Hello, this is Father Paul and I am glad we are taking this journey together to read the
Bible in a year.
Today's reading is from Deuteronomy chapters 22 to 25.
Chapter 22
You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and hide yourself from
them.
You shall certainly bring them back to your brother.
And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring
it to your own house and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it.
Then you shall restore it to him.
You shall do the same with his donkey and so shall you do with his garment.
With any lost thing of your brother's which he has lost and you have found, you shall
do likewise.
You must not hide yourself.
You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fall down along the road and hide
yourself from them.
You shall surely help him lift them up again.
A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's
garment.
For all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.
If a bird's nest happens to be before you along the way in any tree or on the ground,
with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not
take the mother with the young.
You shall surely let the mother go and take the young for yourself that it may be well
with you and that you may prolong your days.
When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may
not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.
You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed
which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.
You shall not plough with an ox and a donkey together.
You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.
You shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.
If any man takes a wife and goes into her and detests her, and charges her with shameful
conduct and brings a bad name on her and says, I took this woman and when I came to her I
found she was not a virgin, then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and
bring out the evidence of the young woman's virginity to the elders of the city at the
gate, and the young woman's father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this
man as wife and he detests her.
Now he has charged her with shameful conduct saying, I found your daughter was not a virgin.
And yet these are the evidences of my daughter's virginity.
And they shall spread the clothe before the elders of the city.
Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him.
And they shall find him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the
young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel.
And she shall be his wife, he cannot divorce her all his days.
But if the thing is true and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman,
then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the
men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful
thing in Israel to play the harlot in her father's house.
So you shall put away the evil from among you.
If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die,
the man that lay with the woman and the woman.
So you shall put away the evil from Israel.
If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city
and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you
shall stone them to death with stones.
The young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled
his neighbor's wife.
So you shall put away the evil from among you.
But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the court side, and the man forces her
and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.
But you shall do nothing to the young woman, there is in the young woman no sin deserving
of death.
For just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter.
For he found her in the court side, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there
was no one to save her.
If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and
lies with her, and they are found out, then the man who lay with her shall give to the
young woman's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled
her.
He shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.
A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his father's bed.
Chapter 23.
He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.
One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth
generation.
None of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord.
An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.
Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the
Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you
came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pithor
of Mesopotamia to curse you.
Nevertheless, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned
the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you.
You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.
You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.
You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you are an alien in his land.
The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.
When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing.
If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then
he shall go outside the camp.
He shall not come inside the camp.
But it shall be, when evening comes, that he shall wash with water, and when the sun
sets he may come into the camp.
Also you shall have a place outside the camp, where you may go out, and you shall have an
implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside you shall dig with it and
turn and cover your refuse.
For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies
over to you.
Therefore your camp shall be holy, that he may see no unclean thing among you and turn
away from you.
You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you.
He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your
gates, where it seems best to him, you shall not oppress him.
There shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel, or a perverted one of the sons
of Israel.
You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the
Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord
your God.
You shall not charge interest to your brother, interest on money or food or anything that
is lent out at interest.
To a foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest,
that the Lord your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which
you are entering to possess.
When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the Lord
your God will surely require it of you and it will be sent to you.
But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sent to you.
That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vow
to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.
When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure,
but you shall not put any in your container.
When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may plug the heads with your hand,
but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain.
Chapter 24 When a man takes a wife and marries her, and
it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness
in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her
out of his house, when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's
wife.
If the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her
hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his
wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife
after she has been defiled.
For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which
the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war or be charged with any business,
he shall be free at home one year and bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken.
No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge, for he takes one's living in pledge.
If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren of the children of Israel and mistreats him
or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die, and you shall put away the evil from among
you.
Take heed in an outbreak of leprosy that you carefully observe and do according to all
that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you.
Just as I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.
Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt.
When you lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.
You shall stand outside and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you.
And if the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight.
You shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down, that he
may sleep in his own garment and bless you, and it shall be righteousness to you before
the Lord your God.
You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren
or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates.
Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor
and has set his heart on it.
Lest he cry out against you to the Lord and it be sin to you.
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death
for their fathers.
A person shall be put to death for his own sin.
You shall not pervert justice due the stranger or the fatherless, nor take a widow's garment
as a pledge.
But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you
from there.
Therefore I command you to do this thing.
When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not
go back to get it.
It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may
bless you in all the work of your hands.
When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again.
It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward.
It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and you shall remember that
you were a slave in the land of Egypt.
Therefore I command you to do this thing.
Chapter 25 If there is a dispute between men, and they
come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn
the wicked, then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judges
will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, according to his guilt, with
a certain number of blows.
Forty blows he may give him, and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with
many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight.
You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.
If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead
man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family.
Her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty
of a husband's brother to her.
And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his
dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to
the gates to the elders and say, My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his
brother in Israel.
He will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him.
But if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her, then his brother's wife shall
come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his
face and answer and say, So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's
house.
And his name shall be called in Israel the house of him who had his sandal removed.
If two men fight together and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from
the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals,
then you shall cut off her hand, your eye shall not pity her.
You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light.
You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small.
You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, that your days
may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord
your God.
Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met
you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear when you were
tired and weary, and he did not fear God.
Therefore it shall be when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around
in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance that you
will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
You shall not forget.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.