16“Observe the month of Abib, and you shall keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out from Egypt by night. ²And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to Yahweh your God from among your flock and herd at the place that Yahweh will choose, to let his name dwell there. ³You shall not eat with it^a anything leavened; seven days you shall eat with it^b unleavened bread of affliction, because in haste you went out from the land of Egypt, so that you will remember the day of your going out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life. ⁴And leaven shall not be seen with^c you in any of your territory^d for seven days, and none of the meat that you will slaughter on the evening on the first day shall remain overnight until morning. ⁵You are not allowed to offer the Passover sacrifice in one of your towns^e that Yahweh your God is giving to you, ⁶but only at the place that Yahweh your God will choose, to let his name dwell there; you shall offer the Passover sacrifice in the evening at sunset,^f at the designated time^g of your going out from Egypt. ⁷And you shall cook, and you shall eat it at the place that Yahweh your God will choose; and you may turn in the morning and go to your tents. ⁸Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be an assembly for Yahweh your God; you shall not do work.

⁹“You shall count off seven weeks for you; from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain^h you shall begin to count seven weeks. ¹⁰And then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks for Yahweh your God with the measure of the freewill offering of your hand that you shall give just as Yahweh your God has blessed you. ¹¹And you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you and your son and your daughter and your slave and your slave woman and the Levite that is in your townsⁱ and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst in the place that Yahweh your God will choose to let his name dwell there. ¹²And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and so you shall diligently observe^j these rules.

¹³“You shall celebrate the Feast of Booths for yourselves^k seven days at the gathering in of the produce^l from your threshing floor and from your press; ¹⁴and you shall rejoice at your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your slave and your slave woman and the Levite and the alien and the orphan and the widow that are in your towns.^m ¹⁵Seven days you shall celebrate your feast to Yahweh your God at the place Yahweh will choose, for Yahweh your God shall bless you in all of your produceⁿ and in all of the work of your hand, and you shall surely be rejoicing.^o ¹⁶Three times in the year all of your males shall appear before ^p Yahweh your God at the place that he will choose, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before Yahweh^q empty-handed. ¹⁷Each person shall give as he is able,^r that is, according to the blessing of Yahweh your God that he has given to you.

¹⁸“You shall appoint judges and officials for you in all your towns^s that Yahweh your God is giving to you throughout your tribes, and you shall render for the people righteous judgments.^t ¹⁹You shall not subvert^u justice; you shall not show partiality;^v and you shall not take a bribe, for the bribe makes blind the eyes of the wise and misrepresents the words of the righteous. ²⁰Justice, only justice^w you shall pursue, so that you may live, and you shall take possession of the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you. ²¹You shall not plant for yourselves^x an Asherah pole^y beside the altar of Yahweh your God that you make for yourselves.^z ²²And you shall not set up for yourselves a stone pillar, a thing that Yahweh your God hates.

17“You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or sheep that has a physical defect^a of anything seriously wrong,^b for that is a detestable thing to Yahweh your God. ²If there is found in one of your towns^c that Yahweh your God is giving to you a man or a woman that does evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God to transgress his covenant ³and by going and serving other gods and so he bows down to them and to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of heaven which I have forbidden,^d ⁴and it is reported to you or you hear about it and you enquire about it thoroughly and, indeed,^e the trustworthiness of the deed^f has been established, it has occurred,^g this detestable thing, in Israel, ⁵then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has^h done this evil thing to your gates; that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them with stones to death.ⁱ ⁶On the evidence of^j two or three witnesses the person shall be put to death.^k The person^l shall not be put to death by the mouth of one witness. ⁷The hand of the witnesses shall be first against the person^m to kill the person,ⁿ and afterward the hands^o of all the people, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

⁸“If a matter is too difficult for you,^p for example disputes between blood and blood,^q between legal claim and legal claim^r and between assault and assault^s and between matters of discernment in your towns,^t then you shall get up and you shall go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose; ⁹then you shall go to the priests and the Levites and to the judge who will be in office in those days, and you shall enquire, and they shall announce to you the verdict.^u

¹⁰“And you shall carry out exactly the decision^v that they announced to you from that place that Yahweh will choose, and you shall diligently observe^w according to all that they instruct you. ¹¹And so according to the instruction of the law^x that they teach you and according to the decisions that they say to you, you shall do; you shall not turn from the word that they tell you to the right or to the left. ¹²And the man who treats with contempt^y so as not to listen to the priest who is standing to minister on behalf of Yahweh your God or to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. ¹³And all the people will hear and will be afraid, and they will not behave presumptuously again.

¹⁴“When you have come to that land that Yahweh your God is giving to you and you have taken possession of it and you have settled in it, and you say, ‘I will set over me a king like all the nations that are around me,’ ¹⁵indeed, you may set a king over you whom Yahweh your God will choose, from the midst of your countrymen^z you must set a king over you; you are not allowed to appoint over you a man, a foreigner, who is not your countryman.^a ¹⁶Except, he may not make numerous^b for himself horses, and he may not allow the people to to go to Egypt in order to increase horses,^c for Yahweh has said to you that you may never return.^d ¹⁷And he must not acquire many^e wives for himself, so that his heart would turn aside; and he must not accumulate silver and gold for himself excessively.^f

¹⁸“And then^g when he is sitting^h on the throne of his kingdom, then he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll beforeⁱ the Levitical priests. ¹⁹And it shall be with him, and he shall read it^j all the days of his life, so that he may learn to revere Yahweh your God by diligently observing^k all the word of this law and these rules, ²⁰so as not to exalt his heart above his countrymen^l and not to turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, so that he may reign long over his kingdom,^m he and his children in the midst of Israel.”

18“And there shall not be for the Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, a plot of ground and an inheritance with Israel, rather they may eat an offering made by fire as their inheritance,^a for Yahweh. ²And there shall not be for them^b an inheritance of land in the midst of his brothers; rather Yahweh is his inheritance, just as he promised^c to them.^d

³Now this shall be the share of the priest from the people, from those who sacrifice the sacrifice,^e whether it is an ox, sheep, or goat, and they shall give the priest the shoulder and the jawbones and the stomach. ⁴The firstfruits^f of your grain, your wine, and your olive oil and the firstfruits^g of the fleece of your sheep you shall give to him. ⁵For Yahweh your God has chosen him from among all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of Yahweh, he and his sons forever.^h

⁶And if aⁱ Levite comes from one of your towns^j from anywhere in Israel^k where he is residing, he may come whenever he desires,^l to the place that Yahweh will choose, ⁷and he may minister in the name of Yahweh his God, just like all his brothers, the Levites who stand there^m beforeⁿ Yahweh. ⁸They shall eat equal portions,^o apart from what he may receive from the sale of his patrimony.^p

⁹“When you come to the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, you must not learn to do like the detestable practices of those nations. ¹⁰There shall not be found among you one who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or one who practices divination,^q or an interpreter of signs,^r or an augur,^s or sorcerer, ¹¹or one who casts magic spells, or one who consults a spirit of the dead,^t or spiritist, or one who inquires of the dead.^u ¹²For everyone doing these things is detestable to Yahweh, and because of these detestable things Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you.^v ¹³You must be blameless before Yahweh your God. ¹⁴For these nations that you are about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs^w and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same.

¹⁵“Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your countrymen,^x and to him you shall listen. ¹⁶This is according to all that you asked^y from Yahweh your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, saying,^z ‘I do not want again to hear^a the voice of Yahweh my God, and I do not want to see again this great fire, so that I may not…

Read in Logos

This passage has been shortened. Keep reading Deuteronomy 16–19 in Logos

Footnotes

aLiterally “in addition to” or “upon it”
bLiterally “in addition to” or “upon it”
cOr “for”
dOr “all of” your territory
eLiterally “gates”
fLiterally “in the evening as the sun goes/sets”
gThe Hebrew word here indicates the specific time that God had chosen to bring Israel out of Egypt
hLiterally “from the beginning of the sickle against the standing grain”
iLiterally “gates”
jLiterally “you shall observe and do”
kHebrew “for you”
lLiterally “at your gathering of the produce”
mLiterally “gates”
nOr “increase”
oOr “joyful”
pLiterally “with the face of”
qLiterally “with the face of Yahweh”
rLiterally “according to the gift of his hand”
sLiterally “gates”
tLiterally “a judgment based on righteousness”
uOr “distort/pervert”
vLiterally “recognize faces”
wLiterally “justice justice”
xHebrew “for/to you” but with collective meaning
yLiterally “an Asherah of any wood/tree”
zHebrew “for/to you” but with collective meaning
aLiterally “that is on it a physical defect”
bLiterally “of any thing bad/evil”
cLiterally “gates”
dLiterally “which not I have commanded”
eOr “look!”
fHebrew “the thing”
gLiterally “has been done”
hHebrew “have”
iLiterally “and so they die”
jLiterally “By the mouth of”
kLiterally “he/she shall be put to death, the dead person”
lHebrew “he/she”
mHebrew “him”
nHebrew “him”
oHebrew “hand”
pLiterally “If is difficult/wonderful from you a thing for judgment”
qOr “between one homicide and another”
rOr “one kind of lawsuit and another”
sOr “one kind of abuse and another”
tLiterally “gates”
uLiterally “the word of the decision”
vLiterally “and you shall do according to the mouth of the word”
wLiterally “and you shall observe and do”
xLiterally “mouth of the law”
yOr “acts presumptuously”
zOr “brothers”
aOr “brother”
bLiterally “not multiply”
cLiterally “in order to make numerous horse”
dLiterally “not you may do again to return”
eOr “make numerous”
fLiterally “gold and silver not he must make numerous for him very”
gLiterally “And it shall happen”
hLiterally “as/when his sitting”
iLiterally “to the face of”
jHebrew “in it”
kLiterally “by keeping ... to do them”
lOr “brothers”
mLiterally “he may make long his days over his kingdom”
aThe meaning of the Hebrew text here is uncertain; possibly it reads: “rather an offering by fire then they will eat as their inheritance/patrimony”
bHebrew “him”
cLiterally “spoke”
dHebrew “him”
eLiterally “the sacrificers of the sacrifice”
fHebrew “firstfruit”
gHebrew “firstfruit”
hLiterally “all of the days”
iHebrew “the”
jLiterally “gates”
kLiterally “all of Israel”
lLiterally “he may come in all the desire of his soul/inner self”
mLiterally “the Levites the ones standing there”
nLiterally “to the face of”
oLiterally “a portion like a portion”
pHebrew meaning of these phrases/words is not certain; also could translate as “except what they receive from the sale of their fathers’ estates” (NASB); or “what he may inherit from his father’s family”
qLiterally “a diviner of divination”
rOr “soothsayer”
sOr “an interpreter of omens”
tOr “medium”
uOr “necromancer”
vLiterally “the face of you”
wOr “practice witchcraft”
xOr “your brothers”
yLiterally “just as all of that you asked”
zLiterally “to say”
aLiterally “not I want to do again to hear”