The Berean Pursuit
No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD.
No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.
No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.
Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land. The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.
When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every wicked thing. If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside. When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets he may return to the camp.
You must have a place outside the camp to go and relieve yourself. And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement.
For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, lest He see anything unclean among you and turn away from you.
Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him.
No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute. You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.
Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess.
If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. Be careful to follow through on what comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth.
When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not put any in your basket.
When you enter your neighbor's grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor's grain.
If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.
If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married.
Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one's livelihood as security.
If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you.
In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them. Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you came out of Egypt.
When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security. You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you. If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession; be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God.
Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow's cloak as security. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.
If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.
If there is a dispute between men, they are to go to court to be judged, so that the innocent may be acquitted and the guilty condemned.
If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall have him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime warrants. He may receive no more than forty lashes, lest your brother be beaten any more than that and be degraded in your sight.
Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her. The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.
But if the man does not want to marry his brother's widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to preserve his brother's name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me."
Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, "I do not want to marry her," his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal, spit in his face, and declare, "This is what is done to the man who will not maintain his brother's line." And his family name in Israel will be called "The House of the Unsandaled."
If two men are fighting, and the wife of one steps in to rescue her husband from the one striking him, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his genitals, you are to cut off her hand. You must show her no pity.
You shall not have two differing weights in your bag, one heavy and one light. You shall not have two differing measures in your house, one large and one small.
You must maintain accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. For everyone who behaves dishonestly in regard to these things is detestable to the LORD your God.
Remember what the Amalekites did to you along your way from Egypt, how they met you on your journey when you were tired and weary, and they attacked all your stragglers; they had no fear of God.
When the LORD your God gives you rest from the enemies around you in the land that He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you are to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!
When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and settle in it, you are to take some of the firstfruits of all your produce from the soil of the land that 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, to the priest who is serving at that time, and say to him, "I declare today to the LORD your God that I have entered the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us."
Then the priest shall take the basket from your hands and place it before the altar of the LORD your God, and you are to declare before the LORD your God, "My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt few in number and lived there and became a great nation, mighty and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and afflicted us, putting us to hard labor. So we called out to the LORD, the God of our fathers; and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, toil, and oppression. Then the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, signs, and wonders. And He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land that You, O LORD, have given me."
Then you are to place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before Him. So you shall rejoice-you, the Levite, and the foreigner dwelling among you-in all the good things the LORD your God has given to you and your household.
When you have finished laying aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you are to give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat and be filled within your gates.
Then you shall declare in the presence of the LORD your God, "I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all the commandments You have given me. I have not transgressed or forgotten Your commandments. I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while in mourning, or removed any of it while unclean, or offered any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the LORD my God; I have done everything You commanded me. Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land You have given us as You swore to our fathers-a land flowing with milk and honey."
The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. You must be careful to follow them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Today you have proclaimed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in His ways, keep His statutes and commandments and ordinances, and listen to His voice.
And today the LORD has proclaimed that you are His people and treasured possession as He promised, that you are to keep all His commandments, that He will set you high in praise and name and honor above all the nations He has made, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God, as He has promised.
One day in a place where Jesus had just finished praying, one of His disciples requested, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
So Jesus told them, "When you pray, say:
'Father, hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.'?"
Then Jesus said to them, "Suppose one of you goes to his friend at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine has come to me on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.'
And suppose the one inside answers, 'Do not bother me. My door is already shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.'
I tell you, even though he will not get up to provide for him because of his friendship, yet because of the man's persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
So I tell you: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
One day Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. And when the demon was gone, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowds were amazed, but some of them said, "It is by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons, that He drives out demons." And others tested Him by demanding a sign from heaven.
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and a house divided against a house will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? After all, you say that I drive out demons by Beelzebul. And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his house, his possessions are secure. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and then he divides up his plunder.
He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' On its return, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first."
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and blessed are the breasts that nursed You!"
But He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
As the crowds were increasing, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this generation.
The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.
No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cellar or under a basket. Instead, he sets it on a stand, so those who enter can see the light.
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness. Be careful, then, that the light within you is not darkness. So if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, you will be radiant, as though a lamp were shining on you."
As Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited Him to dine with him; so He went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised to see that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
"Now then," said the Lord, "you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the One who made the outside make the inside as well? But give as alms the things that are within you, and you will see that everything is clean for you.
Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint, rue, and every herb, but you disregard justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.
Woe to you Pharisees! You love the chief seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without even noticing."
One of the experts in the law told Him, "Teacher, when You say these things, You insult us as well."
"Woe to you as well, experts in the law!" He replied. "You weigh men down with heavy burdens, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to lighten their load.
Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses consenting to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, the wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and others they will persecute.'
As a result, this generation will be charged with the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, all of it will be charged to this generation.
Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."
As Jesus went on from there, the scribes and Pharisees began to oppose Him bitterly and to ply Him with questions about many things, waiting to catch Him in something He might say.