Study Desk

If you do, the Lord will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.

There, in the presence of the Lord your God, who has blessed you, you and your families will eat and enjoy the good things that you have worked for.

Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat.

Do not use the blood for food; instead, pour it out on the ground like water.

If you obey this command, the Lord will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants.

Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you, and all will go well for you and your descendants forever, because you will be doing what is right and what pleases the Lord your God.

Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.

Do not keep for yourselves anything that was condemned to destruction, and then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy. He will be merciful to you and make you a numerous people, as he promised your ancestors,

"You are the people of the Lord your God. So when you mourn for the dead, don't gash yourselves or shave the front of your head, as other people do.

If the place of worship is too far from your home for you to carry there the tithe of the produce that the Lord has blessed you with, then do this:

This food is for the Levites, since they own no property, and for the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. They are to come and get all they need. Do this, and the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

"If any Israelites, male or female, sell themselves to you as slaves, you are to release them after they have served you for six years. When the seventh year comes, you must let them go free.

Then take him to the door of your house and there pierce his ear; he will then be your slave for life. Treat your female slave in the same way.

Do not be resentful when you set slaves free; after all, they have served you for six years at half the cost of hired servants. Do this, and the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

"Set aside for the Lord your God all the first-born males of your cattle and sheep; don't use any of these cattle for work and don't shear any of these sheep.

But do not use their blood for food; instead, you must pour it out on the ground like water.

Go to the one place of worship and slaughter there one of your sheep or cattle for the Passover meal to honor the Lord your God.

When you eat this meal, do not eat bread prepared with yeast. For seven days you are to eat bread prepared without yeast, as you did when you had to leave Egypt in such a hurry. Eat this bread—it will be called the bread of suffering—so that as long as you live you will remember the day you came out of Egypt, that place of suffering.

For seven days no one in your land is to have any yeast in the house; and the meat of the animal killed on the evening of the first day must be eaten that same night.

For the next six days you are to eat bread prepared without yeast, and on the seventh day assemble to worship the Lord your God, and do no work on that day.