New Tablets of Stone
1 “At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the dTen Commandments1 that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And ethere they are, as the Lord commanded me.”
6 (The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan2 to Moserah. There fAaron died, and there he was buried. And his son gEleazar ministered as priest in his place. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. 8 hAt 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 to him and to ibless in his name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has jno portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, kas the Lord your God said to him.)
10 “I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and lthe Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. 11 And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’
Circumcise Your Heart
12 “And now, Israel, mwhat does the Lord your God require 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, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today nfor your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the oheaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in plove on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 qCircumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer rstubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is sGod of gods and tLord of lords, the ugreat, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is vnot partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the wfatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 xLove the sojourner, therefore, for yyou were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and zhold fast to him, and aby his name you shall swear. 21 bHe is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt cseventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you das numerous as the stars of heaven.
Love and Serve the Lord
1 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2 And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children ewho have not known or seen it), consider the fdiscipline3 of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4 and gwhat he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day, 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6 and hwhat he did to iDathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. 7 For jyour eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord that he did.
8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it,4 like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is ka land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The leyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 mhe5 will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will nshut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and othe land will yield no fruit, and you will perish pquickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine qin your heart and in your soul, and ryou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as sfrontlets between your eyes. 19 tYou shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 uYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then vthe Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 wEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be xfrom the wilderness to6 the Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 yNo one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the zfear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
26 a“See, I am setting before you today a bblessing and a curse: 27 cthe blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and dthe curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. 29 And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, eyou shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak7 of Moreh? 31 For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, 32 you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.
The Lord’s Chosen Place of Worship
1 “These are the fstatutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely gdestroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, hon the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will ichoose out of all your tribes to jput his name and make his habitation8 there. There you shall go, 6 and kthere you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, leveryone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the mrest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has nno portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. oThe unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the pgazelle and as of the deer. 16 Only qyou shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, 18 but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. 19 rTake care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20 “When the Lord your God senlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. 21 tIf the place that the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22 Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for uthe blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. 26 But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, 27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.
Warning Against Idolatry
29 v“When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not wensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ 31 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even xburn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
932 “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. yYou shall not add to it or take from it.
The Parable of the Tenants
1 nAnd he began to speak to them in parables. o“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and pwent into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant1 to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they qkilled. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a rbeloved son. sFinally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the their. Come, let us ukill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and vgive the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:
w“‘The stone that the builders rejected
11 this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
13 yAnd they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, zto trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, awe know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For byou are not swayed by cappearances,3 but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay dtaxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius4 and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, e“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.
The Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection
18 fAnd Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no gresurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, hMoses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man5 must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. 21 And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”
24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, iin the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, j‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”
