Day 53 of 365

¹You are the children of the Lord your God: you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.

²For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

³You shall not eat any abominable thing.

⁴These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat,

⁵the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the ibex, and the antelope, and the chamois.

⁶Every animal that parts the hoof, and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, that may you eat.

⁷Nevertheless these you shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of those who have the hoof cloven: the camel, and the hare, and the rabbit; because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, they are unclean to you.

⁸The pig, because it has a split hoof but doesn't chew the cud, is unclean to you: of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.

⁹These you may eat of all that are in the waters: whatever has fins and scales may you eat;

¹⁰and whatever doesn't have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean to you.

¹¹Of all clean birds you may eat.

¹²But these are they of which you shall not eat: the eagle, and the vulture, and the osprey,

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

¹⁴and every raven after its kind,

¹⁵and the ostrich, and the owl, and the seagull, and the hawk after its kind,

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

¹⁷and the pelican, and the vulture, and the cormorant,

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

¹⁹All winged creeping things are unclean to you: they shall not be eaten.

²⁰Of all clean birds you may eat.

²¹You shall not eat of anything that dies of itself: you may give it to the foreigner living among you who is within your gates, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner: for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²²You shall surely tithe all the increase of your seed, that which comes forth from the field year by year.

²³You shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place which he shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, the tithe of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock; that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

²⁴If the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God shall choose, to set his name there, when the Lord your God shall bless you;

²⁵then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and shall go to the place which the Lord your God shall choose:

²⁶and you shall bestow the money for whatever your soul desires, for cattle, 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.

²⁷The Levite who is within your gates, you shall not forsake him; for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

²⁸At the end of every three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your increase in the same year, and shall lay it up within your gates:

²⁹and the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the foreigner living among you, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

¹At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.

²This is the way of the release: every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother; because the Lord's release has been proclaimed.

³Of a foreigner you may exact it: but whatever of your is with your brother your hand shall release.

⁴However there shall be no poor with you; (for the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it;)

⁵if only you diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command you this day.

⁶For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you: and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.

⁷If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother;

⁸but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks.

⁹Beware that there not be a base thought in your heart, saying, "The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand"; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to the Lord against you, and it be sin to you.

¹⁰You shall surely give him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him; because that for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your work, and in all that you put your hand to.

¹¹For the poor will never cease out of the land: therefore I command you, saying, You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.

¹²If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.

¹³When you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty:

¹⁴you shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, and out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress; as the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.

¹⁵You shall remember that you were a bondservant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you: therefore I command you this thing today.

¹⁶It shall be, if he tells you, "I will not go out from you"; because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you;

¹⁷then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise.

¹⁸It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for to the double of the hire of a hireling has he served you six years: and the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

¹⁹All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock you shall sanctify to the Lord your God: you shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.

²⁰You shall eat it before the Lord your God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, you and your household.

²¹If it has any blemish, is lame or blind, or has any defect whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.

²²You shall eat it within your gates: the unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the hart.

²³Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground as water.

¹Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God; for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night.

²You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.

³You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it seven days, even the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

⁴No yeast shall be seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which you sacrifice the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning.

⁵You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you;

⁶but at the place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt.

⁷You shall roast and eat it in the place which the Lord your God shall choose: and you shall turn in the morning, and go to your tents.

⁸Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work.

⁹You shall count for yourselves seven weeks: from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to number seven weeks.

¹⁰You shall keep the feast of weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall 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 male servant, and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in the midst of you, in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.

¹²You shall remember that you were a bondservant in Egypt: and you shall observe and do these statutes.

¹³You shall keep the feast of tents seven days, after that you have gathered 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 male servant, and your female servant, and the Levite, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates.

¹⁵You shall keep a feast to the Lord your God seven days in the place which the Lord shall choose; because the Lord your God will bless you in all your increase, and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful.

¹⁶Three times in a year shall all your males appear before the Lord your God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tents; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty:

¹⁷every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you.

¹⁸You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

¹⁹You shall not wrest justice: you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a bribe; for a bribe does blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

²⁰You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live, and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you.

²¹You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make for yourselves.

²²Neither shall you set yourself up a pillar; which the Lord your God hates.

¹You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, or anything evil; for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

²If there is found in the midst of you, within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you, man or woman, who does that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant,

³and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the army of the sky, which I have not commanded;

⁴and it be told you, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently; and behold, if it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,

⁵then you shall bring forth that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to your gates, even the man or the woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.

⁶At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is to die be put to death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

⁷The hand of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.

⁸If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates; then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the Lord your God shall choose;

⁹and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment.

¹⁰You shall do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show you from that place which the Lord shall choose; and you shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you:

¹¹according to the tenor of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left.

¹²The man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel.

¹³All the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

¹⁴When you have come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me";

¹⁵you shall surely set him king over yourselves, whom the Lord your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

¹⁶Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the Lord has said to you, "You shall not go back that way again."

¹⁷Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

¹⁸It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

¹⁹and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;

²⁰that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.