Study Desk

"And all flying insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten.

"When the LORD your God blesses you as He has promised you, then you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

"Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.

"You shall appoint judges and officers in all your cities (gates) which the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

"So you shall come to the Levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time, and you shall consult them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case.

"You shall act in accordance with the law which they teach you and the judgment which they tell you. You shall not turn aside from their verdict, to the right or to the left.

"The Levitical priests, the entire tribe of Levi, shall own [privately] no portion [of land] or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the LORD'S offerings by fire and His portion.

"Now this shall be the priests' portion from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, either an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.

"And it shall be when the officers have finished speaking to the soldiers, they shall appoint commanders of armies over them.

so that they will not teach you to act in accordance with all the detestable practices which they have done [in worship and service] for their gods, and in this way cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

and they shall respond, and say, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.

"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them,

"They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

and behold, he has made baseless charges against her, saying, "I did not find in your daughter the evidence of her virginity." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city.

and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father of the young woman, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.

then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father's house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

"If a man is intimate with a woman who is another man's wife, they shall both be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

"If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and is intimate with her and they are discovered,

because they did not meet you with bread (food) and water on the road as you came out of Egypt, and because they hired [to act] against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

"If there is a controversy between men, and they go to court, and the judges decide [the issue] between them, and they judge in favor of the innocent and condemn the guilty,