Tuesday, 12 March

1.   "You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God. 2.   "If there is found among you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing His covenant, 3.   "who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, 4.   "and it is told you, and you hear of it , then you shall inquire diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, 5.   "then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing, and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones. 6.   "Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 7.   "The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you. 8.   "If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9.   "And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them ; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. 10.   "You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. 11.   "According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. 12.   "Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. 13.   "And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously. 14.   "When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ 15.   "you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16.   "But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’ 17.   "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. 18.   "Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19.   "And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20.   "that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

1.   "The priests, the Levites––all the tribe of Levi––shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and His portion. 2.   "Therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as He said to them. 3.   "And this shall be the priest’s due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it is bull or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. 4.   "The firstfruits of your grain and your new wine and your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5.   "For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons forever. 6.   "So if a Levite comes from any of your gates, from where he dwells among all Israel, and comes with all the desire of his mind to the place which the LORD chooses, 7.   "then he may serve in the name of the LORD his God as all his brethren the Levites do , who stand there before the LORD. 8.   "They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what comes from the sale of his inheritance. 9.   "When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. 10.   "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11.   "or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12.   "For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. 13.   "You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. 14.   "For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you. 15.   "The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, 16.   "according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ 17.   "And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. 18.   ‘I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19.   ‘And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. 20.   ‘But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ 21.   "And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ –– 22.   "when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

1.   "When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, 2.   "you shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess. 3.   "You shall prepare roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, that any manslayer may flee there. 4.   "And this is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him in time past–– 5.   "as when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies––he shall flee to one of these cities and live; 6.   "lest the avenger of blood, while his anger is hot, pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and kill him, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated the victim in time past. 7.   "Therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall separate three cities for yourself.’ 8.   "Now if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you the land which He promised to give to your fathers, 9.   "and if you keep all these commandments and do them, which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and to walk always in His ways, then you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three, 10.   "lest innocent blood be shed in the midst of your land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus guilt of bloodshed be upon you. 11.   "But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, 12.   "then the elders of his city shall send and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13.   "Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you. 14.   "You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. 15.   "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. 16.   "If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17.   "then both men in the controversy shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. 18.   "And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, 19.   "then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. 20.   "And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. 21.   "Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

1.   And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 2.   Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. 3.   So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren. 4.   And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. 5.   But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." 6.   Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. 7.   And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: "Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8.   "So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, 9.   "and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 10.   "Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 11.   "But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they." 12.   Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. 13.   And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, "Men and brethren, listen to me: 14.   "Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. 15.   "And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: 16.   ‘After this I will return And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, And I will set it up; 17.   So that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD, Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, Says the LORD who does all these things.’ 18.   "Known to God from eternity are all His works. 19.   "Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, 20.   "but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. 21.   "For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."