Study Desk

You are going in to take the land, not because you are good and honest, but because these nations are evil. That is why the Lord your God will force them out ahead of you, to keep his promise to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Lord your God is giving you this good land to take as your own. But know this: It is not because you are good; you are a stubborn people.

Then the Lord told me, "Get up and go down quickly from here, because the people you brought out from Egypt are ruining themselves. They have quickly turned away from what I commanded and have made an idol for themselves."

I was afraid of the Lord 's anger and rage, because he was angry enough with you to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me again.

Otherwise, Egypt will say, ‘It was because the Lord was not able to take his people into the land he promised them, and it was because he hated them that he took them into the desert to kill them.'

You also must love foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

There you will be together with the Lord your God. There you and your families will eat, and you will enjoy all the good things for which you have worked, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

but be sure you don't eat the blood, because the life is in the blood. Don't eat the life with the meat.

If you don't eat it, things will go well for you and your children, because you will be doing what the Lord says is right.

Don't worship the Lord your God that way, because the Lord hates the evil ways they worship their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods!

The prophets or dreamers must be killed, because they said you should turn against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and saved you from the land where you were slaves. They tried to turn you from doing what the Lord your God commanded you to do. You must get rid of the evil among you.

You must throw stones at them until they die, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.

Do not forget the Levites in your town, because they have no land of their own among you.

But there should be no poor people among you, because the Lord your God will richly bless you in the land he is giving you as your own.

But if your slave says to you, "I don't want to leave you," because he loves you and your family and has a good life with you,

Celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God during the month of Abib, because it was during Abib that he brought you out of Egypt at night.

Do not eat it with bread made with yeast. But for seven days eat bread made without yeast, the bread of suffering, because you left Egypt in a hurry. So all your life you will remember the time you left Egypt.

Celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God for seven days at the place he will choose, because the Lord your God will bless all your harvest and all the work you do, and you will be completely happy.

Do not judge unfairly or take sides. Do not let people pay you to make wrong decisions, because that kind of payment makes wise people seem blind, and it changes the words of good people.

The king must not have too many horses for himself, and he must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because the Lord has told you, "Don't return that way again."