Chapter 23

1; He being wounded, crushed, or cut in his male member shall not enter into the assembly of YAHWEH.

 

2; An illegitimate child shall not enter into the congregation of YAHWEH, even to the tenth generation none of his shall enter into the assembly of YAHWEH.

 

3; An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of YAHWEH; even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the assembly of YAHWEH, perpetually;

 

4; because they did not meet you with bread and with water in the way when you came out of Egypt; and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor, from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

 

5; But YAHWEH your Elohim would not listen to Balaam, and YAHWEH your Elohim turned the curse into a blessing to you, because YAHWEH your Elohim loved you.

 

6; You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days, perpetually.

 

7; You shall not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not despise an Egyptian, for you were an alien in his land;

 

8; sons of the third generation that are born to them may enter into the assembly of YAHWEH.

 

9; When you go forth into camp against your enemies, then keep yourself from every evil thing.

 

10; If there is among you any man who is not clean because of a discharge at night, then he shall go to the outside of the camp; he shall not come in to the middle of the camp.

 

11; And it shall be, as evening is turning, he shall bathe with water, and as the sun is going, he shall come into the middle of the camp.

 

12; Also you shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out there.

 

13; And you shall have a tool on your staff. And it shall be, as you sit outside, you shall dig with it, and shall turn back, and shall cover that which comes from you.

 

14; For YAHWEH your Elohim walks in the middle of your camp to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you; therefore your camp shall be set-apart, so that He may see no unclean thing in you, and turn away from you.

 

15; You shall not hand over to his master a slave that has escaped from his master to you.

 

16; He shall live with you, among you, in the place which he chooses inside one of your gates, wherever it is good to him. You shall not oppress him.

 

17; There shall be no harlot among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a homosexual among the sons of Israel.

 

18; You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute, or the price of a dog, into the house of YAHWEH your Elohim for any vow; for even both of these are an abomination to YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

19; You shall not lend at interest to your brother; interest of silver, interest of food, interest of anything loaned at interest.

 

20; To a stranger you may lend at interest, but you shall not lend at interest to your brother, so that YAHWEH your Elohim may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land where you go to possess it.

 

21; When you shall vow a vow to YAHWEH your Elohim, you shall not delay to perform it; for YAHWEH your Elohim will certainly require it of you, and it shall be sin to you.

 

22; But if you shall forebear to vow, it shall be no sin to you.

 

23; That which has gone out of your lips, you shall keep, and shall do it. According as you have vowed as a freewill offering to YAHWEH your Elohim, do even that which you have spoken with your mouth.

 

24; When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, then you may eat grapes to your fill, at your pleasure. But you shall not put any in your vessel.

 

25; When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, then you may pluck heads with your hand; but you shall not move a sickle into your neighbor's standing grain.

 

Chapter 24

1; When a man has taken a wife and married her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found a thing of uncleanness in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house;

 

2; and if she goes out from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife,

 

3; and the latter husband hates her, and writes her a bill of divorce, and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house or if the latter husband who took her to be his wife dies;

 

4; her former husband who sent her away is not to take her again to be his wife, after she is defiled. For it is an abomination before YAHWEH, and you shall not cause the land to sin which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you as an inheritance.

 

5; When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, and he shall not be given any thing to do. He shall be free at his own house for one year, and shall gladden his wife whom he has taken.

 

6; No one shall take in pledge the lower and upper millstone, for he is taking a man's life to pledge.

 

7; If a man is found stealing a person of his brothers of the sons of Israel, and has dealt with him as a slave, and sold him, then that thief shall die. And you shall put away the evil from among you.

 

8; Be on guard in the plague of leprosy, that you watch closely and do according to all that the Levitical priests shall teach you. As I instructed them, so you shall be careful to do.

 

9; Remember that which YAHWEH your Elohim did to Miriam in the way, as you came out of Egypt.

 

10; When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.

 

11; You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside to you.

 

12; And if the man is poor, you shall not sleep with his pledge.

 

13; You shall certainly give back the pledge to him at sundown; and he shall lie down in his own clothing, and shall bless you. And it shall be righteousness to you before YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

14; You shall not oppress a poor and needy hired servant, of your brothers or of your aliens who are in your land, within your gates.

 

15; In the same day you shall give him his hire; do not let the sun go down on it. For he is poor, and has lifted up his heart on it; that he not cry against you to YAHWEH, and it be sin against you.

 

16; The fathers shall not be executed for sons, and sons shall not be executed for fathers; they each shall be executed for his own sin.

 

17; You shall not pervert judgment of an alien, or of an orphan; and you shall not take a widow's garment as pledge.

 

18; But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and YAHWEH your Elohim redeemed you from there. For that reason I instruct you to do this thing.

 

19; When you cut down your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not turn back to take it. It shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow; so that YAHWEH your Elohim shall bless you in all the work of your hand.

 

20; When you beat your olive tree, you shall not search the branch behind you. It shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.

 

21; When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward. It shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.

 

22; And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. On account of this I am instructing you to do this thing.

 

Chapter 25

1; If there is a contention between men, and they come to judgment, and they have been judged, and the righteous one is declared righteous, and the wrongdoer declared guilty;

 

2; then it shall be, if the wrongdoer is a son of stripes, the judge shall cause him to fall down. And one shall strike him before his face, enough for his wickedness, by number.

 

3; He may give him forty stripes; he shall not add more, lest, if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then your brother would be dishonored before your eyes.

 

4; You shall not muzzle an ox when he is treading out grain.

 

5; If brothers live together, and one of them dies, and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not go outside to a strange man; her brother-in-law shall go in to her, and take her to himself for a wife, and shall perform the duty of the levirate;

 

6; and it shall be, the first-born which she bears shall rise up for his dead brother's name, and his name shall not be wiped out of Israel.

 

7; And if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and say, My husband's brother is refusing to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he has not been willing to perform the duty of my levirate.

 

8; And the elders of his city shall call for him and shall speak to him. And he shall stand and say, I have no desire to take her.

 

9; Then his brother's wife shall draw near to him before the elders, and shall take his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So it shall be done to the man who will not build up the house of his brother.

 

10; And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him whose shoe was taken off.

 

11; When men fight together, a man and his brother, and the wife of the one shall come near to deliver her husband from his assailant's hand, and shall put out her hand and lay hold on his genitals,

 

12; then you shall cut off her palm; your eye shall not pity.

 

13; You shall not have in your bag a stone and a stone weight, a great and a small.

 

14; You shall not have in your house an ephah and an ephah, a great and a small.

 

15; You shall have a perfect and just weight; you shall have a perfect and just ephah; so that they prolong your days in the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you.

 

16; For anyone doing these things is hateful to YAHWEH your Elohim, everyone doing unrighteousness.

 

17; Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came forth out of Egypt;

 

18; how he met you on the way and attacked your back, all the feeble ones in the rear, when you were faint and weary; and he did not rever Elohim.

 

19; And it shall be, when YAHWEH your Elohim gives you rest from all your enemies all around in the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens; you shall not forget.

 

Chapter 26

1; And it shall be, when you have come into the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you as an inheritance, and you have possessed it, and live in it;

 

2; then you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you shall bring in from your land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you, and shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which YAHWEH your Elohim shall choose to cause His name to dwell there.

 

3; And you shall come to the priest who is in those days, and shall say to him, I declare today to YAHWEH your Elohim that I have come into the land which YAHWEH has sworn to our fathers to give to us.

 

4; And the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and place it before the altar of YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

5; And you shall speak and say before YAHWEH your Elohim, My father was a perishing Aramean! And he went down to Egypt with few men, and lived there, and became a nation there, great, mighty and many.

 

6; And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and put hard labor on us.

 

7; And we cried to YAHWEH, the Elohim of our fathers, and YAHWEH heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression.

 

8; And YAHWEH brought us out from Egypt by a mighty hand, and by an arm stretched out, and by great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders.

 

9; And He has brought us to this place, and has given to us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

 

10; And now, behold, I have brought in the first of the fruits of the ground which You have given me, O YAHWEH. And you shall place it before YAHWEH your Elohim, and bow yourself before YAHWEH your Elohim,

 

11; and rejoice in all the good which YAHWEH your Elohim has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the alien who is in your midst.

 

12; When you have made an end of tithing all the tithes of your increase the third year, the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the orphan, and the widow, that they may eat inside your gates, and be filled,

 

13; then you shall say before YAHWEH your Elohim, I have consumed the devoted things from the house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the alien, to the orphan, and to the widow, according to all Your mitzvot which You have instructed me. I have not transgressed Your mitzvot, and I have not forgotten.

 

14; I have not eaten of it in my mourning; nor have I put any of it away for uncleanness; nor have I given of it for the dead. I have listened to the voice of

YAHWEH my Elohim. I have done according to all that You have instructed me.

 

15; Look down from Your set-apart habitation, from Heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given to us, as You swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

 

16; Today YAHWEH your Elohim instructs you to do these statutes and judgments. You shall be careful to do them with all your heart, and with all your soul.

 

17; You have today declared YAHWEH to be your Elohim, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes and His mitzvot, and His judgments, and to pay attention to His voice.

 

18; And YAHWEH has declared you today to be His people, a special treasure as He has spoken to you, and to keep all His mitzvot.

 

19; And He will make you high above all nations that He has made, in praise, and in name, and in glory; and that you may be a set-apart people to YAHWEH your Elohim, as He has spoken.

 

Chapter 27

1; And Moses and the elders of Israel instructed the people, saying, Keep all the mitzvot which I am instructing you today,

 

2; and it shall be in the day you cross over the Jordan to the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving to you, that you shall raise up for yourself great stones, and plaster them with plaster.

 

3; And you shall write on them all the Words of this Torah when you have crossed over, so that you may go into the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as YAHWEH the Elohim of your fathers has promised you.

 

4; And it shall be when you have crossed over the Jordan, that you shall raise up these stones as to which I am instructing you today, in Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster.

 

5; And you shall build an altar there to YAHWEH your Elohim, an altar of stones. You shall not wield any iron tool on them.

 

6; You shall build the altar of YAHWEH your Elohim of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

7; And you shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there. And you shall rejoice before YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

8; And you shall write on the stones all the Words of the Torah very plainly.

 

9; And Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying, Keep silence, and hear, O Israel: Today you have become the people of YAHWEH your Elohim.

 

10; Therefore you shall obey the voice of YAHWEH your Elohim and do His mitzvot and His statutes which I instruct you today.

 

11; And Moses charged the people the same day, saying,

 

12; These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin.

 

13; And these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

 

14; And the Levites shall answer, and shall say to all the men of Israel with a loud voice:

 

15; Cursed is the man who makes a carved and cast image, an abomination to YAHWEH, the work of a crafts-man's hands, and who sets it up in a secret place! And all the people shall answer and say, Amen!

 

16; Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

17; Cursed is he who removes his neighbor's landmark! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

18; Cursed is he who makes the blind to wander out of the way! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

19; Cursed is he who perverts the judgment of the alien, the fatherless, and widow! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

20; Cursed is he who lies with his father's wife, because he uncovers his father's skirt! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

21; Cursed is he who lies with any kind of animal! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

22; Cursed is he who lies with his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

23; Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

24; Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor secretly! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

25; Cursed is he who takes a bribe to strike a life, to shed innocent blood! And all the people shall say, Amen!

 

26; Cursed is he who does not carry out to do all the Words of this Torah, to do them! And all the people shall say, Amen!