DEUTERONOMY 11

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Love and Serve the Lord  11:1 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2 And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day, 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. 7 For your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord that he did.
    8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
    13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
    18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
    26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. 29 And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh? 31 For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, 32 you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

DEUTERONOMY 12

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The Lord’s Chosen Place of Worship  12:1 “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6 and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
    8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
    15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, 18 but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. 19 Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.
    20 “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. 21 If the place that the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22 Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. 26 But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, 27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. Warning Against Idolatry29 “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ 31 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
    32 “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

PROVERBS 23

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23:1

When you sit down to eat with a ruler,

observe carefully what is before you, 2

and put a knife to your throat

if you are given to appetite. 3

Do not desire his delicacies,

for they are deceptive food. 4

Do not toil to acquire wealth;

be discerning enough to desist. 5

When your eyes light on it, it is gone,

for suddenly it sprouts wings,

flying like an eagle toward heaven. 6

Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;

do not desire his delicacies, 7

for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.

“Eat and drink!” he says to you,

but his heart is not with you. 8

You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten,

and waste your pleasant words. 9

Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,

for he will despise the good sense of your words. 10

Do not move an ancient landmark

or enter the fields of the fatherless, 11

for their Redeemer is strong;

he will plead their cause against you. 12

Apply your heart to instruction

and your ear to words of knowledge. 13

Do not withhold discipline from a child;

if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14

If you strike him with the rod,

you will save his soul from Sheol. 15

My son, if your heart is wise,

my heart too will be glad. 16

My inmost being will exult

when your lips speak what is right. 17

Let not your heart envy sinners,

but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day. 18

Surely there is a future,

and your hope will not be cut off.
19

Hear, my son, and be wise,

and direct your heart in the way. 20

Be not among drunkards

or among gluttonous eaters of meat, 21

for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,

and slumber will clothe them with rags.
22

Listen to your father who gave you life,

and do not despise your mother when she is old. 23

Buy truth, and do not sell it;

buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. 24

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;

he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. 25

Let your father and mother be glad;

let her who bore you rejoice.
26

My son, give me your heart,

and let your eyes observe my ways. 27

For a prostitute is a deep pit;

an adulteress is a narrow well. 28

She lies in wait like a robber

and increases the traitors among mankind.
29

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?

Who has strife? Who has complaining?

Who has wounds without cause?

Who has redness of eyes? 30

Those who tarry long over wine;

those who go to try mixed wine. 31

Do not look at wine when it is red,

when it sparkles in the cup

and goes down smoothly. 32

In the end it bites like a serpent

and stings like an adder. 33

Your eyes will see strange things,

and your heart utter perverse things. 34

You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,

like one who lies on the top of a mast. 35

“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;

they beat me, but I did not feel it.

When shall I awake?

I must have another drink.”

PSALM 34

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Taste and See That the Lord Is Good Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.
34:1

I will bless the Lord at all times;

his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

let the humble hear and be glad. 3

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

and let us exalt his name together!
4

I sought the Lord, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears. 5

Those who look to him are radiant,

and their faces shall never be ashamed. 6

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him

and saved him out of all his troubles. 7

The angel of the Lord encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! 9

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,

for those who fear him have no lack! 10

The young lions suffer want and hunger;

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11

Come, O children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 12

What man is there who desires life

and loves many days, that he may see good? 13

Keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from speaking deceit. 14

Turn away from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.
15

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous

and his ears toward their cry. 16

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,

to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears

and delivers them out of all their troubles. 18

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted

and saves the crushed in spirit.
19

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

but the Lord delivers him out of them all. 20

He keeps all his bones;

not one of them is broken. 21

Affliction will slay the wicked,

and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22

The Lord redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.