Bible in a Year · Day 57 of 365
Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 16–18 (3 chapters)
Read the passage below, or open your own Bible and follow along. The text here is the World English Bible, a public-domain translation, printed in full so the day’s reading is all on one page.
About Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is Moses preaching. Israel is camped on the plains of Moab, the wilderness is behind them, and Moses is about to die. What follows is a series of sermons: remember what God did, keep the covenant, teach your children, and choose life. The law is restated for a generation that did not stand at Sinai, with the Shema at its heart, Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD. Moses also sets out the shape of Israel's future life in the land, including warnings about kings and exile. It reads like a farewell from a father who knows what forgetting will cost.
What to watch for. Watch the words remember and forget, and how often Moses grounds obedience in what God has already done rather than in what Israel promises to do.
Deuteronomy 16
1Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2You shall sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which Yahweh 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 out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came 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 meat, 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 Yahweh your God gives you;
6but at the place which Yahweh 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 out of Egypt. 7You shall roast and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents. 8Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to Yahweh 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 count seven weeks. 10You shall keep the feast of weeks to Yahweh your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as Yahweh your God blesses you.
11You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. 12You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. You shall observe and do these statutes. 13You shall keep the feast of tents seven days, after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and from your wine press. 14You shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates. 15You shall keep a feast to Yahweh your God seven days in the place which Yahweh chooses; because Yahweh 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 all of your males shall appear before Yahweh your God in the place which he chooses: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tents. They shall not appear before Yahweh empty. 17Every man shall give as he is able, according to Yahweh your God’s blessing which he has given you. 18You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. 19You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous. 20You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live, and inherit the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
21You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves. 22Neither shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which Yahweh your God hates.
Deuteronomy 17
1You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a defect, or anything evil; for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God. 2If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight, in transgressing his covenant, 3and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded; 4and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel, 5then you shall bring out that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to your gates, even that same man or woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.
6At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall 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 remove the evil from among 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 Yahweh your God chooses. 9You shall come to the priests who are Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict. 10You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which Yahweh chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you:
11according to the decisions 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 Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. 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 Yahweh your God gives you, and possess it, and dwell in it, and 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 Yahweh your God chooses. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. 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 Yahweh has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.” 17He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. 18It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites. 19It shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear Yahweh 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 middle of Israel.
Deuteronomy 18
1The priests the Levites, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the offerings of Yahweh made by fire and his portion. 2They shall have no inheritance among their brothers. Yahweh is their inheritance, as he has spoken to them. 3This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the inner parts. 4The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5For Yahweh your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand to minister in Yahweh’s name, him and his sons for ever.
6If a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he lives as a foreigner, and comes with all the desire of his soul to the place which Yahweh shall choose; 7then he shall minister in the name of Yahweh his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before Yahweh. 8They shall have like portions to eat, in addition to that which comes from the sale of his family possessions. 9When you have come into the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations. 10There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,
11or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh. Because of these abominations, Yahweh your God drives them out from before you. 13You shall be perfect with Yahweh your God. 14For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery and to diviners; but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you so to do. 15Yahweh your God will raise up to you a prophet from among you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him.
16This is according to all that you desired of Yahweh your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again Yahweh my God’s voice, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.” 17Yahweh said to me, “They have well said that which they have spoken. 18I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. 19It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 20But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”
21You may say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?” 22When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.
Next · Day 58: Deuteronomy 19–21 →
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public-domain translation. Day numbering follows the calendar year; you can start at Day 1 on any date.
