Not Because of Righteousness

1 “Hear, O Israel: you are ^vto cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations ^wgreater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, ^xthe sons of the Anakim, ^ywhom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ 3 Know therefore today that he who ^zgoes over before you ^aas a consuming fire is the Lord your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. ^bSo you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

4 ^c“Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is ^dbecause of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. 5 ^eNot because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm ^fthe word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

6 “Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are ^ga stubborn people. 7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. ^hFrom the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Even ⁱat Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. 9 ^jWhen I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain ^kforty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 And ^lthe Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire ^mon the day of the assembly. 11 And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, ⁿ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have ^oturned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’

The Golden Calf

13 ^p“Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is ^ga stubborn people. 14 ^qLet me alone, that I may destroy them and ^rblot out their name from under heaven. And ^sI will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15 ^tSo I turned and came down from the mountain, and ^uthe mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And ^vI looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden¹ calf. ^wYou had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 Then I ^xlay prostrate before the Lord ^yas before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, ^zin doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. ^aBut the Lord listened to me that time also. 20 And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then ^bI took the sinful thing, the calf that you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And I threw the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain.

22 “At ^cTaberah also, and at ^dMassah and at ^eKibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. 23 And ^fwhen the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and ^gdid not believe him or obey his voice. 24 ^hYou have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

25 ^x“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26 ⁱAnd I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, 28 lest the land from which you brought us say, ^j“Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” 29 ^kFor they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

New Tablets of Stone

1 “At that time the Lord said to me, ^l‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and ^mmake an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and ⁿyou shall put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark ^oof acacia wood, and ^pcut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 And ^qhe wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments^{2 r}that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire ^son the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and ^tcame down from the mountain and ^uput the tablets in the ark that I had made. ^vAnd there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

6 (The people of Israel ^wjourneyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan³ to Moserah. ^xThere Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place. 7 ^yFrom there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. 8 At that time ^zthe Lord set apart the tribe of Levi ^ato carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord ^bto stand before the Lord to minister to him and ^cto bless in his name, to this day. 9 ^dTherefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

10 ^e“I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, ^fand the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. 11 ^gAnd 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, ^hwhat does the Lord your God require of you, but ⁱto fear the Lord your God, ^jto walk in all his ways, ^kto love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and ^lto keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today ^mfor your good? 14 Behold, ⁿto the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, ^othe earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet ^pthe Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore ^qthe foreskin of your heart, and be no longer ^rstubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is ^sGod of gods and ^tLord of lords, ^uthe great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is ^vnot partial and takes no bribe. 18 ^wHe executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 ^xLove the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 ⁱYou shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and ^yhold fast to him, and ^zby his name you shall swear. 21 ^aHe is your praise. He is your God, ^bwho 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 ^e“You shall therefore love the Lord your God and ^fkeep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2 And consider today (since I am not speaking to ^gyour children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline⁴ of the Lord your God, ^hhis greatness, ⁱhis mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 ^jhis signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, ^khow 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 ^lwhat he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6 and ^mwhat he did to Dathan 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 your eyes have seen ⁿall 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 ^obe strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and ^pthat you may live long in the land ^qthat the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, ^ra 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,⁵ like a garden of vegetables. 11 ^sBut the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. ^tThe eyes 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, ^uto love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 ^vhe⁶ will give the rain for your land in its season, ^wthe early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 ^xAnd he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and ^yyou shall eat and be full. 16 Take care ^zlest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and ^aserve other gods and worship them; 17 then ^bthe anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he ^cwill shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and ^dyou will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

18 ^e“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and ^fyou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You 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 ^gYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 ^hthat your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, ⁱas long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if ^jyou 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 ^kholding fast to him, 23 then the Lord ^lwill drive out all these nations before you, and you will ^mdispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 ⁿEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be ^ofrom the wilderness to⁷ the Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 ^pNo one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay ^qthe fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, ^ras he promised you.

26 ^s“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 ^tthe blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and ^uthe 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, ^vto 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, you shall set ^wthe 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 ^xArabah, opposite Gilgal, beside ^ythe oak⁸ of Moreh? 31 For you are ^zto 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 ^ato do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

The Birth of Jesus Christ

1 In those days ^la decree went out from ^mCaesar Augustus that all the world should be ⁿregistered. 2 This was the first ⁿregistration when¹ Quirinius ^owas governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up ^pfrom Galilee, from the town of ^qNazareth, to Judea, to ^rthe city of David, which is called ^sBethlehem, ^tbecause he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed,² who was with child. 6 And ^twhile they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and ^uwrapped him in swaddling cloths and ^vlaid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in ^wthe inn.³

The Shepherds and the Angels

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord ^xappeared to them, and ^ythe glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all ^zthe people. 11 For ^aunto you is born this day in ^bthe city of David ^ca Savior, who is ^dChrist ^ethe Lord. 12 And ^fthis will be a sign for you: you will find a baby ^gwrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel ^ha multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby ^mlying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But ⁿMary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, ^oglorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

21 And ^pat the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, ^qhe was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Jesus Presented at the Temple

22 And ^rwhen the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem ^sto present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in ^tthe Law of the Lord, ^u“Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in ^tthe Law of the Lord, ^v“a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was ^wrighteous and ^xdevout, ^ywaiting for ^zthe consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not ^asee death before he had seen ^bthe Lord’s Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when ^cthe parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and ^dblessed God and said,

33 And ^mhis father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed ⁿfor the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign ^othat is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

36 And there was ^pa prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.⁶ She did not depart from the temple, ^qworshiping with ^rfasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were ^swaiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Return to Nazareth

39 And when they had performed everything according to ^tthe Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of ^uNazareth. 40 ^vAnd the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.

The Boy Jesus in the Temple

41 Now ^whis parents went ^xto Jerusalem every year at ^ythe Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, ^zthey went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast ^awas ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. ^wHis parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, ^bsitting among ^cthe teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents⁷ saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, ^dyour father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that ^eI must be in ^fmy Father’s house?”⁸ 50 And ^gthey did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And ^hhis mother treasured up all these things in her heart.