Boundaries of the Land

¹The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter athe land of Canaan b(this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders), ³cyour south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin alongside Edom, and your southern border shall run from the end of dthe Salt Sea on the east. ⁴And your border shall turn south of ethe ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it shall go on to eHazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon. ⁵And the border shall turn ffrom Azmon to gthe Brook of Egypt, and its limit shall be at the sea.

⁶“For the western border, you shall have the Great Sea and its1 coast. This shall be your western border.

⁷“This shall be your northern border: from the Great Sea you shall draw a line to hMount Hor. ⁸From Mount Hor you shall draw a line ito Lebo-hamath, and the limit of the border shall be at jZedad. ⁹Then the border shall extend to Ziphron, and its limit shall be at kHazar-enan. This shall be your northern border.

¹⁰“You shall draw a line for your eastern border from Hazar-enan to Shepham. ¹¹And the border shall go down from Shepham to lRiblah on the east side of Ain. And the border shall go down and reach to the shoulder of mthe Sea of Chinnereth on the east. ¹²And the border shall go down to the Jordan, and its limit shall be at nthe Salt Sea. This shall be your land as defined by its borders all around.”

¹³Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying, o“This is the land that you shall inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine tribes and to the half-tribe. ¹⁴pFor the tribe of the people of Reuben by fathers' houses and the tribe of the people of Gad by their fathers' houses have received their inheritance, and also the half-tribe of Manasseh. ¹⁵The two tribes and the half-tribe have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, toward the sunrise.”

List of Tribal Chiefs

¹⁶The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁷“These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: qEleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. ¹⁸You shall take one rchief from every tribe to divide the land for inheritance. ¹⁹These are the names of the men: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. ²⁰Of the tribe of the people of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud. ²¹Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon. ²²Of the tribe of the people of Dan a chief, Bukki the son of Jogli. ²³Of the people of Joseph: of the tribe of the people of Manasseh a chief, Hanniel the son of Ephod. ²⁴And of the tribe of the people of Ephraim a chief, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan. ²⁵Of the tribe of the people of Zebulun a chief, Elizaphan the son of Parnach. ²⁶Of the tribe of the people of Issachar a chief, Paltiel the son of Azzan. ²⁷And of the tribe of the people of Asher a chief, Ahihud the son of Shelomi. ²⁸Of the tribe of the people of Naphtali a chief, Pedahel the son of Ammihud.” ²⁹These are the men whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance for the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.

³⁸Yet he, being ocompassionate,

patoned for their iniquity

and did not destroy them;

he restrained his anger often

and did not stir up all his wrath.

³⁹He qremembered that they were but rflesh,

sa wind that passes and comes not again.

⁴⁰How often they trebelled against him in the wilderness

and ugrieved him in vthe desert!

⁴¹They wtested God again and again

and provoked xthe Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They ydid not remember his power5

or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,

⁴³zwhen he performed his asigns in Egypt

and his bmarvels in cthe fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴He dturned their rivers to blood,

so that they could not drink of their streams.

⁴⁵He sent among them swarms of eflies, which devoured them,

and ffrogs, which destroyed them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to gthe destroying locust

and the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hhail

and their sycamores with frost.

⁴⁸He gave over their icattle to the hail

and their flocks to thunderbolts.

⁴⁹He let loose on them his burning anger,

wrath, indignation, and distress,

a company of jdestroying angels.

⁵⁰He made a path for his anger;

he did not spare them from death,

but gave their lives over to the plague.

⁵¹He struck down every kfirstborn in Egypt,

the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of lHam.

⁵²Then he led out his people mlike sheep

and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

⁵³nHe led them in safety, so that they owere not afraid,

but pthe sea overwhelmed their enemies.

⁵⁴And he brought them to his qholy land,

rto the mountain which his right hand had swon.

⁵⁵He tdrove out nations before them;

he uapportioned them for a possession

and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶Yet they vtested and wrebelled against the Most High God

and did not keep his testimonies,

⁵⁷but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers;

they twisted like xa deceitful bow.

⁵⁸For they yprovoked him to anger with their zhigh places;

they amoved him to jealousy with their bidols.

⁵⁹When God heard, he was full of cwrath,

and he utterly rejected Israel.

⁶⁰He dforsook his dwelling at eShiloh,

the tent where he dwelt among mankind,

⁶¹and delivered his fpower to captivity,

his gglory to the hand of the foe.

⁶²He hgave his people over to the sword

and ivented his wrath on his heritage.

⁶³jFire devoured their young men,

and their young women had no kmarriage song.

⁶⁴Their lpriests fell by the sword,

and their mwidows made no lamentation.

⁶⁵Then the Lord nawoke as from sleep,

like a strong man shouting because of wine.

⁶⁶And he oput his adversaries to rout;

he put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷He rejected the tent of pJoseph;

he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,

⁶⁸but he chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which he qloves.

⁶⁹He rbuilt his sanctuary like the high heavens,

like the earth, which he has founded forever.

⁷⁰He schose David his servant

and took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹from tfollowing the nursing ewes he brought him

to ushepherd Jacob his people,

Israel his vinheritance.

⁷²With wupright heart he shepherded them

and xguided them with his skillful hand.

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

¹In that day ethis song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

he sets up fsalvation

as walls and bulwarks.

²gOpen the gates,

that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

³hYou keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

⁵iFor he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height,

the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

casts it to the dust.

⁶The foot tramples it,

the feet of jthe poor,

the steps of jthe needy.”

⁷The path of the righteous is level;

kyou make level the way of the righteous.

⁸In the path of your judgments,

O Lord, we wait for you;

lyour name and lremembrance

are the desire of our soul.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night;

my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

mFor when your judgments are in the earth,

the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰nIf favor is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness;

in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

and does not see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹O Lord, oyour hand is lifted up,

but pthey do not see it.

Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

Let qthe fire for your adversaries consume them.

¹²O Lord, you will ordain rpeace for us,

for you have indeed done for us all our works.

¹³O Lord our God,

sother lords besides you have ruled over us,

tbut your name alone we bring to remembrance.

¹⁴They are dead, they will not live;

they are shades, they will not arise;

to that end you have visited them with destruction

and wiped out all remembrance of them.

¹⁵uBut you have increased the nation, O Lord,

you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

vyou have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶O Lord, win distress they sought you;

they poured out a whispered prayer

when your discipline was upon them.

¹⁷xLike a pregnant woman

who writhes and cries out in her pangs

when she is near to giving birth,

so were we because of you, O Lord;

¹⁸xwe were pregnant, we writhed,

but we have given birth to wind.

We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

¹⁹yYour dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For zyour dew is a dew of light,

and the earth will give birth to the dead.

²⁰Come, my people, enter your chambers,

and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves afor a little while

until the fury has passed by.

²¹bFor behold, the Lord is coming out from his place

to punish the inhabitants of cthe earth for their iniquity,

and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

and will no more cover its slain.

Test the Spirits

¹Beloved, tdo not believe every spirit, but utest the spirits to see whether they are from God, for vmany wfalse prophets xhave gone out into the world. ²By this you know the Spirit of God: yevery spirit that confesses that zJesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit athat does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and bnow is in the world already. ⁴Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for che who is in you is greater than dhe who is in the world. ⁵eThey are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and fthe world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. gWhoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know hthe Spirit of truth and ithe spirit of error.

God Is Love

⁷Beloved, jlet us love one another, for love is from God, and kwhoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸lAnyone who does not love does not know God, because mGod is love. ⁹In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that nGod sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, onot that we have loved God nbut that he loved us and sent his Son to be pthe propitiation for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²qNo one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and rhis love is perfected in us.

¹³sBy this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And twe have seen and testify that uthe Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of vthe world. ¹⁵wWhoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶So xwe have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. yGod is love, and zwhoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷By this ais love perfected with us, so that bwe may have confidence for the day of judgment, because cas he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but dperfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not abeen perfected in love. ¹⁹eWe love because he first loved us. ²⁰fIf anyone says, “I love God,” and ghates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot1 love God hwhom he has not seen. ²¹And ithis commandment we have from him: jwhoever loves God must also love his brother.