Study Desk

If you make a promise to give something to the Lord your God, do not be slow to pay it, because the Lord your God demands it from you. Do not be guilty of sin.

You must do whatever you say you will do, because you chose to make the promise to the Lord your God.

A man might marry a woman but later decide she doesn't please him because he has found something bad about her. He writes out divorce papers for her, gives them to her, and sends her away from his house.

In either case, her first husband who divorced her must not marry her again, because she has become unclean. The Lord would hate this. Don't bring this sin into the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own.

If someone owes you something, do not take his two stones for grinding grain—not even the upper one—in place of what he owes, because this is how the person makes a living.

Give the coat back at sunset, because your neighbor needs that coat to sleep in, and he will be grateful to you. And the Lord your God will see that you have done a good thing.

Pay them each day before sunset, because they are poor and need the money. Otherwise, they may complain to the Lord about you, and you will be guilty of sin.

But don't hit a person more than forty times, because more than that would disgrace him before others.

Then you and the Levites and foreigners among you should rejoice, because the Lord your God has given good things to you and your family.

"Anyone will be cursed who makes an idol or statue and secretly sets it up, because the Lord hates the idols people make." Then all the people will say, "Amen!"

"A man will be cursed who has sexual relations with his father's wife, because it is a dishonor to his father." Then all the people will say, "Amen!"

The Lord will send you curses, confusion, and punishment in everything you do. You will be destroyed and suddenly ruined because you did wrong when you left him.

You will plant much seed in your field, but your harvest will be small, because locusts will eat the crop.

You will plant vineyards and work hard in them, but you will not pick the grapes or drink the wine, because the worms will eat them.

You will have olive trees in all your land, but you will not get any olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees.

You will have sons and daughters, but you will not be able to keep them, because they will be taken captive.

All these curses will come upon you. They will chase you and catch you and destroy you, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep the commands and laws he gave you.

He will not even give them any of the flesh of his children he is eating, because it will be all he has left. Your enemy will surround you and make you starve in all your cities.

You people may have outnumbered the stars, but only a few of you will be left, because you did not obey the Lord your God.

"The land is nothing but burning cinders and salt. Nothing is planted, nothing grows, and nothing blooms. It is like Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed because he was very angry."