"Now, Israel, listen to the rules and to the regulations that I am teaching you to do, in order that you may live and you may go in and you may take possession of the land that Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, is giving to you. You must not add to the word that I am commanding you, and you shall not take away from it in order to keep the commands of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you to observe. Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did with the case of Baal Peor, for each man that followed after Baal Peor Yahweh your God destroyed from your midst. But you, the ones holding fast to Yahweh your God, are all alive today.

See, I now teach you rules and regulations just as Yahweh my God has commanded me, to observe them just so in the midst of the land where you are going, to take possession of it. And you must observe them diligently, for that is your wisdom and your insight before the eyes of the people, who will hear all of these rules, and they will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people.’ For what great nation has for it a god near to it as Yahweh our God, whenever we call upon him? And what other great nation has for it just rules and regulations just like this whole law that I am setting before you today?

"However, take care for yourself and watch your inner self closely, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen, so that they do not slip from your mind all the days of your life; and you shall make them known to your children and to your grandchildren. Remember the day that you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb when Yahweh said to me, ‘Summon for me the people so that I can tell them my words, that they may learn to fear me all of the days they are alive on the earth and so that they may teach their children.’ And so you came near, and you stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of the heaven, dark with a very thick cloud. And Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard a sound of words, but you did not see a form—only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he charged you to observe, and he wrote them on the two tablets of stone. And Yahweh charged me at that time to teach you rules and regulations for your observation of them in the land that you are about to cross into to take possession of it.

"So you must be very careful for yourselves, because you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not ruin yourselves and make for yourselves a divine image in a form of any image, a replica of male or female, a replica of any animal that is upon the earth, a replica of any winged bird that flies in the air, a replica of any creeping thing on the ground, a replica of any fish that is in the water below the earth. And do this so that you do not lift your eyes toward heaven and observe the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven. But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out from the furnace of iron, from Egypt, to be a people of inheritance to him, as it is this day.

"And Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan and that I would not go to the good land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. For I am going to die in this land; I am not going to cross the Jordan, but you are going to cross, and you are going to take possession of this good land. Watch out for yourselves so that you do not forget the covenant of Yahweh your God that he had made with you and make for yourselves a divine image of the form of anything that Yahweh your God has forbidden, for Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

"When you have had children and grandchildren and you have grown old in the land and you act corruptly and you make a divine image of the form of anything and you do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, thus provoking him to anger, I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed. And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you. And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell. But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice. For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

"Yes, ask, please, about former days that preceded you from the day that God created humankind on the earth; ask even from one end of the heaven up to the other end of heaven whether anything ever happened like this great thing or whether anything like it was ever heard. Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, just as you heard it, and lived? Or has a god ever attempted to go to take for himself a nation from the midst of a nation, using trials and signs and wonders and war, with an outstretched arm and with great and awesome deeds, like all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? You yourselves were shown this wonder in order for you to acknowledge that Yahweh is the God; there is no other God besides him. From heaven he made you hear his voice to teach you, and on the earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire. And because he loved your ancestors he chose their descendants after them. And he brought you forth from Egypt with his own presence, by his great strength, to drive out nations greater and more numerous than you from before you, to bring you and to give to you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. So you shall acknowledge today, and you must call to mind that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no other God. And you shall keep his rules and his commandments that I am commanding you today, so that it may go well for you and for your children after you, and so that you may remain a long time on the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you during all of those days."

Then Moses set apart three cities on the other side of the Jordan, toward the east, in order for a manslayer to flee there who has killed his neighbor without intent and was not hating him previously, and so he could flee to one of these cities and be safe. He set apart Bezer in the wilderness in the land of the plateau of the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead of the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan of the Manassites.

Now this is the law that Moses set before the Israelites; these are the legal provisions and the rules and the regulations that Moses spoke to the Israelites when they left Egypt, beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth Peor in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who was reigning in Heshbon and whom Moses and the Israelites defeated when they came out of Egypt. And so they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, eastward, from Aroer, which is on the bank of the wadi of Arnon and as far as Mount Sirion; that is, Hermon, and all of the Arabah beyond the Jordan, eastward, and as far as the Sea of the Arabah under the slopes of Pisgah.

And then Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, "Hear, Israel, the rules and the regulations that I am speaking in your ears today, and you shall learn them, and you must observe them diligently. Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our ancestors that Yahweh made this covenant, but with these of us who are here alive today. Face to face Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire. I was standing between Yahweh and you at that time to report to you the word of Yahweh, for you were afraid because of the presence of the fire, and so you did not go up the mountain. He said,

‘I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. There shall not be for you other gods besides me.

‘You shall not make for yourself a divine image of any type of form that is in the heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

‘You shall not bow down to them, and you shall not serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, punishing the guilt of fathers upon their children and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of those hating me, but showing loyal love to thousands of those who love me and of those who keep my commandments.

‘You shall not take up the name of Yahweh your God for a worthless purpose, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who uses his name for a worthless purpose.

‘Observe the Sabbath day to make it holy, just as Yahweh your God has commanded you. Six days you shall work, and you shall do all of your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto Yahweh your God; you shall not do any work, or your son, or your daughter, or your slave, or your slave woman, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your domestic animals, or your resident alien who is in your towns, so that your slave and your slave woman may rest as you rest. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore, Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath.

‘Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you, so that it will be good for you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.

‘You shall not murder.

‘And you shall not commit adultery.

‘And you shall not steal.

‘And you shall not falsely bear evidence against your neighbor.

‘And you shall not covet the wife of your neighbor, and you shall not crave the house of your neighbor, his field or his slave or his slave woman or his ox and his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’

"These words Yahweh spoke to your whole assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire and the very thick cloud with a loud voice, and he did not add anything, and then he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. And then when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, and as the mountain was burning with fire, and and all the heads of your tribes and your elders approached me, you said, ‘Look, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire; this day we have seen that God can speak with a human being, yet he remains alive. And so then why shall we die, for this great fire will consume us if we continue to hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, and so we shall die? For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have heard it and remained alive? You go near and hear everything that Yahweh our God will say; and then you tell us all that Yahweh our God tells you, and we will listen, and we will do it.’

"And Yahweh heard the sound of your words when you spoke to me, and Yahweh said to me, ‘I have heard the sound of the words of this people that they have spoken to you; they are right with respect to all that they have spoken. If only they had such a mind’; that is, to fear me and to keep all my commandments at all times, so that it will go well for them and for their children forever. Go! Say to them, "Return to your tents." But you stand here with me, and let me tell you all of the commandments and the rules and the regulations that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving to them to take possession of it.’

"So you must be careful to do just as Yahweh your God commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. In exactly the path that Yahweh your God has commanded, you must go, so that you may live and it will go well for you and you may live long in the land that you will take possession of."

Now it happened that on a Sabbath he went through the grain fields, and his disciples were picking and eating the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is not permitted on the Sabbath? And Jesus answered and said to them, "Have you not read this, what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry— how he entered into the house of God and took the bread of the presentation, which it is not permitted to eat (except the priests alone), and ate it and gave it to those with him?" And he said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

Now it happened that on another Sabbath he entered into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there, and his right hand was withered. So the scribes and the Pharisees were watching closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, in order that they could find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts and said to the man who had the withered hand, "Get up and stand in the middle," and he got up and stood there. And Jesus said to them, "I ask you whether it is permitted on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it?" And after looking around at them all, he said to him, "Stretch out your hand," and he did, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury, and began discussing with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Now it happened that in these days he went away to the mountain to pray, and was spending the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, he summoned his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he also named apostles: Simon (whom he also named Peter) and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

And he came down with them and stood on a level place, and a large crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all of Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast district of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled by unclean spirits were cured. And the whole crowd was seeking to touch him, because power was going out from him and healing them all.

And he lifted up his eyes to his disciples and said,

"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic also. Give to everyone who asks you, and from the one who takes away your things, do not ask for them back. And just as you want people to do to you, do the same to them.

"And if you love those who love you, what kind of credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good to those who do good to you, what kind of credit is that to you? Even the sinners do the same! And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive back, what kind of credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, so that they may get back an equal amount! But love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting back nothing, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful!

"And do not judge, and you will never be judged. And do not condemn, and you will never be condemned. Pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you, a good measure—pressed down, shaken, overflowing—they will pour out into your lap. For with the measure by which you measure out, it will be measured out to you in return."

And he also told them a parable: "Surely a blind person cannot lead the blind, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not superior to his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. And why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the beam of wood that is in your own eye? How are you able to say to your brother, "Brother, allow me to remove the speck that is in your eye," while you yourself do not see the beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam of wood from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye!

"For there is no good tree that produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree that produces good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn plants, nor are grapes harvested from thorn bushes. The good person out of the good treasury of his heart brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

"And why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?

"Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and does them—I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood came, the river burst against that house and was not able to shake it, because it had been built well. But the one who hears my words and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, which the river burst against, and immediately it collapsed—and the collapse of that house was great!"