Blessings for Obedience
1 “You shall not make widols for yourselves or erect an ximage or ypillar, and you shall not set up a zfigured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 aYou shall keep my bSabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
3 c“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then dI will give you your rains in their season, and ethe land shall yield its increase, and fthe trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 gYour threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will hremove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 iFive of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 I will jturn to you and make you kfruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 lYou shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11 mI will make my ndwelling1 among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will owalk among you and pwill be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have qbroken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
Punishment for Disobedience
14 r“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but sbreak my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And tyou shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will uset my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. vThose who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee wwhen none pursues you. 18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, 19 and I will xbreak the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
21 “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22 And I will ylet loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that zyour roads shall be deserted.
23 “And if aby this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I bbreak your supply2 of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and cyou shall eat and not be satisfied.
27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. 29 dYou shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 And I will edestroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. 31 And I will lay your cities fwaste and will make your gsanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32 And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. 33 And I will hscatter you among the nations, and I will iunsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34 “Then the land shall enjoy3 jits Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 36 And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. kThe sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power lto stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall mrot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also nbecause of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.
40 “But if they oconfess their iniquity pand the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their quncircumcised heart is rhumbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will sremember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not tspurn them, neither will I abhor them uso as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt vin the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”
46 wThese are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.
Laws About Vows
1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone xmakes a special yvow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, 3 then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels4 of silver, according to the zshekel of the sanctuary. 4 If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6 If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 8 And aif someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.
9 “If the vow5 is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. 10 He shall not bexchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. 11 And if it is any cunclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, 12 and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. 13 But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall dadd a fifth to the valuation.
14 “When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. 15 And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.
16 “If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer6 of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he dedicates his field from the year of ejubilee, the valuation shall stand, 18 but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. 19 And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. 20 But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. 21 But the field, fwhen it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been devoted. gThe priest shall be in possession of it. 22 If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has hbought, which is not a part of his possession, 23 then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. 24 iIn the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. 25 Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs7 shall make a shekel.
26 “But a firstborn of animals, jwhich as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord’s. 27 And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.
28 “But no kdevoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. 29 No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction8 from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.
30 “Every ltithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. 31 If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. 32 And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that mpass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. 33 One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a nsubstitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”
34 oThese are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.
What Is the Measure of My Days?
To the choirmaster: to nJeduthun. A Psalm of David.
1 I said, “I will guard my ways,
that I may not sin with my tongue;
I will oguard my mouth with a muzzle,
so long as the wicked are in my presence.”
2 I was pmute and silent;
I held my peace to no avail,
and my distress grew worse.
3 My heart became hot within me.
As I mused, the fire burned;
then I spoke with my tongue:
4 “O Lord, qmake me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
5 rBehold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing sbefore you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere tbreath! Selah
6 Surely a man goes about as a ushadow!
Surely for nothing1 they are in turmoil;
vman heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
7 “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.
8 Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the scorn of the fool!
9 I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is you who have done it.
10 Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
11 When you discipline a man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah
12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and give ear to my cry;
whold not your peace at my tears!
For I am a xsojourner with you,
a guest, like all my fathers.
13 Look away from me, that I may smile again,
before I depart and am no more!”
