Scripture quotations are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.
Exodus 22
"‘If a man steals an ox or small livestock and slaughters it or sells it, he will make restitution with five cattle in place of the ox and with four sheep or goats in place of the small livestock. "‘If a thief is found in the act of breaking in and he is struck and he dies, there is not bloodguilt for him. (If the sun has risen over him, there is bloodguilt for him. He will make full restitution. If he does not have enough, he will be sold for his theft. If indeed the stolen item is found in his possession alive, from ox to donkey to small livestock, he will make double restitution.
"‘If a man grazes his livestock in a field or a vineyard and he releases his livestock and it grazes in the field of another, he will make restitution from the best of his field and the best of his vineyard.
"‘If a fire is started and finds thorn bushes and a stack of sheaves or the standing grain or the field is consumed, the one who started the fire will surely make restitution.
"‘If a man gives to his neighbor money or objects to watch over and it is stolen from the house of the man, if the thief is found, he will make double restitution. If the thief is not found, the owner of the house will be brought to the sanctuary to learn whether or not he reached out his hand to his neighbor’s possession. Concerning every account of transgression—concerning an ox, concerning a donkey, concerning small livestock, concerning clothing, concerning all lost property—where someone says, "This belongs to me," the matter of the two of them will come to God; whomever God declares guilty will make double restitution to his neighbor.
"‘If a man gives to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or small livestock or any beast to watch over and it dies or is injured or is captured when there is no one who sees, the oath of Yahweh will be between the two of them concerning whether or not he has reached out his hand to his neighbor’s possession, and its owner will accept this, and he will not make restitution. But if indeed it was stolen from him, he will make restitution to its owner. If indeed it was torn to pieces, he will bring it as evidence—the mangled carcass; he will not make restitution.
"‘If a man borrows from his neighbor and it is injured or dies while its owner is not with it, he will make restitution. If its owner was with it, he will not make restitution; if it was hired, it came with its hiring fee.
"‘If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and he lies with her, he surely will give her bride price to have her as his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he will weigh out money according to the bride price for the virgin.
"‘You will not let a witch live.
"‘Anyone lying with an animal will surely be put to death.
"‘Whoever sacrifices to the gods—not to Yahweh, to him alone—will be destroyed.
"‘You will not mistreat an alien, and you will not oppress him, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
"‘You will not afflict any widow or orphan. If you indeed afflict him, yes, if he cries out at all to me, I will certainly hear his cry of distress. And I will become angry, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children orphans.
"‘If you lend money to my people, to the needy with you, you will not be to him as a creditor; you will not charge him interest. If indeed you require the cloak of your neighbor as a pledge, you will return it to him at sundown, because it is his only garment; it is his cloak for his skin. In what will he sleep? And when he cries out to me, I will hear, because I am gracious.
"‘You will not curse God, and you will not curse a leader among your people.
"‘You will not delay the fullness of your harvest and the juice from your press; you will give me the firstborn of your sons. You will do likewise for your ox and for your sheep and goats; seven days it will be with its mother; on the eighth, you will give it to me. And you will be men of holiness for me; and you will not eat meat from a carcass mangled in the field; you will throw it to the dog.
Exodus 23
"‘You will not spread a false report. Do not lift your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness. You will not follow a majority for evil, and you will not testify concerning a legal dispute to turn aside after a majority to pervert justice. You will not be partial to a powerless person in his legal dispute.
"‘If you come upon the ox of your enemy or his donkey going astray, you will certainly bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of your enemy lying down under its burden, you will refrain from abandoning him. You will surely arrange it with him.
"‘You will not pervert the justice of your poor in his legal dispute. You will stay far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and the righteous, because I will not declare the wicked righteous. And you will not take a bribe, because the bribe makes the sighted blind and ruins the words of the righteous. And you will not oppress an alien; you yourselves know the feelings of the alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
"‘And six years you will sow your land and gather its yield. But the seventh you will let it rest and leave it fallow, and the poor of your people will eat, and their remainder the animals of the field will eat. You will do likewise for your vineyard and for your olive trees.
"‘Six days you will do your work, but on the seventh day you will stop so that your ox and your donkey will rest and the son of your slave woman and the alien will be refreshed.
"‘And you will be attentive to all that I have said to you, and you will not profess the name of other gods; it will not be heard in your mouth.
"‘Three times in the year you will hold a festival for me. You will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you at the appointed time, the month of Abib, because in it you came out from Egypt, and no one will appear before me empty-handed. And you will keep the Feast of Harvest, with the firstfruits of your work, what you sow in the field. And you will keep the Feast of Harvest Gathering when the year goes out, when you gather your work from the field. Three times in the year all your men will appear before the Lord Yahweh.
"‘You will not sacrifice the blood of my sacrifice together with food with yeast, and you will not leave the fat of my feast overnight until morning.
"‘The best of the firstfruits of your land you will bring to the house of Yahweh your God.
"‘You will not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
"‘Look, I am about to send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, because he will not forgive your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, I will wipe them out.
"‘You will not bow to their gods, and you will not serve them, and you will not act according to their actions, because you will utterly demolish them, and you will utterly break their stone pillars. And you will serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from among you. There will be no one suffering miscarriage or infertile in your land. I will make full the number of your days.
"‘I will release my terror before you, and I will throw into confusion all the people against whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their back to you. And I will send the hornet before you, and it will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become a desolation and the wild animals multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you are fruitful and take possession of the land.
"‘And I will set your boundary from the Red Sea and up to the sea of the Philistines and from the desert up to the river, because I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out from before you. You will not make a covenant with them and with their gods. They will not live in your land, lest they cause you to sin against me when you serve their gods, for it will be a snare to you.’"
Exodus 24
And to Moses he said, "Go up to Yahweh—you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel—and you will worship at a distance. And Moses alone will come near to Yahweh, and they will not come near, and the people will not go up with him."
And Moses came, and he told the people all the words of Yahweh and all the regulations. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said, "All the words that Yahweh has spoken we will do."
And Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the base of the mountain and set up twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men from the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings, and they sacrificed sacrifices as fellowship offerings to Yahweh using bulls. And Moses took half of the blood, and he put it in bowls, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the scroll of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will listen." And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and he said, "Look, the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words."
And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel went up. And they saw the God of Israel, and what was under his feet was like sapphire tile work and like the very heavens for clearness. And toward the leaders of the Israelites he did not stretch out his hand, and they beheld God, and they ate, and they drank.
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain, and be there, and I will give you the tablets of stone and the law and the commandments that I have written to instruct them." And Moses got up, and Joshua, his assistant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God.
And to the elders he said, "Wait for us here until we return to you. And look, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute will bring it to you."
And Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. And the glory of Yahweh settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days, and he called to Moses on the seventh day from the midst of the cloud. And the appearance of the glory of Yahweh was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain to the eyes of the Israelites. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and he went up the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Psalm 109
For the music director. A psalm of David.
O God of my praise, do not keep silent,
for wicked and deceitful mouths
have opened against me.
They speak to me with a lying tongue.
They also surround me with words of hate,
and fight me without cause.
In return for my love they accuse me,
though I am in prayer.
So they inflicted evil against me in return for good
and hatred in return for my love.
Appoint over him a wicked man,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is judged, let him come out guilty,
and let his prayer become as sin.
Let his days be few;
let another take his office.
Let his children be orphans,
and his wife a widow,
and let his children wander aimlessly and beg,
and let them plead from their ruins.
Let the creditor seize all that is his,
and let strangers plunder his property.
Let there be none who extend to him loyal love,
nor any who pities his orphans.
Let his descendants be cut off.
Let their name be blotted out in the next generation.
Let the iniquity of his ancestors be remembered before Yahweh,
and let the sin of his mother not be blotted out.
Let them be before Yahweh continually,
that he may cut off their memory from the earth,
because he did not remember to show loyal love,
but he pursued anyone, poor or needy
or brokenhearted, to slay them.
Because he loved cursing, let it come upon him.
Because he did not delight in blessing,
let it be far from him.
Because he wore a curse as his robe,
let it enter his body like water,
and into his bones like oil.
May it be for him like a garment in which he wraps,
and a belt he continually wears.
Let this be the punishment for my accusers from Yahweh,
even those who speak evil against my life.
But you, O Yahweh my Lord,
deal with me for your name’s sake.
Because your loyal love is good, deliver me,
for I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
Like a lengthening shadow I am passing away;
I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees buckle from fasting,
and my body grows lean without fat.
And so I am a disgrace to them;
when they see me, they shake their heads.
Help me, O Yahweh my God;
save me according to your loyal love,
that they may know that this is your hand,
that you, O Yahweh, you have done it.
Let them curse, but you bless.
When they arise, let them be put to shame,
that your servant may be glad.
Let my accusers put on disgrace,
and let them cover themselves with their shame as with a robe.
I will give thanks to Yahweh exceedingly with my mouth,
and in the midst of many I will praise him,
for he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to save him from those judging his life.
Ephesians 6
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother" (which is the first commandment with a promise), "in order that it may be well with you, and you may live a long time on the earth." And fathers, do not make your children angry, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ, not while being watched, as people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, serving with goodwill as to the Lord and not to people, because you know that each one of you, whatever good he should do, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, giving up threats, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.
Finally, become strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Because of this, take up the full armor of God, in order that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. Stand therefore, girding your waist with truth, and putting on the breastplate of righteousness, and binding shoes under your feet with the preparation of the good news of peace, in everything taking up the shield of faith, with which you are able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the Spirit, and to this end being alert with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and for me, that a word may be given to me at the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for the sake of which I am an ambassador in chains, that in them I may speak freely, as it is necessary for me to speak.
Now, so that you also may know my circumstances, what I am doing, Tychicus, my dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make known to you all things, whom I have sent to you for this very reason, that you may know our circumstances, and he may encourage your hearts.
Peace to the brothers and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.