Atonement for Unsolved Murders

¹“If in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, ²then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. ³And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer zthat has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. ⁴And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. ⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen athem to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and bby their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled. ⁶And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man cshall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, ⁷and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. ⁸Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and ddo not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’ ⁹So eyou shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

Marrying Female Captives

¹⁰“When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, ¹¹and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, ¹²and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. ¹³And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and flament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴But if you no longer delight in her, you shall glet her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you htreat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

Inheritance Rights of the Firstborn

¹⁵“If a man has two wives, ithe one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved,1 ¹⁶then on the day when jhe assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, ¹⁷but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is kthe firstfruits of his strength. lThe right of the firstborn is his.

A Rebellious Son

¹⁸“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, ¹⁹then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, ²⁰and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹mThen all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. nSo you shall purge the evil from your midst, oand all Israel shall hear, and fear.

A Man Hanged on a Tree Is Cursed

²²“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ²³phis body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for qa hanged man is cursed by God. rYou shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Psalm 108

With God We Shall Do Valiantly

A Song. A Psalm of David.

¹pMy heart is steadfast, O God!

I will sing and make melody with all my being!1

²Awake, O harp and lyre!

I will awake the dawn!

³I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;

I will sing praises to you among the nations.

⁴For your steadfast love is great qabove the heavens;

your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

⁵Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!

Let your glory be over all the earth!

⁶rThat your beloved ones may be delivered,

give salvation by your right hand and answer me!

⁷God has promised in his holiness:2

“With exultation I will divide up Shechem

and portion out the Valley of Succoth.

⁸Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;

Ephraim is my helmet,

Judah my scepter.

⁹Moab is my washbasin;

upon Edom I cast my shoe;

sover Philistia I shout in triumph.”

¹⁰Who will bring me to the fortified city?

Who will lead me to Edom?

¹¹Have you not rejected us, O God?

You do not go out, O God, with our armies.

¹²Oh grant us help against the foe,

for vain is the salvation of man!

¹³With God we shall do valiantly;

it is he who will tread down our foes.

Psalm 109

Help Me, O Lord My God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

¹tBe not silent, O uGod of my praise!

²For wicked and vdeceitful mouths are opened against me,

speaking against me with lying tongues.

³They encircle me with words of hate,

and attack me wwithout cause.

⁴In return for my love they xaccuse me,

but I ygive myself to prayer.1

⁵So they zreward me evil for good,

and hatred for my love.

⁶aAppoint a wicked man bagainst him;

let an accuser stand cat his right hand.

⁷When he is tried, let him come forth guilty;

let his dprayer be counted as sin!

⁸May his edays be few;

may fanother take his goffice!

⁹May his hchildren be fatherless

and his wife a widow!

¹⁰May his children iwander about and beg,

jseeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!

¹¹May kthe creditor seize all that he has;

may kstrangers plunder the fruits of his toil!

¹²Let there be none to lextend kindness to him,

nor any to mpity his fatherless children!

¹³May his nposterity be cut off;

may his oname be blotted out in the second generation!

¹⁴May pthe iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,

and let not the sin of his mother be qblotted out!

¹⁵rLet them be before the Lord continually,

that he may scut off the memory of them from the earth!

¹⁶For he did not remember to show kindness,

but pursued tthe poor and needy

and uthe brokenhearted, to put them to death.

¹⁷vHe loved to curse; let curses come2 upon him!

He did not delight in blessing; may it be far3 from him!

¹⁸He wclothed himself with cursing as his coat;

may it xsoak4 into his body like water,

like oil into his bones!

¹⁹May it be like a garment that he wraps around him,

like a belt that he puts on every day!

²⁰May this be the reward of my yaccusers from the Lord,

of those who speak evil against my life!

²¹But you, O God my Lord,

deal on my behalf zfor your name's sake;

because your asteadfast love is good, deliver me!

²²For I am bpoor and needy,

and my heart is stricken within me.

²³I am gone like ca shadow at evening;

I am dshaken off like a locust.

²⁴My knees are weak ethrough fasting;

my fbody has become gaunt, with no fat.

²⁵I am gan object of scorn to my accusers;

when they see me, they hwag their heads.

²⁶iHelp me, O Lord my God!

Save me according to your steadfast love!

²⁷Let them jknow that this is your hand;

you, O Lord, have done it!

²⁸kLet them curse, but you will bless!

They arise and are put to shame, but lyour servant will be glad!

²⁹May my accusers be mclothed with dishonor;

may they nbe wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak!

³⁰With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord;

I will opraise him in the midst of the throng.

³¹For he stands pat the right hand of the needy one,

to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.

Israel Refined for God's Glory

¹Hear this, O house of Jacob,

dwho are called by the name of Israel,

and ewho came from the waters of Judah,

fwho swear by the name of the Lord

and confess the God of Israel,

but not in truth or right.

²For they call themselves after the holy city,

gand stay themselves on the God of Israel;

the Lord of hosts is his name.

³“The former things hI declared of old;

they went out from my mouth, and I announced them;

then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.

⁴Because I know that iyou are obstinate,

and your neck is an iron sinew

and your forehead brass,

⁵hI declared them to you from of old,

before they came to pass I announced them to you,

lest you should say, j‘My idol did them,

my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’

⁶“You have heard; now see all this;

and will you not declare it?

From this time forth kI announce to you new things,

hidden things that you have not known.

⁷They are created now, not long ago;

before today you have never heard of them,

lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’

⁸You have never heard, you have never known,

from of old your ear has not been opened.

For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously,

and that lfrom before birth you were called a rebel.

⁹m“For my name's sake I defer my anger;

for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,

that I may not cut you off.

¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, nbut not as silver;

oI have tried1 you in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹pFor my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,

for how should my name2 be profaned?

qMy glory I will not give to another.

The Lord's Call to Israel

¹²“Listen to me, O Jacob,

and Israel, whom I called!

I am he; rI am the first,

and I am the last.

¹³My hand slaid the foundation of the earth,

and my right hand sspread out the heavens;

twhen I call to them,

they stand forth together.

¹⁴“Assemble, all of you, and listen!

uWho among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him;

vhe shall perform his purpose on Babylon,

and his arm shall be against wthe Chaldeans.

¹⁵xI, even I, have spoken and called him;

I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

¹⁶yDraw near to me, hear this:

from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,

from the time it came to be I have been there.”

And now zthe Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.

¹⁷Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.

¹⁸aOh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

bThen your peace would have been like a river,

and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;

¹⁹cyour offspring would have been like the sand,

and your descendants like its grains;

their name would never be cut off

or destroyed from before me.”

²⁰dGo out from Babylon, flee from eChaldea,

declare this fwith a shout of joy, proclaim it,

send it out to the end of the earth;

say, g“The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

²¹hThey did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;

ihe made water flow for them from the rock;

he split the rock and the water gushed out.

²²j“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

The Fall of Babylon

¹After this I saw nanother angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and othe earth was made bright with his glory. ²And he called out with a mighty voice,

p“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!

She has become qa dwelling place for demons,

a haunt rfor every unclean spirit,

a haunt sfor every unclean bird,

a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.

³For all nations have drunk1

tthe wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,

and uthe kings of the earth have committed immorality with her,

and vthe merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”

⁴Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,

w“Come out of her, my people,

lest you take part in her sins,

lest you share in her plagues;

⁵for xher sins are heaped high as heaven,

and yGod has remembered her iniquities.

⁶zPay her back as she herself has paid back others,

and repay her adouble for her deeds;

mix a double portion for her bin the cup she mixed.

⁷cAs she glorified herself and lived in luxury,

so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,

since in her heart she says,

d‘I sit as a queen,

I am no widow,

and mourning I shall never see.’

⁸For this reason her plagues will come ein a single day,

death and mourning and famine,

and fshe will be burned up with fire;

for gmighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”

⁹And hthe kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, iwill weep and wail over her jwhen they see the smoke of her burning. ¹⁰kThey will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,

“Alas! Alas! lYou great city,

you mighty city, Babylon!

For min a single hour your judgment has come.”

¹¹And nthe merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, ¹²cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, ¹³cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.2

¹⁴“The fruit for which your soul longed

has gone from you,

and all your delicacies and your splendors

are lost to you,

never to be found again!”

¹⁵oThe merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, pwill stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,

¹⁶“Alas, alas, for the great city

qthat was clothed in fine linen,

in purple and scarlet,

adorned with gold,

with jewels, and with pearls!

¹⁷For rin a single hour all this wealth shas been laid waste.”

And tall shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off ¹⁸and ucried out vas they saw the smoke of her burning,

w“What city was like the great city?”

¹⁹And they threw xdust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out,

“Alas, alas, for the great city

ywhere all who had ships at sea

grew rich by her wealth!

For zin a single hour she has been laid waste.

²⁰aRejoice over her, O heaven,

and you saints and bapostles and prophets,

for cGod has given judgment for you against her!”

²¹Then da mighty angel etook up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,

“So will Babylon fthe great city be thrown down with violence,

and will be found no more;

²²and gthe sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters,

will be heard in you no more,

and a craftsman of any craft

will be found in you no more,

and hthe sound of the mill

will be heard in you no more,

²³and the light of a lamp

will shine in you no more,

and ithe voice of bridegroom and bride

will be heard in you no more,

for jyour merchants were the great ones of the earth,

and all nations were deceived kby your sorcery.

²⁴And lin her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,

and of mall who have been slain on earth.”