please let us pass through your country. We will not go through any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the king’s highway and not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory.”

¹⁸But Edom answered: “You may not pass through here; if you try, we will march out and attack you with the sword.”

¹⁹The Israelites replied: “We will go along the main road, and if we or our livestock drink any of your water, we will pay for it. We only want to pass through on foot-nothing else.”

²⁰Again they answered: “You may not pass through.” Then Edom came out against them with a large and powerful army.

²¹Since Edom refused to let them go through their territory, Israel turned away from them.

²²The whole Israelite community set out from Kadesh and came to Mount Hor.

²³At Mount Hor, near the border of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁴“Aaron will be gathered to his people. He will not enter the land I give the Israelites, because both of you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵Get Aaron and his son Eleazar and take them up Mount Hor.

²⁶Remove Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar, for Aaron will be gathered to his people; he will die there.”

²⁷Moses did as the Lord commanded: They went up Mount Hor in the sight of the whole community.

²⁸Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar. And Aaron died there on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain,

²⁹and when the whole community learned that Aaron had died, the entire house of Israel mourned for him thirty days.

21When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked the Israelites and captured some of them.

²Then Israel made this vow to the Lord : “If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their cities.”

³The Lord listened to Israel’s plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns; so the place was named Hormah.

⁴They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around

Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way;

⁵they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

⁶Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

⁷The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”

⁹So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

¹⁰The Israelites moved on and camped at Oboth.

¹¹Then they set out from Oboth and camped in Iye Abarim, in the desert that faces Moab toward the sunrise.

¹²From there they moved on and camped in the Zered Valley.

¹³They set out from there and camped alongside the Arnon, which is in the desert extending into Amorite territory.

The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴That is why the Book of the Wars of the Lord says: “?Waheb in Suphah and the ravines, the Arnon

¹⁵and the slopes of the ravines that lead to the site of Ar and lie along the border of Moab.”

¹⁶From there they continued on to Beer, the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Gather the people together and I will give them water.”

¹⁷Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! Sing about it,

¹⁸about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank- the nobles with scepters and staffs.” Then they went from the desert to Mattanah,

¹⁹from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

²⁰and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the wasteland.

²¹Israel sent messengers to say to Sihon king of the Amorites:

²²“Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the king’s highway until we have passed through your territory.”

²³But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory. He mustered his

entire army and marched out into the desert against Israel. When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel.

²⁴Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified.

²⁵Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its surrounding settlements.

²⁶Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon.

²⁷That is why the poets say: “Come to Heshbon and let it be rebuilt; let Sihon’s city be restored.

²⁸“Fire went out from Heshbon, a blaze from the city of Sihon. It consumed Ar of Moab, the citizens of Arnon’s heights.

²⁹Woe to you, O Moab! You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh! He has given up his sons as fugitives and his daughters as captives to Sihon king of the Amorites.

³⁰“But we have overthrown them; Heshbon is destroyed all the way to Dibon. We have demolished them as far as Nophah, which extends to Medeba.”

³¹So Israel settled in the land of the Amorites.

³²After Moses had sent spies to Jazer, the Israelites captured its surrounding settlements and drove out the Amorites who were there.

³³Then they turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army marched out to meet them in battle at Edrei.

³⁴The Lord said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.”

³⁵So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land.

22Then the Israelites traveled to the plains of Moab and camped along the Jordan across from Jericho.

²Now Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites,

³and Moab was terrified because there were so many people. Indeed, Moab was filled with dread because of the Israelites.

⁴The Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “This horde is going to lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.” So Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time,

⁵sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near

the River, in his native land. Balak said: “A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me.

⁶Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.”

⁷The elders of Moab and Midian left, taking with them the fee for divination. When they came to Balaam, they told him what Balak had said.

⁸“Spend the night here,” Balaam said to them, “and I will bring you back the answer the Lord gives me.” So the Moabite princes stayed with him.

⁹God came to Balaam and asked, “Who are these men with you?”

¹⁰Balaam said to God, “Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent me this message:

¹¹‘A people that has come out of Egypt covers the face of the land. Now come and put a curse on them for me. Perhaps then I will be able to fight them and drive them away.’ “

¹²But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.”

¹³The next morning Balaam got up and said to Balak’s princes, “Go back to your

own country, for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”

¹⁴So the Moabite princes returned to Balak and said, “Balaam refused to come with us.”

¹⁵Then Balak sent other princes, more numerous and more distinguished than the first.

¹⁶They came to Balaam and said: “This is what Balak son of Zippor says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me,

¹⁷because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say. Come and put a curse on these people for me.”

¹⁸But Balaam answered them, “Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God.

¹⁹Now stay here tonight as the others did, and I will find out what else the Lord will tell me.”

²⁰That night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you.”

²¹Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab.

²²But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding

on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.

²³When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.

²⁴Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between two vineyards, with walls on both sides.

²⁵When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord , she pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat her again.

²⁶Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left.

²⁷When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord , she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff.

²⁸Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

²⁹Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

³⁰The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” “No,” he said.

³¹Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

³²The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.

³³The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared her.”

³⁴Balaam said to the angel of the Lord , “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”

³⁵The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

³⁶When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the Moabite town on the Arnon border, at the edge of his territory.

³⁷Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not send you an urgent summons? Why didn’t you come to me? Am I really not able to reward you?”

³⁸“Well, I have come to you now,” Balaam replied. “But can I say just anything? I must speak only what God puts in my mouth.”

³⁹Then Balaam went with Balak to Kiriath Huzoth.

⁴⁰Balak sacrificed cattle and sheep, and gave some to Balaam and the princes who were with him.

⁴¹The next morning Balak took Balaam up to Bamoth Baal, and from there he saw part of the people.

23Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”

²Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.

⁴God met with him, and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”

⁵The Lord put a message in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this message.”

⁶So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the princes of Moab.

⁷Then Balaam uttered his oracle: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. ‘Come,’ he

said, ‘curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.’

⁸How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?

⁹From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!”

¹¹Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”

¹²He answered, “Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

¹³Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will see only a part but not all of them. And from there, curse them for me.”

¹⁴So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

¹⁵Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”

¹⁶The Lord met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth and said, “Go

back to Balak and give him this message.”

¹⁷So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the princes of Moab. Balak asked him, “What did the Lord say?”

¹⁸Then he uttered his oracle: “Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.

¹⁹God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

²⁰I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.

²¹“No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The Lord their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.

²²God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.

²³There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’

²⁴The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest till he devours his prey and drinks the blood of his victims.”

²⁵Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”

²⁶Balaam answered, “Did I not tell you I must do whatever the Lord says?”

²⁷Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.”

²⁸And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

²⁹Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”

³⁰Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

24Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times, but turned his face toward the desert.

²When Balaam looked out and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came upon him

³and he uttered his oracle: “The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,

⁴the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:

⁵“How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!

⁶“Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord , like cedars beside the waters.

⁷Water will flow from their buckets; their seed will have abundant water. “Their king will be greater than Agag; their kingdom will be exalted.

⁸“God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox. They devour hostile nations and break their bones in pieces; with their arrows they pierce them.

⁹Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness-who dares to rouse them? “May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed!”

¹⁰Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times.

¹¹Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the Lord has kept you from being rewarded.”

¹²Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell the messengers you sent me,

¹³‘Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything of my own accord, good or bad, to go beyond the command of the Lord – and I must say only what the Lord says’?

¹⁴Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you of what this people will do to your people in days to come.”

¹⁵Then he uttered his oracle: “The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,

¹⁶the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:

¹⁷“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

¹⁸Edom will be conquered; Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong.

¹⁹A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.”

²⁰Then Balaam saw Amalek and uttered his oracle: “Amalek was first among the nations, but he will come to ruin at last.”

²¹Then he saw the Kenites and uttered his oracle: “Your dwelling place is secure, your nest is set in a rock;

²²yet you Kenites will be destroyed when Asshur takes you captive.”

²³Then he uttered his oracle: “Ah, who can live when God does this?

²⁴Ships will come from the shores of Kittim; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will come to ruin.”

²⁵Then Balaam got up and returned home and Balak went his own way.

25While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women,

²who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods.

³So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the Lord ‘s anger burned against them.

⁴The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord , so that the Lord ‘s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”

⁵So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor.”

⁶Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁷When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand

⁸and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them-through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped;

⁹but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

¹⁰The Lord said to Moses,

¹¹“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them.

¹²Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him.

¹³He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

¹⁴The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family.

¹⁵And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷“Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them,

¹⁸because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.”

26After the plague the Lord said to Moses and Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest,

²“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by families-all those twenty years old or more who are able to serve in the army of Israel.”

³So on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them and said,

⁴“Take a census of the men twenty years old or more, as the Lord commanded Moses.” These were the Israelites who came out of Egypt:

⁵The descendants of Reuben, the firstborn son of Israel, were: through Hanoch, the Hanochite clan; through Pallu, the Palluite clan;

⁶through Hezron, the Hezronite clan; through Carmi, the Carmite clan.

⁷These were the clans of Reuben; those numbered were 43,730.

⁸The son of Pallu was Eliab,

⁹and the sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan and Abiram. The same Dathan and Abiram were the community officials who rebelled against Moses and Aaron and were among Korah’s followers when they rebelled against the Lord .

¹⁰The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them along with Korah, whose followers died when the fire

devoured the 250 men. And they served as a warning sign.

¹¹The line of Korah, however, did not die out.

¹²The descendants of Simeon by their clans were: through Nemuel, the Nemuelite clan; through Jamin, the Jaminite clan; through Jakin, the Jakinite clan;

¹³through Zerah, the Zerahite clan; through Shaul, the Shaulite clan.

¹⁴These were the clans of Simeon; there were 22,200 men.

¹⁵The descendants of Gad by their clans were: through Zephon, the Zephonite clan; through Haggi, the Haggite clan; through Shuni, the Shunite clan;

¹⁶through Ozni, the Oznite clan; through Eri, the Erite clan;

¹⁷through Arodi, the Arodite clan; through Areli, the Arelite clan.

¹⁸These were the clans of Gad; those numbered were 40,500.

¹⁹Er and Onan were sons of Judah, but they died in Canaan.

²⁰The descendants of Judah by their clans were: through Shelah, the Shelanite clan; through Perez, the Perezite clan; through Zerah, the Zerahite clan.

²¹The descendants of Perez were: through Hezron, the Hezronite clan; through Hamul, the Hamulite clan.

²²These were the clans of Judah; those numbered were 76,500.

²³The descendants of Issachar by their clans were: through Tola, the Tolaite clan; through Puah, the Puite clan;

²⁴through Jashub, the Jashubite clan; through Shimron, the Shimronite clan.

²⁵These were the clans of Issachar; those numbered were 64,300.

²⁶The descendants of Zebulun by their clans were: through Sered, the Seredite clan; through Elon, the Elonite clan; through Jahleel, the Jahleelite clan.

²⁷These were the clans of Zebulun; those numbered were 60,500.

²⁸The descendants of Joseph by their clans through Manasseh and Ephraim were:

²⁹The descendants of Manasseh: through Makir, the Makirite clan (Makir was the father of Gilead); through Gilead, the Gileadite clan.

³⁰These were the descendants of Gilead: through Iezer, the Iezerite clan; through Helek, the Helekite clan;

³¹through Asriel, the Asrielite clan; through Shechem, the Shechemite clan;

³²through Shemida, the Shemidaite clan; through Hepher, the Hepherite clan.

³³(Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons; he had only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.)

³⁴These were the clans of Manasseh; those numbered were 52,700.

³⁵These were the descendants of Ephraim by their clans: through Shuthelah, the Shuthelahite clan; through Beker, the Bekerite clan; through Tahan, the Tahanite clan.

³⁶These were the descendants of Shuthelah: through Eran, the Eranite clan.

³⁷These were the clans of Ephraim; those numbered were 32,500. These were the descendants of Joseph by their clans.

³⁸The descendants of Benjamin by their clans were: through Bela, the Belaite clan; through Ashbel, the Ashbelite clan; through Ahiram, the Ahiramite clan;

³⁹through Shupham, the Shuphamite clan; through Hupham, the Huphamite clan.

⁴⁰The descendants of Bela through Ard and Naaman were: through Ard, the Ardite clan; through Naaman, the Naamite clan.

⁴¹These were the clans of Benjamin; those numbered were 45,600.

⁴²These were the descendants of Dan by their clans: through Shuham, the

Shuhamite clan. These were the clans of Dan:

⁴³All of them were Shuhamite clans; and those numbered were 64,400.

⁴⁴The descendants of Asher by their clans were: through Imnah, the Imnite clan; through Ishvi, the Ishvite clan; through Beriah, the Beriite clan;

⁴⁵and through the descendants of Beriah: through Heber, the Heberite clan; through Malkiel, the Malkielite clan.

⁴⁶(Asher had a daughter named Serah.)

⁴⁷These were the clans of Asher; those numbered were 53,400.

⁴⁸The descendants of Naphtali by their clans were: through Jahzeel, the Jahzeelite clan; through Guni, the Gunite clan;

⁴⁹through Jezer, the Jezerite clan; through Shillem, the Shillemite clan.

⁵⁰These were the clans of Naphtali; those numbered were 45,400.

⁵¹The total number of the men of Israel was 601,730.

⁵²The Lord said to Moses,

⁵³“The land is to be allotted to them as an inheritance based on the number of names.

⁵⁴To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a

smaller one; each is to receive its inheritance according to the number of those listed.

⁵⁵Be sure that the land is distributed by lot. What each group inherits will be according to the names for its ancestral tribe.

⁵⁶Each inheritance is to be distributed by lot among the larger and smaller groups.”

⁵⁷These were the Levites who were counted by their clans: through Gershon, the Gershonite clan; through Kohath, the Kohathite clan; through Merari, the Merarite clan.

⁵⁸These also were Levite clans: the Libnite clan, the Hebronite clan, the Mahlite clan, the Mushite clan, the Korahite clan. (Kohath was the forefather of Amram;

⁵⁹the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, a descendant of Levi, who was born to the Levites in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron, Moses and their sister Miriam.

⁶⁰Aaron was the father of Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

⁶¹But Nadab and Abihu died when they made an offering before the Lord with unauthorized fire.)

⁶²All the male Levites a month old or more numbered 23,000. They were not counted along with the other Israelites because they received no inheritance among them.

⁶³These are the ones counted by Moses and Eleazar the priest when they counted the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

⁶⁴Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told those Israelites they would surely die in the desert, and not one of them was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

27The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. They approached

²the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly, and said,

³“Our father died in the desert. He was not among Korah’s followers, who banded together against the Lord , but he died for his own sin and left no sons.

⁴Why should our father’s name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father’s relatives.”

⁵So Moses brought their case before the Lord

⁶and the Lord said to him,

⁷“What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father’s relatives and turn their father’s inheritance over to them.

⁸“Say to the Israelites, ‘If a man dies and leaves no son, turn his inheritance over to his daughter.

⁹If he has no daughter, give his inheritance to his brothers.

¹⁰If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father’s brothers.

¹¹If his father had no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan, that he may possess it. This is to be a legal requirement for the Israelites, as the Lord commanded Moses.’ “

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain in the Abarim range and see the land I have given the Israelites.

¹³After you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was,

¹⁴for when the community rebelled at the waters in the Desert of Zin, both of you disobeyed my command to honor me as holy before their eyes.” (These were the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Desert of Zin.)

¹⁵Moses said to the Lord ,

¹⁶“May the Lord , the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community

¹⁷to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord ‘s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

¹⁸So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand on him.

¹⁹Have him stand before Eleazar the priest and the entire assembly and commission him in their presence.

²⁰Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him.

²¹He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the Lord . At his command he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will come in.”

²²Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole assembly.

²³Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, as the Lord instructed through Moses.

28The Lord said to Moses,

²“Give this command to the Israelites and say to them: ‘See that you present to me at the appointed time the food for

my offerings made by fire, as an aroma pleasing to me.’

³Say to them: ‘This is the offering made by fire that you are to present to the Lord : two lambs a year old without defect, as a regular burnt offering each day.

⁴Prepare one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight,

⁵together with a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from pressed olives.

⁶This is the regular burnt offering instituted at Mount Sinai as a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire.

⁷The accompanying drink offering is to be a quarter of a hin of fermented drink with each lamb. Pour out the drink offering to the Lord at the sanctuary.

⁸Prepare the second lamb at twilight, along with the same kind of grain offering and drink offering that you prepare in the morning. This is an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

⁹” ‘On the Sabbath day, make an offering of two lambs a year old without defect, together with its drink offering and a grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil.

¹⁰This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.

¹¹” ‘On the first of every month, present to the Lord a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

¹²With each bull there is to be a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with the ram, a grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil;

¹³and with each lamb, a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil. This is for a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire.

¹⁴With each bull there is to be a drink offering of half a hin of wine; with the ram, a third of a hin ; and with each lamb, a quarter of a hin. This is the monthly burnt offering to be made at each new moon during the year.

¹⁵Besides the regular burnt offering with its drink offering, one male goat is to be presented to the Lord as a sin offering.

¹⁶” ‘On the fourteenth day of the first month the Lord ‘s Passover is to be held.

¹⁷On the fifteenth day of this month there is to be a festival; for seven days eat bread made without yeast.

¹⁸On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.

¹⁹Present to the Lord an offering made by fire, a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

²⁰With each bull prepare a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with the ram, two-tenths;

²¹and with each of the seven lambs, one-tenth.

²²Include one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for you.

²³Prepare these in addition to the regular morning burnt offering.

²⁴In this way prepare the food for the offering made by fire every day for seven days as an aroma pleasing to the Lord ; it is to be prepared in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.

²⁵On the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.

²⁶” ‘On the day of firstfruits, when you present to the Lord an offering of new grain during the Feast of Weeks, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.

²⁷Present a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

²⁸With each bull there is to be a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with the ram, two-tenths;

²⁹and with each of the seven lambs, one-tenth.

³⁰Include one male goat to make atonement for you.

³¹Prepare these together with their drink offerings, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its grain offering. Be sure the animals are without defect.

29” ‘On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is a day for you to sound the trumpets.

²As an aroma pleasing to the Lord , prepare a burnt offering of one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

³With the bull prepare a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with the ram, two-tenths ;

⁴and with each of the seven lambs, one- tenth.

⁵Include one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for you.

⁶These are in addition to the monthly and daily burnt offerings with their grain offerings and drink offerings as specified. They are offerings made to the Lord by fire-a pleasing aroma.

⁷” ‘On the tenth day of this seventh month hold a sacred assembly. You must deny yourselves and do no work.

⁸Present as an aroma pleasing to the Lord a burnt offering of one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

⁹With the bull prepare a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with the ram, two-tenths;

¹⁰and with each of the seven lambs, one-tenth.

¹¹Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the sin offering for atonement and the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

¹²” ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. Celebrate a festival to the Lord for seven days.

¹³Present an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the Lord , a burnt offering of thirteen young bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

¹⁴With each of the thirteen bulls prepare a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil; with each of the two rams, two-tenths;

¹⁵and with each of the fourteen lambs, one-tenth.

¹⁶Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

¹⁷” ‘On the second day prepare twelve young bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

¹⁸With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink

offerings according to the number specified.

¹⁹Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

²⁰” ‘On the third day prepare eleven bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

²¹With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

²²Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

²³” ‘On the fourth day prepare ten bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

²⁴With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

²⁵Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

²⁶” ‘On the fifth day prepare nine bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

²⁷With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

²⁸Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

²⁹” ‘On the sixth day prepare eight bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

³⁰With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

³¹Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

³²” ‘On the seventh day prepare seven bulls, two rams and fourteen male lambs a year old, all without defect.

³³With the bulls, rams and lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

³⁴Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

³⁵” ‘On the eighth day hold an assembly and do no regular work.

³⁶Present an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the Lord , a burnt offering of one bull, one ram and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

³⁷With the bull, the ram and the lambs, prepare their grain offerings and drink offerings according to the number specified.

³⁸Include one male goat as a sin offering, in addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering and drink offering.

³⁹” ‘In addition to what you vow and your freewill offerings, prepare these for the Lord at your appointed feasts: your burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings and fellowship offerings. ‘ “

⁴⁰Moses told the Israelites all that the Lord commanded him.

30Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands:

²When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

³“When a young woman still living in her father’s house makes a vow to the Lord or obligates herself by a pledge

⁴and her father hears about her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then all her vows and every pledge by which she obligated herself will stand.

⁵But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the Lord will release her because her father has forbidden her.

⁶“If she marries after she makes a vow or after her lips utter a rash promise by which she obligates herself

⁷and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her, then her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand.

⁸But if her husband forbids her when he hears about it, he nullifies the vow that obligates her or the rash promise by which she obligates herself, and the Lord will release her.

⁹“Any vow or obligation taken by a widow or divorced woman will be binding on her.

¹⁰“If a woman living with her husband makes a vow or obligates herself by a pledge under oath

¹¹and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand.

¹²But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand. Her husband has nullified them, and the Lord will release her.

¹³Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself.

¹⁴But if her husband says nothing to her about it from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or the pledges binding on her. He confirms them by saying nothing to her when he hears about them.

¹⁵If, however, he nullifies them some time after he hears about them, then he is responsible for her guilt.”

¹⁶These are the regulations the Lord gave Moses concerning relationships between a man and his wife, and between a father and his young daughter still living in his house.

31The Lord said to Moses,

²“Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

³So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the Lord ‘s vengeance on them.

⁴Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.”

⁵So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel.

⁶Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.

⁷They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man.

⁸Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba-the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.

⁹The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder.

¹⁰They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps.

¹¹They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals,

¹²and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

¹³Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.

¹⁴Moses was angry with the officers of the army-the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds-who returned from the battle.

¹⁵“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them.

¹⁶“They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the Lord ‘s people.

¹⁷Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,

¹⁸but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

¹⁹“All of you who have killed anyone or touched anyone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives.

²⁰Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

²¹Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is the requirement of the law that the Lord gave Moses:

²²Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead

²³and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water.

²⁴On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.”

²⁵The Lord said to Moses,

²⁶“You and Eleazar the priest and the family heads of the community are to count all the people and animals that were captured.

²⁷Divide the spoils between the soldiers who took part in the battle and the rest of the community.

²⁸From the soldiers who fought in the battle, set apart as tribute for the Lord one out of every five hundred, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep or goats.

²⁹Take this tribute from their half share and give it to Eleazar the priest as the Lord ‘s part.

³⁰From the Israelites’ half, select one out of every fifty, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats or other animals. Give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord ‘s tabernacle.”

³¹So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.

³²The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep,

³³72,000 cattle,

³⁴61,000 donkeys

³⁵and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.

³⁶The half share of those who fought in the battle was: 337,500 sheep,

³⁷of which the tribute for the Lord was 675;

³⁸36,000 cattle, of which the tribute for the Lord was 72;

³⁹30,500 donkeys, of which the tribute for the Lord was 61;

⁴⁰16,000 people, of which the tribute for the Lord was 32.

⁴¹Moses gave the tribute to Eleazar the priest as the Lord ‘s part, as the Lord commanded Moses.

⁴²The half belonging to the Israelites, which Moses set apart from that of the fighting men-

⁴³the community’s half-was 337,500 sheep,

⁴⁴36,000 cattle,

⁴⁵30,500 donkeys

⁴⁶and 16,000 people.

⁴⁷From the Israelites’ half, Moses selected one out of every fifty persons and animals, as the Lord commanded him, and gave them to the Levites, who were responsible for the care of the Lord ‘s tabernacle.

⁴⁸Then the officers who were over the units of the army-the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds-went to Moses

⁴⁹and said to him, “Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing.

⁵⁰So we have brought as an offering to the Lord the gold articles each of us acquired-armlets, bracelets, signet rings, earrings and necklaces-to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord .”

⁵¹Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted from them the gold-all the crafted articles.

⁵²All the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds that Moses and Eleazar presented as a gift to the Lord weighed 16,750 shekels.

⁵³Each soldier had taken plunder for himself.

⁵⁴Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord .

32The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock.

²So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said,

³“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon-

⁴the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel-are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock.

⁵If we have found favor in your eyes,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”

⁶Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Shall your countrymen go to war while you sit here?

⁷Why do you discourage the Israelites from going over into the land the Lord has given them?

⁸This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to look over the land.

⁹After they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and viewed the land, they discouraged the Israelites from entering the land the Lord had given them.

¹⁰The Lord ‘s anger was aroused that day and he swore this oath:

¹¹‘Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years old or more who came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-

¹²not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’

¹³The Lord ‘s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the desert forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone.

¹⁴“And here you are, a brood of sinners, standing in the place of your fathers and making the Lord even more angry with Israel.

¹⁵If you turn away from following him, he will again leave all this people in the desert, and you will be the cause of their destruction.”

¹⁶Then they came up to him and said, “We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children.

¹⁷But we are ready to arm ourselves and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land.

¹⁸We will not return to our homes until every Israelite has received his inheritance.

¹⁹We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”

²⁰Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this-if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle,

²¹and if all of you will go armed over the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven his enemies out before him-

²²then when the land is subdued before the Lord , you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord .

²³“But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord ; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.

²⁴Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”

²⁵The Gadites and Reubenites said to Moses, “We your servants will do as our lord commands.

²⁶Our children and wives, our flocks and herds will remain here in the cities of Gilead.

²⁷But your servants, every man armed for battle, will cross over to fight before the Lord , just as our lord says.”

²⁸Then Moses gave orders about them to Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun and to the family heads of the Israelite tribes.

²⁹He said to them, “If the Gadites and Reubenites, every man armed for battle, cross over the Jordan with you before the Lord , then when the land is subdued before you, give them the land of Gilead as their possession.

³⁰But if they do not cross over with you armed, they must accept their possession with you in Canaan.”

³¹The Gadites and Reubenites answered, “Your servants will do what the Lord has said.

³²We will cross over before the Lord into Canaan armed, but the property we inherit will be on this side of the Jordan.”

³³Then Moses gave to the Gadites, the Reubenites and the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan-the whole land with its cities and the territory around them.

³⁴The Gadites built up Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer,

³⁵Atroth Shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah,

³⁶Beth Nimrah and Beth Haran as fortified cities, and built pens for their flocks.

³⁷And the Reubenites rebuilt Heshbon, Elealeh and Kiriathaim,

³⁸as well as Nebo and Baal Meon (these names were changed) and Sibmah. They gave names to the cities they rebuilt.

³⁹The descendants of Makir son of Manasseh went to Gilead, captured it and drove out the Amorites who were there.

⁴⁰So Moses gave Gilead to the Makirites, the descendants of Manasseh, and they settled there.

⁴¹Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, captured their settlements and called them Havvoth Jair.

⁴²And Nobah captured Kenath and its surrounding settlements and called it Nobah after himself.

33Here are the stages in the journey of the Israelites when they came out of Egypt by divisions under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

²At the Lord ‘s command Moses recorded the stages in their journey. This is their journey by stages:

³The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out boldly in full view of all the Egyptians,

⁴who were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them; for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods.

⁵The Israelites left Rameses and camped at Succoth.

⁶They left Succoth and camped at Etham, on the edge of the desert.

⁷They left Etham, turned back to Pi Hahiroth, to the east of Baal Zephon, and camped near Migdol.

⁸They left Pi Hahiroth and passed through the sea into the desert, and when they had traveled for three days in the Desert of Etham, they camped at Marah.

⁹They left Marah and went to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there.

¹⁰They left Elim and camped by the Red Sea.

¹¹They left the Red Sea and camped in the Desert of Sin.

¹²They left the Desert of Sin and camped at Dophkah.

¹³They left Dophkah and camped at Alush.

¹⁴They left Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.

¹⁵They left Rephidim and camped in the Desert of Sinai.

¹⁶They left the Desert of Sinai and camped at Kibroth Hattaavah.

¹⁷They left Kibroth Hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth.

¹⁸They left Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah.

¹⁹They left Rithmah and camped at Rimmon Perez.

²⁰They left Rimmon Perez and camped at Libnah.

²¹They left Libnah and camped at Rissah.

²²They left Rissah and camped at Kehelathah.

²³They left Kehelathah and camped at Mount Shepher.

²⁴They left Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah.

²⁵They left Haradah and camped at Makheloth.

²⁶They left Makheloth and camped at Tahath.

²⁷They left Tahath and camped at Terah.

²⁸They left Terah and camped at Mithcah.

²⁹They left Mithcah and camped at Hashmonah.

³⁰They left Hashmonah and camped at Moseroth.

³¹They left Moseroth and camped at Bene Jaakan.

³²They left Bene Jaakan and camped at Hor Haggidgad.

³³They left Hor Haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah.

³⁴They left Jotbathah and camped at Abronah.

³⁵They left Abronah and camped at Ezion Geber.

³⁶They left Ezion Geber and camped at Kadesh, in the Desert of Zin.

³⁷They left Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor, on the border of Edom.

³⁸At the Lord ‘s command Aaron the priest went up Mount Hor, where he died on the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt.

³⁹Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years old when he died on Mount Hor.

⁴⁰The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev of Canaan, heard that the Israelites were coming.

⁴¹They left Mount Hor and camped at Zalmonah.

⁴²They left Zalmonah and camped at Punon.

⁴³They left Punon and camped at Oboth.

⁴⁴They left Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim, on the border of Moab.

⁴⁵They left Iyim and camped at Dibon Gad.

⁴⁶They left Dibon Gad and camped at Almon Diblathaim.

⁴⁷They left Almon Diblathaim and camped in the mountains of Abarim, near Nebo.

⁴⁸They left the mountains of Abarim and camped on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

⁴⁹There on the plains of Moab they camped along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim.

⁵⁰On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho the Lord said to Moses,

⁵¹“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you cross the Jordan into Canaan,

⁵²drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.

⁵³Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess.

⁵⁴Distribute the land by lot, according to your clans. To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a smaller one. Whatever falls to them by lot will be theirs. Distribute it according to your ancestral tribes.

⁵⁵” ‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.

⁵⁶And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.’ “

34The Lord said to Moses,

²“Command the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance will have these boundaries:

³” ‘Your southern side will include some of the Desert of Zin along the border of Edom. On the east, your southern boundary will start from the end of the Salt Sea,

⁴cross south of Scorpion Pass, continue on to Zin and go south of Kadesh

Barnea. Then it will go to Hazar Addar and over to Azmon,

⁵where it will turn, join the Wadi of Egypt and end at the Sea.

⁶” ‘Your western boundary will be the coast of the Great Sea. This will be your boundary on the west.

⁷” ‘For your northern boundary, run a line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor

⁸and from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath. Then the boundary will go to Zedad,

⁹continue to Ziphron and end at Hazar Enan. This will be your boundary on the north.

¹⁰” ‘For your eastern boundary, run a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham.

¹¹The boundary will go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain and continue along the slopes east of the Sea of Kinnereth.

¹²Then the boundary will go down along the Jordan and end at the Salt Sea. ” ‘This will be your land, with its boundaries on every side.’ “

¹³Moses commanded the Israelites: “Assign this land by lot as an inheritance. The Lord has ordered that it be given to the nine and a half tribes,

¹⁴because the families of the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad and the half- tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance.

¹⁵These two and a half tribes have received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan of Jericho, toward the sunrise.”

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷“These are the names of the men who are to assign the land for you as an inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun.

¹⁸And appoint one leader from each tribe to help assign the land.

¹⁹These are their names: Caleb son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah;

²⁰Shemuel son of Ammihud, from the tribe of Simeon;

²¹Elidad son of Kislon, from the tribe of Benjamin;

²²Bukki son of Jogli, the leader from the tribe of Dan;

²³Hanniel son of Ephod, the leader from the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph;

²⁴Kemuel son of Shiphtan, the leader from the tribe of Ephraim son of Joseph;

²⁵Elizaphan son of Parnach, the leader from the tribe of Zebulun;

²⁶Paltiel son of Azzan, the leader from the tribe of Issachar;

²⁷Ahihud son of Shelomi, the leader from the tribe of Asher;

²⁸Pedahel son of Ammihud, the leader from the tribe of Naphtali.”

²⁹These are the men the Lord commanded to assign the inheritance to the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

35On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, the Lord said to Moses,

²“Command the Israelites to give the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites will possess. And give them pasturelands around the towns.

³Then they will have towns to live in and pasturelands for their cattle, flocks and all their other livestock.

⁴“The pasturelands around the towns that you give the Levites will extend out fifteen hundred feet from the town wall.

⁵Outside the town, measure three thousand feet on the east side, three thousand on the south side, three thousand on the west and three thousand on the north, with the town in the center. They will have this area as pastureland for the towns.

⁶“Six of the towns you give the Levites will be cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee. In addition, give them forty-two other towns.

⁷In all you must give the Levites forty- eight towns, together with their pasturelands.

⁸The towns you give the Levites from the land the Israelites possess are to be given in proportion to the inheritance of each tribe: Take many towns from a tribe that has many, but few from one that has few.”

⁹Then the Lord said to Moses:

¹⁰“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you cross the Jordan into Canaan,

¹¹select some towns to be your cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may flee.

¹²They will be places of refuge from the avenger, so that a person accused of murder may not die before he stands trial before the assembly.

¹³These six towns you give will be your cities of refuge.

¹⁴Give three on this side of the Jordan and three in Canaan as cities of refuge.

¹⁵These six towns will be a place of refuge for Israelites, aliens and any other people living among them, so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there.

¹⁶” ‘If a man strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.

¹⁷Or if anyone has a stone in his hand that could kill, and he strikes someone so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.

¹⁸Or if anyone has a wooden object in his hand that could kill, and he hits someone so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.

¹⁹The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death.

²⁰If anyone with malice aforethought shoves another or throws something at him intentionally so that he dies

²¹or if in hostility he hits him with his fist so that he dies, that person shall be put to death; he is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.

²²” ‘But if without hostility someone suddenly shoves another or throws something at him unintentionally

²³or, without seeing him, drops a stone on him that could kill him, and he dies, then since he was not his enemy and he did not intend to harm him,

²⁴the assembly must judge between him and the avenger of blood according to these regulations.

²⁵The assembly must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send him back to the city of refuge to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.

²⁶” ‘But if the accused ever goes outside the limits of the city of refuge to which he has fled

²⁷and the avenger of blood finds him outside the city, the avenger of blood may kill the accused without being guilty of murder.

²⁸The accused must stay in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest; only after the death of the high priest may he return to his own property.

²⁹” ‘These are to be legal requirements for you throughout the generations to come, wherever you live.

³⁰” ‘Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

³¹” ‘Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.

³²” ‘Do not accept a ransom for anyone who has fled to a city of refuge and so allow him to go back and live on his own land before the death of the high priest.

³³” ‘Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

³⁴Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the Lord , dwell among the Israelites.’ “

36The family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, who were from the clans of

the descendants of Joseph, came and spoke before Moses and the leaders, the heads of the Israelite families.

²They said, “When the Lord commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, he ordered you to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.

³Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into. And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away.

⁴When the Year of Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to that of the tribe into which they marry, and their property will be taken from the tribal inheritance of our forefathers.”

⁵Then at the Lord ‘s command Moses gave this order to the Israelites: “What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right.

⁶This is what the Lord commands for Zelophehad’s daughters: They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father.

⁷No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers.

⁸Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe must marry someone in

her father’s tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers.

⁹No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits.”

¹⁰So Zelophehad’s daughters did as the Lord commanded Moses.

¹¹Zelophehad’s daughters-Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah-

married their cousins on their father’s side.

¹²They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in their father’s clan and tribe.

¹³These are the commands and regulations the Lord gave through Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Leviticus

Posted on March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 by robertmacsbible_hpehg4

Leviticus

⁹He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn

1The Lord called to Moses and spoke

to him from the Tent of Meeting. He said,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any of you brings an offering to the Lord , bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.

³” ‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord .

⁴He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.

⁵He is to slaughter the young bull before the Lord , and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁶He is to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.

⁷The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire.

⁸Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar.

all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁰” ‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, he is to offer a male without defect.

¹¹He is to slaughter it at the north side of the altar before the Lord , and Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides.

¹²He is to cut it into pieces, and the priest shall arrange them, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar.

¹³He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to bring all of it and burn it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁴” ‘If the offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, he is to offer a dove or a young pigeon.

¹⁵The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off the head and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar.

¹⁶He is to remove the crop with its contents and throw it to the east side of the altar, where the ashes are.

¹⁷He shall tear it open by the wings, not severing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

2” ‘When someone brings a grain offering to the Lord , his offering is to be of fine flour. He is to pour oil on it, put incense on it

²and take it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the fine flour and oil, together with all the incense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

³The rest of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the offerings made to the Lord by fire.

⁴” ‘If you bring a grain offering baked in an oven, it is to consist of fine flour: cakes made without yeast and mixed with oil, or wafers made without yeast and spread with oil.

⁵If your grain offering is prepared on a griddle, it is to be made of fine flour mixed with oil, and without yeast.

⁶Crumble it and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering.

⁷If your grain offering is cooked in a pan, it is to be made of fine flour and oil.

⁸Bring the grain offering made of these things to the Lord ; present it to the priest, who shall take it to the altar.

⁹He shall take out the memorial portion from the grain offering and burn it on the altar as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁰The rest of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the offerings made to the Lord by fire.

¹¹” ‘Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in an offering made to the Lord by fire.

¹²You may bring them to the Lord as an offering of the firstfruits, but they are not to be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma.

¹³Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

¹⁴” ‘If you bring a grain offering of firstfruits to the Lord , offer crushed heads of new grain roasted in the fire.

¹⁵Put oil and incense on it; it is a grain offering.

¹⁶The priest shall burn the memorial portion of the crushed grain and the oil, together with all the incense, as an offering made to the Lord by fire.

3” ‘If someone’s offering is a fellowship offering, and he offers an animal from the herd, whether male or female, he is to present before the Lord an animal without defect.

²He is to lay his hand on the head of his offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood against the altar on all sides.

³From the fellowship offering he is to bring a sacrifice made to the Lord by fire: all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them,

⁴both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys.

⁵Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is on the burning wood, as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

⁶” ‘If he offers an animal from the flock as a fellowship offering to the Lord , he is to offer a male or female without defect.

⁷If he offers a lamb, he is to present it before the Lord .

⁸He is to lay his hand on the head of his offering and slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides.

⁹From the fellowship offering he is to bring a sacrifice made to the Lord by fire: its fat, the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them,

¹⁰both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys.

¹¹The priest shall burn them on the altar as food, an offering made to the Lord by fire.

¹²” ‘If his offering is a goat, he is to present it before the Lord .

¹³He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides.

¹⁴From what he offers he is to make this offering to the Lord by fire: all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them,

¹⁵both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys.

¹⁶The priest shall burn them on the altar as food, an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the Lord ‘s.

¹⁷” ‘This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.’ “

4The Lord said to Moses,

²“Say to the Israelites: ‘When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord ‘s commands-

³” ‘If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.

⁴He is to present the bull at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the Lord . He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it before the Lord .

⁵Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull’s blood and carry it into the Tent of Meeting.

⁶He is to dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle some of it seven times before the Lord , in front of the curtain of the sanctuary.

⁷The priest shall then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting. The rest of the bull’s blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁸He shall remove all the fat from the bull of the sin offering-the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them,

⁹both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys-

¹⁰just as the fat is removed from the ox sacrificed as a fellowship offering. Then

the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering.

¹¹But the hide of the bull and all its flesh, as well as the head and legs, the inner parts and offal-

¹²that is, all the rest of the bull-he must take outside the camp to a place ceremonially clean, where the ashes are thrown, and burn it in a wood fire on the ash heap.

¹³” ‘If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord ‘s commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, they are guilty.

¹⁴When they become aware of the sin they committed, the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁵The elders of the community are to lay their hands on the bull’s head before the Lord , and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord .

¹⁶Then the anointed priest is to take some of the bull’s blood into the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁷He shall dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it before the Lord seven times in front of the curtain.

¹⁸He is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting. The rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁹He shall remove all the fat from it and burn it on the altar,

²⁰and do with this bull just as he did with the bull for the sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.

²¹Then he shall take the bull outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bull. This is the sin offering for the community.

²²” ‘When a leader sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the commands of the Lord his God, he is guilty.

²³When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering a male goat without defect.

²⁴He is to lay his hand on the goat’s head and slaughter it at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered before the Lord . It is a sin offering.

²⁵Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.

²⁶He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the man’s sin, and he will be forgiven.

²⁷” ‘If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord ‘s commands, he is guilty.

²⁸When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect.

²⁹He is to lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it at the place of the burnt offering.

³⁰Then the priest is to take some of the blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.

³¹He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the Lord . In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.

³²” ‘If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect.

³³He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it for a sin offering at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered.

³⁴Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.

³⁵He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the lamb of the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the Lord by fire. In this way the priest will make atonement for

him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven.

5” ‘If a person sins because he does not speak up when he hears a public charge to testify regarding something he has seen or learned about, he will be held responsible.

²” ‘Or if a person touches anything ceremonially unclean-whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground- even though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty.

³” ‘Or if he touches human uncleanness- anything that would make him unclean- even though he is unaware of it, when he learns of it he will be guilty.

⁴” ‘Or if a person thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil-in any matter one might carelessly swear about-even though he is unaware of it, in any case when he learns of it he will be guilty.

⁵” ‘When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned

⁶and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.

⁷” ‘If he cannot afford a lamb, he is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the Lord as a penalty for his sin-one for

a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.

⁸He is to bring them to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He is to wring its head from its neck, not severing it completely,

⁹and is to sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering against the side of the altar; the rest of the blood must be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering.

¹⁰The priest shall then offer the other as a burnt offering in the prescribed way and make atonement for him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven.

¹¹” ‘If, however, he cannot afford two doves or two young pigeons, he is to bring as an offering for his sin a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He must not put oil or incense on it, because it is a sin offering.

¹²He is to bring it to the priest, who shall take a handful of it as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the Lord by fire. It is a sin offering.

¹³In this way the priest will make atonement for him for any of these sins he has committed, and he will be forgiven. The rest of the offering will belong to the priest, as in the case of the grain offering.’ “

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses:

¹⁵“When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the Lord ‘s holy things, he is to bring to the Lord as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel. It is a guilt offering.

¹⁶He must make restitution for what he has failed to do in regard to the holy things, add a fifth of the value to that and give it all to the priest, who will make atonement for him with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.

¹⁷“If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord ‘s commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held responsible.

¹⁸He is to bring to the priest as a guilt offering a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for the wrong he has committed unintentionally, and he will be forgiven.

¹⁹It is a guilt offering; he has been guilty of wrongdoing against the Lord .”

6The Lord said to Moses:

²“If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him,

³or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he

commits any such sin that people may do-

⁴when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found,

⁵or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering.

⁶And as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that is, to the Lord , his guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value.

⁷In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord , and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him guilty.”

⁸The Lord said to Moses:

⁹“Give Aaron and his sons this command: ‘These are the regulations for the burnt offering: The burnt offering is to remain on the altar hearth throughout the night, till morning, and the fire must be kept burning on the altar.

¹⁰The priest shall then put on his linen clothes, with linen undergarments next to his body, and shall remove the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar and place them beside the altar.

¹¹Then he is to take off these clothes and put on others, and carry the ashes

outside the camp to a place that is ceremonially clean.

¹²The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it.

¹³The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.

¹⁴” ‘These are the regulations for the grain offering: Aaron’s sons are to bring it before the Lord , in front of the altar.

¹⁵The priest is to take a handful of fine flour and oil, together with all the incense on the grain offering, and burn the memorial portion on the altar as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁶Aaron and his sons shall eat the rest of it, but it is to be eaten without yeast in a holy place; they are to eat it in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁷It must not be baked with yeast; I have given it as their share of the offerings made to me by fire. Like the sin offering and the guilt offering, it is most holy.

¹⁸Any male descendant of Aaron may eat it. It is his regular share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire for the generations to come. Whatever touches them will become holy. ‘ “

¹⁹The Lord also said to Moses,

²⁰“This is the offering Aaron and his sons are to bring to the Lord on the day

he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half in the evening.

²¹Prepare it with oil on a griddle; bring it well-mixed and present the grain offering broken in pieces as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

²²The son who is to succeed him as anointed priest shall prepare it. It is the Lord ‘s regular share and is to be burned completely.

²³Every grain offering of a priest shall be burned completely; it must not be eaten.”

²⁴The Lord said to Moses,

²⁵“Say to Aaron and his sons: ‘These are the regulations for the sin offering: The sin offering is to be slaughtered before the Lord in the place the burnt offering is slaughtered; it is most holy.

²⁶The priest who offers it shall eat it; it is to be eaten in a holy place, in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.

²⁷Whatever touches any of the flesh will become holy, and if any of the blood is spattered on a garment, you must wash it in a holy place.

²⁸The clay pot the meat is cooked in must be broken; but if it is cooked in a bronze pot, the pot is to be scoured and rinsed with water.

²⁹Any male in a priest’s family may eat it; it is most holy.

³⁰But any sin offering whose blood is brought into the Tent of Meeting to make atonement in the Holy Place must not be eaten; it must be burned.

7” ‘These are the regulations for the guilt offering, which is most holy:

²The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be sprinkled against the altar on all sides.

³All its fat shall be offered: the fat tail and the fat that covers the inner parts,

⁴both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys.

⁵The priest shall burn them on the altar as an offering made to the Lord by fire. It is a guilt offering.

⁶Any male in a priest’s family may eat it, but it must be eaten in a holy place; it is most holy.

⁷” ‘The same law applies to both the sin offering and the guilt offering: They belong to the priest who makes atonement with them.

⁸The priest who offers a burnt offering for anyone may keep its hide for himself.

⁹Every grain offering baked in an oven or cooked in a pan or on a griddle belongs to the priest who offers it,

¹⁰and every grain offering, whether mixed with oil or dry, belongs equally to all the sons of Aaron.

¹¹” ‘These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the Lord :

¹²” ‘If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well- kneaded and mixed with oil.

¹³Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast.

¹⁴He is to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the Lord ; it belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the fellowship offerings.

¹⁵The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning.

¹⁶” ‘If, however, his offering is the result of a vow or is a freewill offering, the sacrifice shall be eaten on the day he offers it, but anything left over may be eaten on the next day.

¹⁷Any meat of the sacrifice left over till the third day must be burned up.

¹⁸If any meat of the fellowship offering is eaten on the third day, it will not be accepted. It will not be credited to the one who offered it, for it is impure; the

person who eats any of it will be held responsible.

¹⁹” ‘Meat that touches anything ceremonially unclean must not be eaten; it must be burned up. As for other meat, anyone ceremonially clean may eat it.

²⁰But if anyone who is unclean eats any meat of the fellowship offering belonging to the Lord , that person must be cut off from his people.

²¹If anyone touches something unclean- whether human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean, detestable thing-and then eats any of the meat of the fellowship offering belonging to the Lord , that person must be cut off from his people.’ “

²²The Lord said to Moses,

²³“Say to the Israelites: ‘Do not eat any of the fat of cattle, sheep or goats.

²⁴The fat of an animal found dead or torn by wild animals may be used for any other purpose, but you must not eat it.

²⁵Anyone who eats the fat of an animal from which an offering by fire may be made to the Lord must be cut off from his people.

²⁶And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.

²⁷If anyone eats blood, that person must be cut off from his people.’ “

²⁸The Lord said to Moses,

²⁹“Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who brings a fellowship offering to the Lord is to bring part of it as his sacrifice to the Lord .

³⁰With his own hands he is to bring the offering made to the Lord by fire; he is to bring the fat, together with the breast, and wave the breast before the Lord as a wave offering.

³¹The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast belongs to Aaron and his sons.

³²You are to give the right thigh of your fellowship offerings to the priest as a contribution.

³³The son of Aaron who offers the blood and the fat of the fellowship offering shall have the right thigh as his share.

³⁴From the fellowship offerings of the Israelites, I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest and his sons as their regular share from the Israelites.’ “

³⁵This is the portion of the offerings made to the Lord by fire that were allotted to Aaron and his sons on the day they were presented to serve the Lord as priests.

³⁶On the day they were anointed, the Lord commanded that the Israelites give this to them as their regular share for the generations to come.

³⁷These, then, are the regulations for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin

offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering and the fellowship offering,

³⁸which the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai on the day he commanded the Israelites to bring their offerings to the Lord , in the Desert of Sinai.

8The Lord said to Moses,

²“Bring Aaron and his sons, their garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering, the two rams and the basket containing bread made without yeast,

³and gather the entire assembly at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.”

⁴Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and the assembly gathered at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁵Moses said to the assembly, “This is what the Lord has commanded to be done.”

⁶Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water.

⁷He put the tunic on Aaron, tied the sash around him, clothed him with the robe and put the ephod on him. He also tied the ephod to him by its skillfully woven waistband; so it was fastened on him.

⁸He placed the breastpiece on him and put the Urim and Thummim in the breastpiece.

⁹Then he placed the turban on Aaron’s head and set the gold plate, the sacred diadem, on the front of it, as the Lord commanded Moses.

¹⁰Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it, and so consecrated them.

¹¹He sprinkled some of the oil on the altar seven times, anointing the altar and all its utensils and the basin with its stand, to consecrate them.

¹²He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him to consecrate him.

¹³Then he brought Aaron’s sons forward, put tunics on them, tied sashes around them and put headbands on them, as the Lord commanded Moses.

¹⁴He then presented the bull for the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head.

¹⁵Moses slaughtered the bull and took some of the blood, and with his finger he put it on all the horns of the altar to purify the altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. So he consecrated it to make atonement for it.

¹⁶Moses also took all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, and both kidneys and their fat, and burned it on the altar.

¹⁷But the bull with its hide and its flesh and its offal he burned up outside the camp, as the Lord commanded Moses.

¹⁸He then presented the ram for the burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head.

¹⁹Then Moses slaughtered the ram and sprinkled the blood against the altar on all sides.

²⁰He cut the ram into pieces and burned the head, the pieces and the fat.

²¹He washed the inner parts and the legs with water and burned the whole ram on the altar as a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire, as the Lord commanded Moses.

²²He then presented the other ram, the ram for the ordination, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head.

²³Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.

²⁴Moses also brought Aaron’s sons forward and put some of the blood on the lobes of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet. Then he sprinkled blood against the altar on all sides.

²⁵He took the fat, the fat tail, all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, both kidneys and their fat and the right thigh.

²⁶Then from the basket of bread made without yeast, which was before the

Lord , he took a cake of bread, and one made with oil, and a wafer; he put these on the fat portions and on the right thigh.

²⁷He put all these in the hands of Aaron and his sons and waved them before the Lord as a wave offering.

²⁸Then Moses took them from their hands and burned them on the altar on top of the burnt offering as an ordination offering, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire.

²⁹He also took the breast-Moses’ share of the ordination ram-and waved it before the Lord as a wave offering, as the Lord commanded Moses.

³⁰Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood from the altar and sprinkled them on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and their garments.

³¹Moses then said to Aaron and his sons, “Cook the meat at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and eat it there with the bread from the basket of ordination offerings, as I commanded, saying, ‘Aaron and his sons are to eat it.’

³²Then burn up the rest of the meat and the bread.

³³Do not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting for seven days, until the days of your ordination are completed, for your ordination will last seven days.

³⁴What has been done today was commanded by the Lord to make atonement for you.

³⁵You must stay at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting day and night for seven days and do what the Lord requires, so you will not die; for that is what I have been commanded.”

³⁶So Aaron and his sons did everything the Lord commanded through Moses.

9On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.

²He said to Aaron, “Take a bull calf for your sin offering and a ram for your burnt offering, both without defect, and present them before the Lord .

³Then say to the Israelites: ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, a calf and a lamb- both a year old and without defect-for a burnt offering,

⁴and an ox and a ram for a fellowship offering to sacrifice before the Lord , together with a grain offering mixed with oil. For today the Lord will appear to you.’ “

⁵They took the things Moses commanded to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and the entire assembly came near and stood before the Lord .

⁶Then Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do, so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.”

⁷Moses said to Aaron, “Come to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and the people; sacrifice the offering that is for the people and make atonement for them, as the Lord has commanded.”

⁸So Aaron came to the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself.

⁹His sons brought the blood to him, and he dipped his finger into the blood and put it on the horns of the altar; the rest of the blood he poured out at the base of the altar.

¹⁰On the altar he burned the fat, the kidneys and the covering of the liver from the sin offering, as the Lord commanded Moses;

¹¹the flesh and the hide he burned up outside the camp.

¹²Then he slaughtered the burnt offering. His sons handed him the blood, and he sprinkled it against the altar on all sides.

¹³They handed him the burnt offering piece by piece, including the head, and he burned them on the altar.

¹⁴He washed the inner parts and the legs and burned them on top of the burnt offering on the altar.

¹⁵Aaron then brought the offering that was for the people. He took the goat for the people’s sin offering and slaughtered it and offered it for a sin offering as he did with the first one.

¹⁶He brought the burnt offering and offered it in the prescribed way.

¹⁷He also brought the grain offering, took a handful of it and burned it on the altar in addition to the morning’s burnt offering.

¹⁸He slaughtered the ox and the ram as the fellowship offering for the people. His sons handed him the blood, and he sprinkled it against the altar on all sides.

¹⁹But the fat portions of the ox and the ram-the fat tail, the layer of fat, the kidneys and the covering of the liver-

²⁰these they laid on the breasts, and then Aaron burned the fat on the altar.

²¹Aaron waved the breasts and the right thigh before the Lord as a wave offering, as Moses commanded.

²²Then Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them. And having sacrificed the sin offering, the burnt offering and the fellowship offering, he stepped down.

²³Moses and Aaron then went into the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people; and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.

²⁴Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

10Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord , contrary to his command.

²So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord .

³Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said: ” ‘Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’ ” Aaron remained silent.

⁴Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come here; carry your cousins outside the camp, away from the front of the sanctuary.”

⁵So they came and carried them, still in their tunics, outside the camp, as Moses ordered.

⁶Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not let your hair become unkempt, and do not tear your clothes, or you will die and the Lord will be angry with the whole community. But your relatives, all the house of Israel, may mourn for those the Lord has destroyed by fire.

⁷Do not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting or you will die, because the Lord ‘s anointing oil is on you.” So they did as Moses said.

⁸Then the Lord said to Aaron,

⁹“You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

¹⁰You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean,

¹¹and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the Lord has given them through Moses.”

¹²Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, “Take the grain offering left over from the offerings made to the Lord by fire and eat it prepared without yeast beside the altar, for it is most holy.

¹³Eat it in a holy place, because it is your share and your sons’ share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire; for so I have been commanded.

¹⁴But you and your sons and your daughters may eat the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. Eat them in a ceremonially clean place; they have been given to you and your children as your share of the Israelites’ fellowship offerings.

¹⁵The thigh that was presented and the breast that was waved must be brought with the fat portions of the offerings made by fire, to be waved before the Lord as a wave offering. This will be the regular share for you and your children, as the Lord has commanded.”

¹⁶When Moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up, he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and asked,

¹⁷“Why didn’t you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It is most holy; it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the Lord .

¹⁸Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area, as I commanded.”

¹⁹Aaron replied to Moses, “Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord , but such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?”

²⁰When Moses heard this, he was satisfied.

11The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²“Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat:

³You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.

⁴” ‘There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it

chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you.

⁵The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you.

⁶The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you.

⁷And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

⁸You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.

⁹” ‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.

¹⁰But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales-whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water-you are to detest.

¹¹And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses.

¹²Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.

¹³” ‘These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,

¹⁴the red kite, any kind of black kite,

¹⁵any kind of raven,

¹⁶the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,

¹⁷the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl,

¹⁸the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,

¹⁹the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

²⁰” ‘All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.

²¹There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.

²²Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.

²³But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.

²⁴” ‘You will make yourselves unclean by these; whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening.

²⁵Whoever picks up one of their carcasses must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till evening.

²⁶” ‘Every animal that has a split hoof not completely divided or that does not chew the cud is unclean for you; whoever touches the carcass of any of them will be unclean.

²⁷Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on their paws are unclean for you; whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening.

²⁸Anyone who picks up their carcasses must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till evening. They are unclean for you.

²⁹” ‘Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,

³⁰the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon.

³¹Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean till evening.

³²When one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be unclean, whether it is made of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth. Put it in water; it will be unclean till evening, and then it will be clean.

³³If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot.

³⁴Any food that could be eaten but has water on it from such a pot is unclean, and any liquid that could be drunk from it is unclean.

³⁵Anything that one of their carcasses falls on becomes unclean; an oven or cooking pot must be broken up. They

are unclean, and you are to regard them as unclean.

³⁶A spring, however, or a cistern for collecting water remains clean, but anyone who touches one of these carcasses is unclean.

³⁷If a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they remain clean.

³⁸But if water has been put on the seed and a carcass falls on it, it is unclean for you.

³⁹” ‘If an animal that you are allowed to eat dies, anyone who touches the carcass will be unclean till evening.

⁴⁰Anyone who eats some of the carcass must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till evening. Anyone who picks up the carcass must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till evening.

⁴¹” ‘Every creature that moves about on the ground is detestable; it is not to be eaten.

⁴²You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is detestable.

⁴³Do not defile yourselves by any of these creatures. Do not make yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean by them.

⁴⁴I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean

by any creature that moves about on the ground.

⁴⁵I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

⁴⁶” ‘These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves in the water and every creature that moves about on the ground.

⁴⁷You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.’ “

12The Lord said to Moses,

²“Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.

³On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.

⁴Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.

⁵If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.

⁶” ‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.

⁷He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood. ” ‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl.

⁸If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’ “

13The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²“When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a bright spot on his skin that may become an infectious skin disease, he must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest.

³The priest is to examine the sore on his skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease. When the priest examines him, he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean.

⁴If the spot on his skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white,

the priest is to put the infected person in isolation for seven days.

⁵On the seventh day the priest is to examine him, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he is to keep him in isolation another seven days.

⁶On the seventh day the priest is to examine him again, and if the sore has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a rash. The man must wash his clothes, and he will be clean.

⁷But if the rash does spread in his skin after he has shown himself to the priest to be pronounced clean, he must appear before the priest again.

⁸The priest is to examine him, and if the rash has spread in the skin, he shall pronounce him unclean; it is an infectious disease.

⁹“When anyone has an infectious skin disease, he must be brought to the priest.

¹⁰The priest is to examine him, and if there is a white swelling in the skin that has turned the hair white and if there is raw flesh in the swelling,

¹¹it is a chronic skin disease and the priest shall pronounce him unclean. He is not to put him in isolation, because he is already unclean.

¹²“If the disease breaks out all over his skin and, so far as the priest can see, it

covers all the skin of the infected person from head to foot,

¹³the priest is to examine him, and if the disease has covered his whole body, he shall pronounce that person clean. Since it has all turned white, he is clean.

¹⁴But whenever raw flesh appears on him, he will be unclean.

¹⁵When the priest sees the raw flesh, he shall pronounce him unclean. The raw flesh is unclean; he has an infectious disease.

¹⁶Should the raw flesh change and turn white, he must go to the priest.

¹⁷The priest is to examine him, and if the sores have turned white, the priest shall pronounce the infected person clean; then he will be clean.

¹⁸“When someone has a boil on his skin and it heals,

¹⁹and in the place where the boil was, a white swelling or reddish-white spot appears, he must present himself to the priest.

²⁰The priest is to examine it, and if it appears to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has turned white, the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is an infectious skin disease that has broken out where the boil was.

²¹But if, when the priest examines it, there is no white hair in it and it is not more than skin deep and has faded,

then the priest is to put him in isolation for seven days.

²²If it is spreading in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is infectious.

²³But if the spot is unchanged and has not spread, it is only a scar from the boil, and the priest shall pronounce him clean.

²⁴“When someone has a burn on his skin and a reddish-white or white spot appears in the raw flesh of the burn,

²⁵the priest is to examine the spot, and if the hair in it has turned white, and it appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious disease that has broken out in the burn. The priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is an infectious skin disease.

²⁶But if the priest examines it and there is no white hair in the spot and if it is not more than skin deep and has faded, then the priest is to put him in isolation for seven days.

²⁷On the seventh day the priest is to examine him, and if it is spreading in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is an infectious skin disease.

²⁸If, however, the spot is unchanged and has not spread in the skin but has faded, it is a swelling from the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a scar from the burn.

²⁹“If a man or woman has a sore on the head or on the chin,

³⁰the priest is to examine the sore, and if it appears to be more than skin deep and the hair in it is yellow and thin, the priest shall pronounce that person unclean; it is an itch, an infectious disease of the head or chin.

³¹But if, when the priest examines this kind of sore, it does not seem to be more than skin deep and there is no black hair in it, then the priest is to put the infected person in isolation for seven days.

³²On the seventh day the priest is to examine the sore, and if the itch has not spread and there is no yellow hair in it and it does not appear to be more than skin deep,

³³he must be shaved except for the diseased area, and the priest is to keep him in isolation another seven days.

³⁴On the seventh day the priest is to examine the itch, and if it has not spread in the skin and appears to be no more than skin deep, the priest shall pronounce him clean. He must wash his clothes, and he will be clean.

³⁵But if the itch does spread in the skin after he is pronounced clean,

³⁶the priest is to examine him, and if the itch has spread in the skin, the priest does not need to look for yellow hair; the person is unclean.

³⁷If, however, in his judgment it is unchanged and black hair has grown in it, the itch is healed. He is clean, and the priest shall pronounce him clean.

³⁸“When a man or woman has white spots on the skin,

³⁹the priest is to examine them, and if the spots are dull white, it is a harmless rash that has broken out on the skin; that person is clean.

⁴⁰“When a man has lost his hair and is bald, he is clean.

⁴¹If he has lost his hair from the front of his scalp and has a bald forehead, he is clean.

⁴²But if he has a reddish-white sore on his bald head or forehead, it is an infectious disease breaking out on his head or forehead.

⁴³The priest is to examine him, and if the swollen sore on his head or forehead is reddish-white like an infectious skin disease,

⁴⁴the man is diseased and is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him unclean because of the sore on his head.

⁴⁵“The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

⁴⁶As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.

⁴⁷“If any clothing is contaminated with mildew-any woolen or linen clothing,

⁴⁸any woven or knitted material of linen or wool, any leather or anything made of leather-

⁴⁹and if the contamination in the clothing, or leather, or woven or knitted material, or any leather article, is greenish or reddish, it is a spreading mildew and must be shown to the priest.

⁵⁰The priest is to examine the mildew and isolate the affected article for seven days.

⁵¹On the seventh day he is to examine it, and if the mildew has spread in the clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or the leather, whatever its use, it is a destructive mildew; the article is unclean.

⁵²He must burn up the clothing, or the woven or knitted material of wool or linen, or any leather article that has the contamination in it, because the mildew is destructive; the article must be burned up.

⁵³“But if, when the priest examines it, the mildew has not spread in the clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or the leather article,

⁵⁴he shall order that the contaminated article be washed. Then he is to isolate it for another seven days.

⁵⁵After the affected article has been washed, the priest is to examine it, and if the mildew has not changed its appearance, even though it has not spread, it is unclean. Burn it with fire, whether the mildew has affected one side or the other.

⁵⁶If, when the priest examines it, the mildew has faded after the article has been washed, he is to tear the contaminated part out of the clothing, or the leather, or the woven or knitted material.

⁵⁷But if it reappears in the clothing, or in the woven or knitted material, or in the leather article, it is spreading, and whatever has the mildew must be burned with fire.

⁵⁸The clothing, or the woven or knitted material, or any leather article that has been washed and is rid of the mildew, must be washed again, and it will be clean.”

⁵⁹These are the regulations concerning contamination by mildew in woolen or linen clothing, woven or knitted material, or any leather article, for pronouncing them clean or unclean.

14The Lord said to Moses,

²“These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing, when he is brought to the priest:

³The priest is to go outside the camp and examine him. If the person has been healed of his infectious skin disease,

⁴the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed.

⁵Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot.

⁶He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water.

⁷Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.

⁸“The person to be cleansed must wash his clothes, shave off all his hair and bathe with water; then he will be ceremonially clean. After this he may come into the camp, but he must stay outside his tent for seven days.

⁹On the seventh day he must shave off all his hair; he must shave his head, his beard, his eyebrows and the rest of his hair. He must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water, and he will be clean.

¹⁰“On the eighth day he must bring two male lambs and one ewe lamb a year old, each without defect, along with three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, and one log of oil.

¹¹The priest who pronounces him clean shall present both the one to be cleansed and his offerings before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

¹²“Then the priest is to take one of the male lambs and offer it as a guilt offering, along with the log of oil; he shall wave them before the Lord as a wave offering.

¹³He is to slaughter the lamb in the holy place where the sin offering and the burnt offering are slaughtered. Like the sin offering, the guilt offering belongs to the priest; it is most holy.

¹⁴The priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.

¹⁵The priest shall then take some of the log of oil, pour it in the palm of his own left hand,

¹⁶dip his right forefinger into the oil in his palm, and with his finger sprinkle some of it before the Lord seven times.

¹⁷The priest is to put some of the oil remaining in his palm on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, on top of the blood of the guilt offering.

¹⁸The rest of the oil in his palm the priest shall put on the head of the one to be cleansed and make atonement for him before the Lord .

¹⁹“Then the priest is to sacrifice the sin offering and make atonement for the one to be cleansed from his uncleanness. After that, the priest shall slaughter the burnt offering

²⁰and offer it on the altar, together with the grain offering, and make atonement for him, and he will be clean.

²¹“If, however, he is poor and cannot afford these, he must take one male lamb as a guilt offering to be waved to make atonement for him, together with a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, a log of oil,

²²and two doves or two young pigeons, which he can afford, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.

²³“On the eighth day he must bring them for his cleansing to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, before the Lord .

²⁴The priest is to take the lamb for the guilt offering, together with the log of oil, and wave them before the Lord as a wave offering.

²⁵He shall slaughter the lamb for the guilt offering and take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.

²⁶The priest is to pour some of the oil into the palm of his own left hand,

²⁷and with his right forefinger sprinkle some of the oil from his palm seven times before the Lord .

²⁸Some of the oil in his palm he is to put on the same places he put the blood of the guilt offering-on the lobe of the right ear of the one to be cleansed, on the

thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.

²⁹The rest of the oil in his palm the priest shall put on the head of the one to be cleansed, to make atonement for him before the Lord .

³⁰Then he shall sacrifice the doves or the young pigeons, which the person can afford,

³¹one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering, together with the grain offering. In this way the priest will make atonement before the Lord on behalf of the one to be cleansed.”

³²These are the regulations for anyone who has an infectious skin disease and who cannot afford the regular offerings for his cleansing.

³³The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

³⁴“When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mildew in a house in that land,

³⁵the owner of the house must go and tell the priest, ‘I have seen something that looks like mildew in my house.’

³⁶The priest is to order the house to be emptied before he goes in to examine the mildew, so that nothing in the house will be pronounced unclean. After this the priest is to go in and inspect the house.

³⁷He is to examine the mildew on the walls, and if it has greenish or reddish

depressions that appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall,

³⁸the priest shall go out the doorway of the house and close it up for seven days.

³⁹On the seventh day the priest shall return to inspect the house. If the mildew has spread on the walls,

⁴⁰he is to order that the contaminated stones be torn out and thrown into an unclean place outside the town.

⁴¹He must have all the inside walls of the house scraped and the material that is scraped off dumped into an unclean place outside the town.

⁴²Then they are to take other stones to replace these and take new clay and plaster the house.

⁴³“If the mildew reappears in the house after the stones have been torn out and the house scraped and plastered,

⁴⁴the priest is to go and examine it and, if the mildew has spread in the house, it is a destructive mildew; the house is unclean.

⁴⁵It must be torn down-its stones, timbers and all the plaster-and taken out of the town to an unclean place.

⁴⁶“Anyone who goes into the house while it is closed up will be unclean till evening.

⁴⁷Anyone who sleeps or eats in the house must wash his clothes.

⁴⁸“But if the priest comes to examine it and the mildew has not spread after the house has been plastered, he shall pronounce the house clean, because the mildew is gone.

⁴⁹To purify the house he is to take two birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop.

⁵⁰He shall kill one of the birds over fresh water in a clay pot.

⁵¹Then he is to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn and the live bird, dip them into the blood of the dead bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle the house seven times.

⁵²He shall purify the house with the bird’s blood, the fresh water, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet yarn.

⁵³Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields outside the town. In this way he will make atonement for the house, and it will be clean.”

⁵⁴These are the regulations for any infectious skin disease, for an itch,

⁵⁵for mildew in clothing or in a house,

⁵⁶and for a swelling, a rash or a bright spot,

⁵⁷to determine when something is clean or unclean. These are the regulations for infectious skin diseases and mildew.

15The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any man has a bodily discharge, the discharge is unclean.

³Whether it continues flowing from his body or is blocked, it will make him unclean. This is how his discharge will bring about uncleanness:

⁴” ‘Any bed the man with a discharge lies on will be unclean, and anything he sits on will be unclean.

⁵Anyone who touches his bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

⁶Whoever sits on anything that the man with a discharge sat on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

⁷” ‘Whoever touches the man who has a discharge must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

⁸” ‘If the man with the discharge spits on someone who is clean, that person must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

⁹” ‘Everything the man sits on when riding will be unclean,

¹⁰and whoever touches any of the things that were under him will be unclean till evening; whoever picks up those things

must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

¹¹” ‘Anyone the man with a discharge touches without rinsing his hands with water must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

¹²” ‘A clay pot that the man touches must be broken, and any wooden article is to be rinsed with water.

¹³” ‘When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean.

¹⁴On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest.

¹⁵The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the Lord for the man because of his discharge.

¹⁶” ‘When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

¹⁷Any clothing or leather that has semen on it must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening.

¹⁸When a man lies with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both

must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

¹⁹” ‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.

²⁰” ‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean.

²¹Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

²²Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

²³Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening.

²⁴” ‘If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.

²⁵” ‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period.

²⁶Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period.

²⁷Whoever touches them will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening.

²⁸” ‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean.

²⁹On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

³⁰The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge.

³¹” ‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.’ “

³²These are the regulations for a man with a discharge, for anyone made unclean by an emission of semen,

³³for a woman in her monthly period, for a man or a woman with a discharge, and for a man who lies with a woman who is ceremonially unclean.

16The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they approached the Lord .

²The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to come whenever he

chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.

³“This is how Aaron is to enter the sanctuary area: with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

⁴He is to put on the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments next to his body; he is to tie the linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are sacred garments; so he must bathe himself with water before he puts them on.

⁵From the Israelite community he is to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

⁶“Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household.

⁷Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁸He is to cast lots for the two goats-one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat.

⁹Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering.

¹⁰But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making

atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat.

¹¹“Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering.

¹²He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain.

¹³He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord , and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die.

¹⁴He is to take some of the bull’s blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover.

¹⁵“He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it.

¹⁶In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the Tent of Meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

¹⁷No one is to be in the Tent of Meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make

atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel.

¹⁸“Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull’s blood and some of the goat’s blood and put it on all the horns of the altar.

¹⁹He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites.

²⁰“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.

²¹He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites-all their sins-and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.

²²The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.

²³“Then Aaron is to go into the Tent of Meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there.

²⁴He shall bathe himself with water in a holy place and put on his regular garments. Then he shall come out and

sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people.

²⁵He shall also burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar.

²⁶“The man who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp.

²⁷The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and offal are to be burned up.

²⁸The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp.

²⁹“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work-whether native-born or an alien living among you-

³⁰because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord , you will be clean from all your sins.

³¹It is a sabbath of rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance.

³²The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments

³³and make atonement for the Most Holy Place, for the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and for the priests and all the people of the community.

³⁴“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.” And it was done, as the Lord commanded Moses.

17The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them: ‘This is what the Lord has commanded:

³Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it

⁴instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord -that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people.

⁵This is so the Israelites will bring to the Lord the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the Lord , at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings.

⁶The priest is to sprinkle the blood against the altar of the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and burn the fat as an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

⁷They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.’

⁸“Say to them: ‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice

⁹and does not bring it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to the Lord -that man must be cut off from his people.

¹⁰” ‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood-I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people.

¹¹For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

¹²Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.”

¹³” ‘Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth,

¹⁴because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”

¹⁵” ‘Anyone, whether native-born or alien, who eats anything found dead or torn by wild animals must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be ceremonially unclean till evening; then he will be clean.

¹⁶But if he does not wash his clothes and bathe himself, he will be held responsible.’ “

18The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God.

³You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.

⁴You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God.

⁵Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord .

⁶” ‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord .

⁷” ‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

⁸” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.

⁹” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

¹⁰” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.

¹¹” ‘Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

¹²” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.

¹³” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.

¹⁴” ‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

¹⁵” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

¹⁶” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

¹⁷” ‘Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

¹⁸” ‘Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

¹⁹” ‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

²⁰” ‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

²¹” ‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord .

²²” ‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

²³” ‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

²⁴” ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

²⁵Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

²⁶But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things,

²⁷for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.

²⁸And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

²⁹” ‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things-such persons must be cut off from their people.

³⁰Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.’ “

19The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

³” ‘Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.

⁴” ‘Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the Lord your God.

⁵” ‘When you sacrifice a fellowship offering to the Lord , sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf.

⁶It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it or on the next day; anything left over until the third day must be burned up.

⁷If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is impure and will not be accepted.

⁸Whoever eats it will be held responsible because he has desecrated what is holy to the Lord ; that person must be cut off from his people.

⁹” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

¹⁰Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

¹¹” ‘Do not steal. ” ‘Do not lie. ” ‘Do not deceive one another.

¹²” ‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord .

¹³” ‘Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. ” ‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.

¹⁴” ‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord .

¹⁵” ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

¹⁶” ‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people. ” ‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord .

¹⁷” ‘Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.

¹⁸” ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord .

¹⁹” ‘Keep my decrees. ” ‘Do not mate different kinds of animals. ” ‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. ” ‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

²⁰” ‘If a man sleeps with a woman who is a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.

²¹The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting for a guilt offering to the Lord .

²²With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the Lord for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven.

²³” ‘When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden. For three years you are to consider it forbidden ; it must not be eaten.

²⁴In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord .

²⁵But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the Lord your God.

²⁶” ‘Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it. ” ‘Do not practice divination or sorcery.

²⁷” ‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

²⁸” ‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord .

²⁹” ‘Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.

³⁰” ‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord .

³¹” ‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

³²” ‘Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord .

³³” ‘When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him.

³⁴The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

³⁵” ‘Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity.

³⁶Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I

am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.

³⁷” ‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord .’ “

20The Lord said to Moses,

²“Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him.

³I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name.

⁴If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death,

⁵I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech.

⁶” ‘I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.

⁷” ‘Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God.

⁸Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord , who makes you holy.

⁹” ‘If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

¹⁰” ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

¹¹” ‘If a man sleeps with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹²” ‘If a man sleeps with his daughter-in- law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹³” ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹⁴” ‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.

¹⁵” ‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal.

¹⁶” ‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹⁷” ‘If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off before the eyes of their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible.

¹⁸” ‘If a man lies with a woman during her monthly period and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them must be cut off from their people.

¹⁹” ‘Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible.

²⁰” ‘If a man sleeps with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless.

²¹” ‘If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.

²²” ‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.

²³You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.

²⁴But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and

honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.

²⁵” ‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground-those which I have set apart as unclean for you.

²⁶You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord , am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.

²⁷” ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’ “

21The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die,

²except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother,

³or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband-for her he may make himself unclean.

⁴He must not make himself unclean for people related to him by marriage, and so defile himself.

⁵” ‘Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.

⁶They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because they present the offerings made to the Lord by fire, the food of their God, they are to be holy.

⁷” ‘They must not marry women defiled by prostitution or divorced from their husbands, because priests are holy to their God.

⁸Regard them as holy, because they offer up the food of your God. Consider them holy, because I the Lord am holy-I who make you holy.

⁹” ‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.

¹⁰” ‘The high priest, the one among his brothers who has had the anointing oil poured on his head and who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments, must not let his hair become unkempt or tear his clothes.

¹¹He must not enter a place where there is a dead body. He must not make himself unclean, even for his father or mother,

¹²nor leave the sanctuary of his God or desecrate it, because he has been dedicated by the anointing oil of his God. I am the Lord .

¹³” ‘The woman he marries must be a virgin.

¹⁴He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a woman defiled by

prostitution, but only a virgin from his own people,

¹⁵so he will not defile his offspring among his people. I am the Lord , who makes him holy. ‘ “

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷“Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God.

¹⁸No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed;

¹⁹no man with a crippled foot or hand,

²⁰or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles.

²¹No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the Lord by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.

²²He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food;

²³yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord , who makes them holy. ‘ “

²⁴So Moses told this to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites.

22The Lord said to Moses,

²“Tell Aaron and his sons to treat with respect the sacred offerings the Israelites consecrate to me, so they will not profane my holy name. I am the Lord .

³“Say to them: ‘For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the Lord , that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord .

⁴” ‘If a descendant of Aaron has an infectious skin disease or a bodily discharge, he may not eat the sacred offerings until he is cleansed. He will also be unclean if he touches something defiled by a corpse or by anyone who has an emission of semen,

⁵or if he touches any crawling thing that makes him unclean, or any person who makes him unclean, whatever the uncleanness may be.

⁶The one who touches any such thing will be unclean till evening. He must not eat any of the sacred offerings unless he has bathed himself with water.

⁷When the sun goes down, he will be clean, and after that he may eat the sacred offerings, for they are his food.

⁸He must not eat anything found dead or torn by wild animals, and so become unclean through it. I am the Lord .

⁹” ‘The priests are to keep my requirements so that they do not become guilty and die for treating them with contempt. I am the Lord , who makes them holy.

¹⁰” ‘No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it.

¹¹But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if a slave is born in his household, that slave may eat his food.

¹²If a priest’s daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions.

¹³But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father’s house as in her youth, she may eat of her father’s food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat any of it.

¹⁴” ‘If anyone eats a sacred offering by mistake, he must make restitution to the priest for the offering and add a fifth of the value to it.

¹⁵The priests must not desecrate the sacred offerings the Israelites present to the Lord

¹⁶by allowing them to eat the sacred offerings and so bring upon them guilt requiring payment. I am the Lord , who makes them holy.’ “

¹⁷The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸“Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them: ‘If any of you-either an Israelite or an alien living in Israel-presents a gift for a burnt offering to the Lord , either to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering,

¹⁹you must present a male without defect from the cattle, sheep or goats in order that it may be accepted on your behalf.

²⁰Do not bring anything with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.

²¹When anyone brings from the herd or flock a fellowship offering to the Lord to fulfill a special vow or as a freewill offering, it must be without defect or blemish to be acceptable.

²²Do not offer to the Lord the blind, the injured or the maimed, or anything with warts or festering or running sores. Do not place any of these on the altar as an offering made to the Lord by fire.

²³You may, however, present as a freewill offering an ox or a sheep that is deformed or stunted, but it will not be accepted in fulfillment of a vow.

²⁴You must not offer to the Lord an animal whose testicles are bruised, crushed, torn or cut. You must not do this in your own land,

²⁵and you must not accept such animals from the hand of a foreigner and offer them as the food of your God. They will not be accepted on your behalf,

because they are deformed and have defects.’ “

²⁶The Lord said to Moses,

²⁷“When a calf, a lamb or a goat is born, it is to remain with its mother for seven days. From the eighth day on, it will be acceptable as an offering made to the Lord by fire.

²⁸Do not slaughter a cow or a sheep and its young on the same day.

²⁹“When you sacrifice a thank offering to the Lord , sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf.

³⁰It must be eaten that same day; leave none of it till morning. I am the Lord .

³¹“Keep my commands and follow them. I am the Lord .

³²Do not profane my holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the Lord , who makes you holy

³³and who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord .”

23The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the Lord , which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.

³” ‘There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord .

⁴” ‘These are the Lord ‘s appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times:

⁵The Lord ‘s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month.

⁶On the fifteenth day of that month the Lord ‘s Feast of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast.

⁷On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.

⁸For seven days present an offering made to the Lord by fire. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.’ “

⁹The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁰“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest.

¹¹He is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.

¹²On the day you wave the sheaf, you must sacrifice as a burnt offering to the Lord a lamb a year old without defect,

¹³together with its grain offering of two- tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil-an offering made to the Lord by fire, a pleasing aroma-and its drink offering of a quarter of a hin of wine.

¹⁴You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.

¹⁵” ‘From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.

¹⁶Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord .

¹⁷From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord .

¹⁸Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the Lord , together with their grain offerings and drink offerings-an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

¹⁹Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old, for a fellowship offering.

²⁰The priest is to wave the two lambs before the Lord as a wave offering, together with the bread of the firstfruits. They are a sacred offering to the Lord for the priest.

²¹On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.

²²” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’ “

²³The Lord said to Moses,

²⁴“Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.

²⁵Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the Lord by fire.’ “

²⁶The Lord said to Moses,

²⁷“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present an offering made to the Lord by fire.

²⁸Do no work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the Lord your God.

²⁹Anyone who does not deny himself on that day must be cut off from his people.

³⁰I will destroy from among his people anyone who does any work on that day.

³¹You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.

³²It is a sabbath of rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your sabbath.”

³³The Lord said to Moses,

³⁴“Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord ‘s Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days.

³⁵The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work.

³⁶For seven days present offerings made to the Lord by fire, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made to the Lord by fire. It is the closing assembly; do no regular work.

³⁷(” ‘These are the Lord ‘s appointed feasts, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for bringing offerings made to the Lord by fire-the burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings required for each day.

³⁸These offerings are in addition to those for the Lord ‘s Sabbaths and in addition to your gifts and whatever you have vowed and all the freewill offerings you give to the Lord .)

³⁹” ‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate

the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of rest.

⁴⁰On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.

⁴¹Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month.

⁴²Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths

⁴³so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’ “

⁴⁴So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed feasts of the Lord .

24The Lord said to Moses,

²“Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually.

³Outside the curtain of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

⁴The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord must be tended continually.

⁵“Take fine flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf.

⁶Set them in two rows, six in each row, on the table of pure gold before the Lord .

⁷Along each row put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be an offering made to the Lord by fire.

⁸This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant.

⁹It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a holy place, because it is a most holy part of their regular share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire.” A Blasphemer Stoned

¹⁰Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite.

¹¹The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.)

¹²They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.

¹³Then the Lord said to Moses:

¹⁴“Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him.

¹⁵Say to the Israelites: ‘If anyone curses his God, he will be held responsible;

¹⁶anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

¹⁷” ‘If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death.

¹⁸Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution-life for life.

¹⁹If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him:

²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.

²¹Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.

²²You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’ “

²³Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses.

25The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord .

³For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.

⁴But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord . Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

⁵Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.

⁶Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you-for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you,

⁷as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.

⁸” ‘Count off seven sabbaths of years- seven times seven years-so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years.

⁹Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.

¹⁰Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.

¹¹The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.

¹²For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

¹³” ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

¹⁴” ‘If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.

¹⁵You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops.

¹⁶When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops.

¹⁷Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸” ‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.

¹⁹Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.

²⁰You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?”

²¹I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.

²²While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

²³” ‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.

²⁴Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

²⁵” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.

²⁶If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it,

²⁷he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property.

²⁸But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the

Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property.

²⁹” ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time he may redeem it.

³⁰If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee.

³¹But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee.

³²” ‘The Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns, which they possess.

³³So the property of the Levites is redeemable-that is, a house sold in any town they hold-and is to be returned in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the Israelites.

³⁴But the pastureland belonging to their towns must not be sold; it is their permanent possession.

³⁵” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.

³⁶Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you.

³⁷You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit.

³⁸I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

³⁹” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave.

⁴⁰He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.

⁴¹Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers.

⁴²Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.

⁴³Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

⁴⁴” ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.

⁴⁵You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.

⁴⁶You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

⁴⁷” ‘If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien’s clan,

⁴⁸he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may redeem him:

⁴⁹An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

⁵⁰He and his buyer are to count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price for his release is to be based on the rate paid to a hired man for that number of years.

⁵¹If many years remain, he must pay for his redemption a larger share of the price paid for him.

⁵²If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he is to compute that and pay for his redemption accordingly.

⁵³He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year; you must see to it that his owner does not rule over him ruthlessly.

⁵⁴” ‘Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee,

⁵⁵for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

26” ‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.

²” ‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord .

³” ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,

⁴I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.

⁵Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

⁶” ‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.

⁷You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you.

⁸Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

⁹” ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.

¹⁰You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.

¹¹I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.

¹²I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

¹³I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

¹⁴” ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,

¹⁵and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant,

¹⁶then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

¹⁷I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

¹⁸” ‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over.

¹⁹I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.

²⁰Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

²¹” ‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve.

²²I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

²³” ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me,

²⁴I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over.

²⁵And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands.

²⁶When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

²⁷” ‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me,

²⁸then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

²⁹You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.

³⁰I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you.

³¹I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.

³²I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled.

³³I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.

³⁴Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.

³⁵All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.

³⁶” ‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight.

They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them.

³⁷They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.

³⁸You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.

³⁹Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers’ sins they will waste away.

⁴⁰” ‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers-their treachery against me and their hostility toward me,

⁴¹which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies-then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin,

⁴²I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

⁴³For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees.

⁴⁴Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy

them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God.

⁴⁵But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord .’ “

⁴⁶These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.

27The Lord said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate persons to the Lord by giving equivalent values,

³set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel ;

⁴and if it is a female, set her value at thirty shekels.

⁵If it is a person between the ages of five and twenty, set the value of a male at twenty shekels and of a female at ten shekels.

⁶If it is a person between one month and five years, set the value of a male at five shekels of silver and that of a female at three shekels of silver.

⁷If it is a person sixty years old or more, set the value of a male at fifteen shekels and of a female at ten shekels.

⁸If anyone making the vow is too poor to pay the specified amount, he is to present the person to the priest, who will set the value for him according to what the man making the vow can afford.

⁹” ‘If what he vowed is an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the Lord , such an animal given to the Lord becomes holy.

¹⁰He must not exchange it or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one; if he should substitute one animal for another, both it and the substitute become holy.

¹¹If what he vowed is a ceremonially unclean animal-one that is not acceptable as an offering to the Lord – the animal must be presented to the priest,

¹²who will judge its quality as good or bad. Whatever value the priest then sets, that is what it will be.

¹³If the owner wishes to redeem the animal, he must add a fifth to its value.

¹⁴” ‘If a man dedicates his house as something holy to the Lord , the priest will judge its quality as good or bad. Whatever value the priest then sets, so it will remain.

¹⁵If the man who dedicates his house redeems it, he must add a fifth to its value, and the house will again become his.

¹⁶” ‘If a man dedicates to the Lord part of his family land, its value is to be set

according to the amount of seed required for it-fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed.

¹⁷If he dedicates his field during the Year of Jubilee, the value that has been set remains.

¹⁸But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, the priest will determine the value according to the number of years that remain until the next Year of Jubilee, and its set value will be reduced.

¹⁹If the man who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, he must add a fifth to its value, and the field will again become his.

²⁰If, however, he does not redeem the field, or if he has sold it to someone else, it can never be redeemed.

²¹When the field is released in the Jubilee, it will become holy, like a field devoted to the Lord ; it will become the property of the priests.

²²” ‘If a man dedicates to the Lord a field he has bought, which is not part of his family land,

²³the priest will determine its value up to the Year of Jubilee, and the man must pay its value on that day as something holy to the Lord .

²⁴In the Year of Jubilee the field will revert to the person from whom he bought it, the one whose land it was.

²⁵Every value is to be set according to the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel.

²⁶” ‘No one, however, may dedicate the firstborn of an animal, since the firstborn already belongs to the Lord ; whether an ox or a sheep, it is the Lord ‘s.

²⁷If it is one of the unclean animals, he may buy it back at its set value, adding a fifth of the value to it. If he does not redeem it, it is to be sold at its set value.

²⁸” ‘But nothing that a man owns and devotes to the Lord -whether man or animal or family land-may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the Lord .

²⁹” ‘No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

³⁰” ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord ; it is holy to the Lord .

³¹If a man redeems any of his tithe, he must add a fifth of the value to it.

³²The entire tithe of the herd and flock- every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod-will be holy to the Lord .

³³He must not pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution. If he does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed.’ “

³⁴These are the commands the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the

Israelites.