Re'ehSee

1Reading 1 Deuteronomy 11:26–12:10Chapter page with footnotes →

A Blessing and a Curse

^11:26See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: ²⁷the blessing, if you hearken to the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day; ²⁸and the curse, if you do not hearken to the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known.

²⁹And it shall come to pass, when the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are going there to possess it, that you shall set the blessing upon Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal. ³⁰Are they not beyond the Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanite who dwells in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinths of Moreh?

³¹For you are crossing over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving to you, and you shall possess it and dwell in it. ³²And you shall keep to do all the statutes and the judgments which I set before you this day.

One Place for Worship

^12:1These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall keep to do in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess it, all the days that you are living upon the ground.

²You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you are dispossessing served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. ³And you shall break down their altars, and shatter their pillars, and their Asherim you shall burn with fire, and the graven images of their gods you shall hew down, and you shall destroy their name from that place. ⁴You shall not do so to the LORD your God.

⁵But to the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, to his dwelling shall you seek, and you shall come there; ⁶and you shall bring there your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock; ⁷and you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, wherein the LORD your God has blessed you.

⁸You shall not do according to all that we do here this day, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; ⁹for you have not yet come to the resting place and to the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving to you.

¹⁰But you shall cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, and you dwell in safety;

2Reading 2 Deuteronomy 12:11–28Chapter page with footnotes →

^12:11then it shall come to pass that the place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all the choice of your vows which you vow to the LORD. ¹²And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

¹³Take heed to yourself lest you offer up your burnt offerings in every place that you see; ¹⁴but in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer up your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.

¹⁵Only with all the desire of your soul you may slaughter and eat meat, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which he has given to you, within all your gates; the unclean and the clean may eat it, like the gazelle and like the hart. ¹⁶Only the blood you shall not eat; upon the earth you shall pour it out like water.

¹⁷You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or of your wine, or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or of your flock, nor any of your vows which you vow, nor your freewill offerings, nor the heave offering of your hand; ¹⁸but before the LORD your God you shall eat it in the place which the LORD your God shall choose, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you put your hand to. ¹⁹Take heed to yourself lest you forsake the Levite all your days upon your ground.

²⁰When the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he has spoken to you, and you say, "I will eat meat," because your soul desires to eat meat, with all the desire of your soul you may eat meat. ²¹If the place which the LORD your God shall choose to put his name there be far from you, then you shall slaughter of your herd and of your flock which the LORD has given to you, as I have commanded you, and you shall eat within your gates with all the desire of your soul. ²²Only as the gazelle and the hart is eaten, so you shall eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. ²³Only be strong not to eat the blood; for the blood is the soul, and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh. ²⁴You shall not eat it; upon the earth you shall pour it out like water. ²⁵You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

²⁶Only your holy things which you have, and your vows, you shall take, and go to the place which the LORD shall choose; ²⁷and you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the LORD your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the LORD your God, and the flesh you shall eat. ²⁸Keep and hear all these words which 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 eyes of the LORD your God.

3Reading 3 Deuteronomy 12:29–13:19Chapter page with footnotes →

A Warning against Idolatry

^12:29When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whom you are going there to dispossess them from before you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land; ³⁰take heed to yourself lest you be ensnared after them, after they are destroyed from before you, and lest you inquire after their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise."

³¹You shall not do so to the LORD your God; for every abomination of the LORD which he hates have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they burn in the fire to their gods. ^13:1Every word which I command you, it you shall keep to do; you shall not add to it, nor diminish from it.

Idolaters to Be Put to Death

²If there arise in your midst a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives to you a sign or a wonder, ³and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them"; ⁴you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of the dream; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁵After the LORD your God you shall walk, and him you shall fear, and his commandments you shall keep, and to his voice you shall hearken, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall cleave.

⁶And that prophet, or that dreamer of the dream, shall be put to death; because he has spoken turning-away against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of servants, to thrust you out of the way which the LORD your God commanded you to walk in. So you shall burn away the evil from your midst.

⁷If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is like your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods," which you have not known, you nor your fathers, ⁸of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near to you or far from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; ⁹you shall not consent to him, nor hearken to him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him;

¹⁰but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. ¹¹And you shall stone him with stones, that he die; because he sought to thrust you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of servants. ¹²And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall not again do according to this evil thing in your midst.

Idolatrous Cities to Be Destroyed

¹³If you hear concerning one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving to you to dwell there, saying, ¹⁴"Certain men, sons of worthlessness, have gone out from your midst and have thrust away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which you have not known," ¹⁵then you shall inquire, and search, and ask diligently; and behold, if it is truth, the thing is certain, that this abomination is done in your midst, ¹⁶you shall surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, devoting it to destruction, and all that is in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.

¹⁷And all its spoil you shall gather into the midst of its open square, and you shall burn with fire the city and all its spoil entirely, to the LORD your God; and it shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again.

¹⁸And there shall cleave nothing of the devoted thing to your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and give to you mercy, and have compassion on you, and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers; ¹⁹when you hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep all his commandments which I command you this day, to do what is right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

4Reading 4 Deuteronomy 14:1–21Chapter page with footnotes →

Clean and Unclean Animals

^14:1You are sons to the LORD your God; you shall not cut yourselves, and you shall not make a baldness between your eyes for the dead. ²For a holy people you are to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be to Him for a people, a treasured possession, out of all the peoples that are upon the face of the ground.

³You shall not eat any abomination. ⁴This is the beast that you may eat: the ox, the lamb of the sheep, and the kid of the goats,

⁵the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the antelope, and the mountain-sheep.

⁶And every beast that parts the hoof and cleaves the cleft into two hooves, bringing up the cud, among the beasts—that you may eat.

⁷But this you shall not eat, of those that bring up the cud and of those that part the cloven hoof: the camel, and the hare, and the rock-badger, for they bring up the cud but they do not part the hoof; they are unclean to you. ⁸And the swine, for it parts the hoof but not the cud; it is unclean to you. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcass you shall not touch.

⁹This you may eat of all that is in the waters: all that has fins and scales you may eat. ¹⁰And all that has not fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean to you.

¹¹Every clean bird you may eat. ¹²And this is what you shall not eat of them: the eagle, and the bearded vulture, and the osprey,

¹³and the glede, and the falcon, and the kite after its kind,

¹⁴and every raven after its kind,

¹⁵and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kind,

¹⁶the little owl, and the great owl, and the horned owl,

¹⁷and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture, and the cormorant,

¹⁸and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat.

¹⁹And every swarming thing of the bird is unclean to you; they shall not be eaten. ²⁰Every clean bird you may eat.

²¹You shall not eat any carcass; to the sojourner who is within your gates you may give it, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for a holy people you are to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

5Reading 5 Deuteronomy 14:22–29Chapter page with footnotes →

Giving Tithes

^14:22You shall surely tithe all the produce of your seed, that which comes forth from the field, year by year. ²³And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place that He will choose to make His name dwell there, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God all the days.

²⁴And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it, because the place is too far from you that the LORD your God will choose to set His name there, when the LORD your God blesses you, ²⁵then you shall give it for money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose. ²⁶And you shall give the money for whatever your soul desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul asks of you; and you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. ²⁷And the Levite who is within your gates, you shall not forsake him, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

²⁸At the end of three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in that year, and you shall lay it up within your gates. ²⁹And the Levite shall come—for he has no portion nor inheritance with you—and the sojourner, and the orphan, and the widow who are within your gates, and they shall eat and be satisfied, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.

6Reading 6 Deuteronomy 15:1–18Chapter page with footnotes →

The Seventh Year

^15:1At the end of seven years you shall make a release. ²And this is the matter of the release: every owner of a loan of his hand shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor or his brother, for a release has been proclaimed to the LORD. ³Of the foreigner you may exact it, but that which is yours with your brother, your hand shall release.

⁴Only, there shall be no needy one among you—for the LORD will surely bless you in the land that the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance to possess it— ⁵only if you diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep to do all this commandment that I command you today. ⁶For the LORD your God has blessed you, as He spoke to you; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but over you they shall not rule.

Generosity in Lending and Giving

⁷If there is among you a needy one, one of your brothers, within one of your gates in your land that the LORD your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your needy brother; ⁸but you shall surely open your hand to him, and surely lend him sufficient for his need, that which he lacks.

⁹Guard yourself lest there be a thing in your heart, a base thing, saying, "The seventh year, the year of release, is near," and your eye be evil against your needy brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry against you to the LORD, and it be sin in you.

¹⁰You shall surely give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, for because of this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. ¹¹For the needy one shall not cease from the midst of the land; therefore I command you, saying, "You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your poor and to your needy in your land."

Hebrew Servants

¹²If your brother, the Hebrew, or the Hebrew woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years; and in the seventh year you shall send him away free from you.

¹³And when you send him away free from you, you shall not send him away empty. ¹⁴You shall surely furnish him from your flock, and from your threshing-floor, and from your winepress; of that with which the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. ¹⁵And you shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today.

¹⁶And it shall be, if he says to you, "I will not go out from you," because he loves you and your household, because it is good for him with you, ¹⁷then you shall take the awl and put it into his ear and into the door, and he shall be to you a servant forever. And also to your maidservant you shall do likewise.

¹⁸It shall not be hard in your eyes when you send him away free from you, for double the hire of a hireling he has served you six years; and the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.

7Reading 7 Deuteronomy 15:19–16:17Chapter page with footnotes →

Firstborn Animals

^15:19Every firstborn that is born in your herd and in your flock, the male, you shall sanctify to the LORD your God; you shall not work with the firstborn of your ox, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. ²⁰Before the LORD your God you shall eat it, year by year, in the place that the LORD will choose, you and your household.

²¹And if there is in it a blemish, lameness or blindness, any ill blemish, you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God. ²²Within your gates you shall eat it, the unclean and the clean together, like the gazelle and like the hart. ²³Only its blood you shall not eat; upon the ground you shall pour it out like water.

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread

^16:1Keep the month of Abib, and make a Passover to the LORD your God; for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night.

²And you shall sacrifice a Passover to the LORD your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place that the LORD will choose to make His name dwell there. ³You shall not eat leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for in haste you came forth out of the land of Egypt—so that you may remember the day of your coming forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

⁴And there shall not be seen with you leaven in all your border seven days; neither shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice in the evening on the first day remain overnight until the morning.

⁵You are not able to sacrifice the Passover within one of your gates that the LORD your God gives you; ⁶but at the place that the LORD your God will choose to make His name dwell there, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening, at the going of the sun, the appointed time (mo-ed) of your coming forth out of Egypt. ⁷And you shall boil and eat it in the place that the LORD your God will choose; and you shall turn in the morning and go to your tents.

⁸Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day a solemn assembly to the LORD your God; you shall not do work.

The Feast of Weeks

⁹Seven weeks you shall count for yourself; from when the sickle begins on the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks. ¹⁰And you shall make a feast of weeks to the LORD your God, the measure of the freewill-offering of your hand that you give, according as the LORD your God blesses you. ¹¹And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the sojourner, and the orphan, and the widow who are in your midst, in the place that the LORD your God will choose to make His name dwell there.

¹²And you shall remember that you were a servant in Egypt, and you shall keep and do these statutes.

The Feast of Tabernacles

¹³A feast of booths you shall make for yourself seven days, when you gather in from your threshing-floor and from your winepress. ¹⁴And you shall rejoice in your feast, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the sojourner, and the orphan, and the widow who are within your gates.

¹⁵Seven days you shall hold a feast to the LORD your God in the place that the LORD will choose; for the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful.

¹⁶Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the face of the LORD your God, in the place that He will choose: at the feast of unleavened bread, and at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of booths; and they shall not appear before the face of the LORD empty. ¹⁷Each man according to the gift of his hand, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that He has given you.

PIsaiah 54:11–55:5Chapter page with footnotes →

^54:11O afflicted one, storm-tossed, not comforted, behold, I am setting your stones in antimony, and I will lay your foundations with sapphires.

¹²And I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of carbuncle stones, and all your border of stones of delight.

¹³And all your children shall be taught of the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children.

¹⁴In righteousness you shall be established; be far from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near to you.

¹⁵Behold, they may surely gather, but not from me; whoever gathers against you shall fall because of you.

¹⁶Behold, I myself have created the smith who blows the coals in the fire, and brings out a weapon for his work; and I myself have created the destroyer to ruin.

¹⁷Every weapon formed against you shall not prosper, and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is from me, declares the LORD.

Invitation to the Needy

^55:1Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

²Why do you weigh out money for what is not bread, and your labor for what does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

³Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will cut for you an everlasting covenant, the faithful kindnesses of David.

⁴Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander to the peoples.

⁵Behold, a nation you do not know you shall call, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

A1 John 4:1–3Chapter page with footnotes →

Testing the Spirits

^4:1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this the spirit of God is known: every spirit that confesses that Yeshua Messiah has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Yeshua Messiah having come in the flesh is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard is coming and is now already in the world.