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Priests and Levites[a]
18 The priests and the whole tribe of Levi will have no land for themselves, as the other Israelite tribes do. Instead, they may eat the meat from the sacrifices that belong to the Lord. 2 They will receive no land among the other Israelites. The Lord himself is the one who gives them everything that they need. He has promised to do that for them.
3 When you bring a bull or a sheep as a sacrifice to the Lord, give the priests their part. You must give them the animal's shoulder, the meat from its face, and its stomach. 4 You must also give them the first part of your grain, your wine and your olive oil. Give them the first wool that you cut from your sheep. 5 Do this because the Lord your God has chosen the Levites to serve him from among all your tribes. He wants them and their descendants to be ready to serve him at all times, for ever.
6 Any Levite may choose to go to the place that the Lord will choose. He can leave the town where he lives, wherever it is in Israel. 7 He may go to serve the Lord his God. He may join the other Levites who are ready to serve the Lord at his special place. 8 A Levite may have sold some of his family's valuable things. He may keep that money and he may receive the same amount of food as the other Levites.
Evil acts
9 When you go into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, be careful! Do not learn to do the evil things that the nations who live there are doing. 10 Nobody among you must ever burn your child in a fire, as an offering. Nobody must use magic or other things to learn about future times. There must not be any magicians or diviners. 11 Never use magic to curse anyone. Never try to speak to the spirits of dead people or other spirits. 12 The Lord hates anyone who does these things. It is because of those evil things that the Lord will chase the other nations out of the land as you move in. 13 You must live in a completely right way that pleases the Lord your God. 14 The people of the nations that you will chase away get help from magicians and diviners. But the Lord your God has commanded you not to do those things.
Moses speaks about a future prophet
15 One day, the Lord your God will send to you a prophet like me. He will come from among your own people. You must listen to him. 16 Remember what happened when you all met together at Sinai mountain. You said to the Lord your God, ‘Please do not let us hear your voice again. Do not let us see this great fire again. If we do, we will die!’
17 Then the Lord said to me, ‘The people have said the right thing. 18 I will send them a prophet who will be like you. He will be an Israelite. I will tell him what to say. Then he will tell the people everything that I command him to say. 19 He will speak on my behalf, so I myself will punish anyone who does not listen to his message.
20 A false prophet may say that he speaks with my authority when that is not true. Or he may say that he has a message from another god. You must punish a false prophet with death.’
21 You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not come from the Lord?’ 22 A prophet may say that he speaks with my authority, and he may say what will happen. But if it does not happen, you will know that his message has not come from me. He has not spoken my message. That prophet has spoken his own ideas. So do not be afraid of him!
Rules about safe cities
19 The Lord your God will destroy the nations who now live in the land that he is giving to you. You will chase them out and you will live in their cities and in their houses. 2-3 Make the land into three separate regions. Then choose three special cities, one city in each region.[b] Build good roads to each city so that people can easily travel to them. Then anyone who kills a person can run to one of these cities to be safe.
4 This is the rule when anyone has killed another person: If it was a mistake, he can run to a safe city. He can do that if he has killed someone that he did not already hate. 5 For example, two men may go to the forest to cut wood. As one man cuts wood with his axe, the metal part of the axe flies off. It hits the other man and it kills him. Then the killer can run to the nearest of the three cities. He will be safe there.
6 If there was no safe city near enough, the killer might not escape safely. The dead person's relative might chase him, catch him and kill him.[c] But the killer did not deserve to die. He had made a mistake. He had killed someone that he did not already hate. 7 So I command you to choose three cities to be safe cities for yourselves.[d]
8 The Lord your God promised your ancestors to give you more land to live in. When all that land belongs to you, 9 you must continue to obey all the commands that I am giving you today. You must continue to love the Lord your God and live in a way that pleases him. Then, when your land becomes bigger, you must choose three more cities to be safe cities. 10 You must not punish with death people who are not guilty. That would make you guilty yourselves. That must not happen in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
11 But perhaps somebody does hate another person. He may hide himself so that he can catch his enemy. Then he may attack him and kill him. After that, he may run to one of the safe cities. 12 If he does that, the leaders of his own town must fetch him back. They must bring him to the dead person's relative. He must die as his punishment. 13 Do not be sorry for him. You must punish murderers with death. Then Israel will not be guilty of evil acts. If you do that, everything will be well for you.
More rules
14 When you go to live in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you, each family will receive their piece of land. You must never move the stones that show the edge of your neighbour's land. It has always belonged to them.
15 If only one person says that he has seen someone do something wrong, that is not enough. There must be at least two or three people who saw the sin. Then the judge may say that the person is guilty.
16 Somebody may accuse another person because he wants to hurt him. He tells lies against him. 17 Then both of them must stand in front of the judges that the Lord has chosen. Those are the priests and the judges who have authority at that time. 18 The judges must be careful to discover who is telling the truth. The person may be speaking lies against another Israelite to accuse him. 19 If he is telling lies, you must punish him in the same way that he wanted to punish the other Israelite. You must remove evil things like this from among yourselves. 20 Then everyone else will hear what has happened. They will be afraid to do any more evil things like that. 21 Do not be sorry for people who are guilty. Punish people as they deserve: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.[e]
Rules for war
20 Do not be afraid when you go out to fight a war against your enemies. You may see that their armies have more horses, chariots and soldiers than you have. Do not be afraid of them! Remember that the Lord your God is with you. He rescued you from Egypt. 2 As you prepare to fight a battle, the priest must come to speak to your soldiers. 3 He must say, ‘Israelites, listen to me! Today you will fight against your enemies. Do not be afraid. Be brave! Do not shake with fear because your enemy is so strong. 4 The Lord your God is going into battle with you. He will fight for you against your enemies. He will cause you to win.’
5 Then the officers must say to the soldiers, ‘Has any of you built a new house but he has not yet asked God to bless it? If so, he may go home. If he does not, he may die in the battle. Then someone else will ask God to bless his home. 6 Has anyone planted a field with grapes but he has not yet picked any fruit? He also may go home. If he does not, he may die in the battle. Then someone else will enjoy the fruit. 7 Has anyone promised to marry a woman? If he has not married her yet, he may go home too. If not, he may die in the battle. Then another man will marry her.’
8 Then the officers must also say to the soldiers, ‘Is any of you afraid? Does anyone not feel brave? He may go home. Then he will not cause other men to be afraid like him.’
9 When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they must choose other officers to lead the groups of soldiers.
10 Before you start to attack a city, you must offer peace to the people who live there. Tell them what they must do to stop you attacking them. 11 If they agree, they will open the city's gates to let you go in. Then all the people in the city will become your slaves, to do hard work for you. 12 But they may refuse to agree. They may start to fight against you. If they do that, you must put your soldiers all around the city. 13 The Lord your God will give the city to you. Then you must kill all the men there. 14 But you can take for yourselves the women, the children, the animals and other valuable things in the city. You can take all these things from your enemies that God gives to you. 15 You must do this to all the cities that are far away from you. But it is different for the cities that belong to the nations of Canaan where you will live.
16 You will take for yourselves the cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you as your home. In those cities, you must kill everything that is alive, people and animals. 17 You must completely destroy all the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. The Lord your God has commanded you to do this to the people of those nations.[f] 18 If not, they would teach you all the evil things that they do to worship their gods. They would cause you to do bad things against the Lord your God.
19 Perhaps you are preparing to attack a city. Your soldiers may have their camp around the city for a long time. If so, you must not cut down the fruit trees. Then you can eat the fruit from them. These trees are not people, like your enemies! So do not attack them! 20 But you can cut down the other trees that do not provide any food. You can use the wood to make things that will help you to attack the city. You can do this until you go into the city and you take it for yourselves.
28 About eight days after Jesus had said these things, he went up a mountain to pray. He took Peter, John and James with him. 29 While Jesus was praying, his face became different to look at.[a] His clothes also became very white. They were shining brightly.
30 Then two men appeared and they were talking with him. They were Moses and Elijah.[b] 31 They were very bright to look at. They talked with Jesus about how he would soon die in Jerusalem. This was how God wanted him to leave this world.
32 While this was happening, Peter and his friends were sleeping. Then they really woke up and they saw that Jesus was very great and beautiful. They also saw the two men that were standing near to him. 33 Then the two men began to leave. So Peter said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, it is good that we are here. Please, let us build three huts. One hut will be for you. One hut will be for Moses and one hut will be for Elijah.’ But Peter did not really know what he was saying.[c]
34 While Peter was speaking, a cloud appeared. It covered them all. When the cloud came over them, the three disciples were afraid. 35 Then a voice spoke from the cloud and it said, ‘This is my Son. He is the one that I have chosen. Listen to him.’
36 The voice stopped speaking. Then the three disciples saw that only Jesus was there with them now.
They did not tell anyone at this time about what they had seen.
Jesus makes a boy well
37 The next day Jesus came down from the mountain with the three disciples. A large crowd met him. 38 A man from the crowd shouted to him. ‘Teacher, please, I ask you to help my son. He is my only child. 39 Sometimes a bad spirit takes hold of him and then he screams. The spirit throws his body first one way then another and water comes out of his mouth. The spirit gives him a lot of pain and it does not leave him alone very much. 40 I asked your disciples to send the bad spirit out of him. But they could not do it.’
41 Jesus said, ‘You people today still do not believe in God. You have turned away from him. I have been with you for a long time and still you do not believe. It is difficult for me to be patient with you.’ Then Jesus said to the man, ‘Bring your son here.’
42 While the boy was coming, the bad spirit threw him to the ground. It threw the boy first one way and then the other. ‘Stop!’ Jesus said to it. He then made the boy well and he gave him back to his father.
43 Everybody was very surprised at what they saw. They knew that God was very powerful.
Jesus speaks again about his death
The people were still thinking with surprise about everything that Jesus was doing. Then he began to talk to his disciples. 44 He said to them, ‘Do not forget what I am telling you now. Soon they will deliver the Son of Man to powerful people to kill him.’ 45 But they did not understand what Jesus had said. Its meaning was a secret to them, so they could not understand. But they were afraid to ask Jesus, ‘What do you mean?’
Who will be the most important?
46 Then the disciples began to argue with each other. They argued about which of them was the most important. 47 Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he took a child and he made him stand there at his side. 48 Jesus said, ‘If someone accepts this child because of me, then he also accepts me. And anyone who accepts me also accepts my Father God, who sent me. The person who makes himself the least important among you is really the greatest.’[d]
49 John then said, ‘Teacher, we saw a man who was speaking to people that had bad spirits in them. He was saying, “Jesus says that you must come out.” We told the man that he must not do this. We said that because he is not in our group.’
50 ‘Do not try to stop him,’ Jesus said, ‘If someone is not against you, he is working to help you.’
This is a psalm that Asaph wrote.
God has helped me to understand[a]
73 God is truly good to the people of Israel,
to people who want to serve him honestly.
2 But this is what happened to me:
I nearly slipped and fell over.
I could no longer stand properly.
3 When I saw that wicked people had plenty of things,
I was jealous of those proud people.
4 Their bodies are fat and strong,
and they feel no pain in their lives.
5 They do not have trouble like other people.
They seem to have no problems.
6 Their pride is like their necklace.
They like to be cruel,
as they like to wear clothes.
7 Their greedy eyes lead them into sin.
Their minds think of evil things to do.
8 They laugh at people
and they say bad things about them.
They proudly speak about cruel things
that they want to do to people.
9 They think that they rule in heaven,
as well as on the earth!
10 As a result, God's people become confused,
and they listen to them.
They think that everything is true
that those wicked people say.[b]
11 They say, ‘Does God really know what we do?
Does the Most High God know everything?’
12 Take a good look,
and see how wicked those people are!
They have no troubles,
and they become richer and richer.
13 I decided that I had tried to do what is right,
but it did not help me at all!
I had refused to do anything wrong,
for no good reason!
14 I had trouble each and every day.
Punishment came to me every morning!
15 If I had spoken aloud things like that,
I would have turned against your own people.
16 When I thought about all this,
it was so hard for me to understand.
17 But I went into your temple, God.
Then I understood what would happen
to wicked people in the end.
18 Yes, I realized that they are in a dangerous place,
where they will easily slip.
You will cause them to fall down to their death.
19 It will take just a moment to destroy them!
Great fear will sweep them away!
20 They will completely disappear,
like a dream disappears after you wake up.
Lord, when you decide to do something,
you will forget that they were there!
21 I was very upset,
and my thoughts were confused.
22 I was stupid,
and I did not understand you properly.
I was no better than an animal.
23 But I am always near to you.
You hold my right hand,
as my guide.
24 You teach me the right way to go,
and you will lead me to glory.[c]
25 You are the only one in heaven or on earth
that I need to help me.
You are the only one that I want.
26 My body and my mind may become weak,
but God will always keep me safe and strong.
27 Those people who stay far away from you will die.
You destroy everybody who turns away from you.
28 But as for me, it is good for me to stay near to God.
I have gone to the Almighty Lord
as the place where I can be safe.
I will tell people about the great things that you have done.
10 Righteous people take care of their animals.
But wicked people are cruel even when they think they are kind.
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