Through the Bible – Day 69

₁Moses stood together with the leaders and told the people of Israel:

Obey all the laws and teachings that I am giving you today. _2-4Soon you will enter the land that the LORD your God is giving to you. He is the God your ancestors worshipped, and he has promised that this land is rich with milk and honey.

After you cross the River Jordan, go to Mount Ebal. Set up large slabs of stone, then cover them with white plaster and write on them a copy of these laws.

₅At this same place, build an altar for offering sacrifices to the LORD your God. But don't use stones that have been cut with iron tools. ₆Look for stones that can be used without being cut. Then offer sacrifices to please the LORD, burning them completely on the altar. ₇Next, offer sacrifices to ask the LORD's blessing, and serve the meat at a sacred meal where you will celebrate in honour of the LORD.

₈Don't forget to write out a copy of these laws on the stone slabs that you are going to set up. Make sure that the writing is easy to read.

₉Moses stood together with the priests and said, “Israel, be quiet and listen to me! Today you have become the people of the LORD your God. ₁₀So you must obey his laws and teachings that I am giving you.”

₁₁That same day, Moses gave them the following instructions:

_12-13After you cross the River Jordan, you will go to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. The tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin will go up on Mount Gerizim, where they will bless the people of Israel. The tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali will go up on Mount Ebal where they will agree to the curses.

_14-26The people of the Levi tribe will speak each curse in a loud voice, then the rest of the people will agree to that curse by saying, “Amen!” Here are the curses:

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who makes an idol or worships idols, even secretly. The LORD is disgusted with idols.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on all who do not show respect for their father and mother.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who moves the rocks that mark boundaries.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who tells blind people to go the wrong way.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who keeps the poor from getting justice, whether these poor are foreigners, widows, or orphans.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on any man who sleeps with his father's wife; that man has shown no respect for his father's marriage.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who has sex with an animal.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on any man who sleeps with his sister or his half-sister or his mother-in-law.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who commits murder, even when there are no witnesses to the crime.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who accepts money to murder an innocent victim.

We ask the LORD to put a curse on anyone who refuses to obey his laws.

And so, to each of these curses, the people will answer, “Amen!”

_1-2Today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the LORD your God. Always obey them, and the LORD will make Israel the most famous and important nation on earth, and he will bless you in many ways.

₃The LORD will make your businesses and your farms successful.

₄You will have many children. You will harvest large crops, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats will produce many young.

₅You will have plenty of bread to eat.

₆The LORD will make you successful in your daily work.

₇The LORD will help you defeat your enemies and make them scatter in all directions.

₈The LORD your God is giving you the land, and he will make sure you are successful in everything you do. Your harvests will be so large that your storehouses will be full.

₉If you follow and obey the LORD, he will make you his own special people, just as he promised. ₁₀Then everyone on earth will know that you belong to the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.

₁₁The LORD will give you a lot of children and make sure that your animals give birth to many young. The LORD promised your ancestors that this land would be yours, and he will make it produce large crops for you.

₁₂The LORD will open the storehouses of the skies where he keeps the rain, and he will send rain on your land at just the right times. He will make you successful in everything you do. You will have plenty of money to lend to other nations, but you won't need to borrow any yourself.

₁₃Obey the laws and teachings that I'm giving you today, and the LORD your God will make Israel a leader among the nations, and not a follower. Israel will be wealthy and powerful, not poor and weak. ₁₄But you must not reject any of his laws and teachings or worship other gods.

₁₅Israel, today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the LORD your God. And if you don't obey them all, he will put many curses on you.

₁₆Your businesses and farms will fail.

₁₇You won't have enough bread to eat.

₁₈You'll have only a few children, your crops will be small, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats won't produce many young.

₁₉The LORD will make you fail in everything you do.

₂₀No matter what you try to accomplish, the LORD will confuse you, and you will feel his anger. You won't last long, and you may even meet with disaster, all because you rejected the LORD.

_21-23The LORD will send terrible diseases to attack you, and you will never be well again. You will suffer with burning fever and swelling and pain until you die somewhere in the land that you captured.

The LORD will make the sky overhead seem like a bronze roof that keeps out the rain, and the ground under your feet will become as hard as iron. Your crops will be scorched by the hot east wind or ruined by mildew. ₂₄He will send dust and sandstorms instead of rain, and you will be wiped out.

₂₅The LORD will let you be defeated by your enemies, and you will scatter in all directions. You will be a horrible sight for the other nations to see, ₂₆and no one will disturb the birds and wild animals while they eat your dead bodies.

₂₇The LORD will make you suffer with diseases that will cause oozing sores or crusty itchy patches on your skin or boils like the ones that are common in Egypt. And there will be no cure for you! ₂₈You will become insane and go blind. The LORD will make you so confused, ₂₉that even in bright sunshine you will have to feel your way around like a blind person, who cannot tell day from night. For the rest of your life, people will beat and rob you, and no one will be able to stop them.

₃₀A man will be engaged to a woman, but before they can get married, she will be raped by enemy soldiers. Some of you will build houses, but never get to live in them. If you plant a vineyard, you won't be around long enough to enjoy the first harvest. ₃₁Your cattle will be killed while you watch, but you won't get to eat any of the meat. Your donkeys and sheep will be stolen from you, and no one will be around to force your enemies to give them back. ₃₂Your sons and daughters will be dragged off to a foreign country, while you stand there helpless. And even if you watch for them until you go blind, you will never see them again.

₃₃You will work hard on your farms, but everything you harvest will be eaten by foreigners, who will ill-treat you and abuse you for the rest of your life.

₃₄What you see will be so horrible that you will go insane, ₃₅and the LORD will punish you from head to toe with boils that never heal.

₃₆The LORD will let you and your king be taken captive to a country that you and your ancestors have never even heard of, and there you will have to worship idols made of wood and stone. ₃₇People of nearby countries will shudder when they see your terrible troubles, but they will still make fun of you.

₃₈You will plant a lot of seed, but gather a small harvest, because locusts will eat your crops. ₃₉You will plant vineyards and work hard at taking care of them, but you won't gather any grapes, much less get any wine, and the vines themselves will be eaten by worms. ₄₀Even if your olive trees grow everywhere in your country, the olives will fall off before they are ready, and there won't be enough olive oil for combing your hair.

₄₁Even your infant sons and daughters will be taken as prisoners of war.

₄₂Locusts will eat your crops and strip your trees of leaves and fruit.

₄₃Foreigners in your towns will become wealthy and powerful, while you become poor and powerless. ₄₄You will be so short of money that you will have to borrow from those foreigners. They will be the leaders in the community, and you will be the followers.

₁Jesus and his disciples reached Bethphage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives. When they were getting close to Jerusalem, Jesus sent two of them on ahead. ₂He told them, “Go into the next village. As soon as you enter it, you will find a young donkey that has never been ridden. Untie the donkey and bring it here. ₃If anyone asks why you are doing that, say, ‘The Lord needs it and will soon bring it back.’ ”

₄The disciples left and found the donkey tied near a door that faced the street. While they were untying it, ₅some of the people standing there asked, “Why are you untying the donkey?” ₆They told them what Jesus had said, and the people let them take it.

₇The disciples led the donkey to Jesus. They put some of their clothes on its back, and Jesus got on. ₈Many people spread clothes on the road, while others went to cut branches from the fields.

₉In front of Jesus and behind him, people went along shouting,

₁₁After Jesus had gone to Jerusalem, he went into the temple and looked around at everything. But since it was already late in the day, he went back to Bethany with the twelve disciples.

₁₂When Jesus and his disciples left Bethany the next morning, he was hungry. ₁₃From a distance Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went to see if there were any figs on the tree. But there were not any, because it wasn't the season for figs. ₁₄So Jesus said to the tree, “Never again will anyone eat fruit from this tree!” The disciples heard him say this.

₁₅After Jesus and his disciples reached Jerusalem, he went into the temple and began chasing out everyone who was selling and buying. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those who were selling doves. ₁₆Jesus would not let anyone carry things through the temple. ₁₇Then he taught the people and said, “The Scriptures say, ‘My house should be called a place of worship for all nations.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”

₁₈The chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses heard what Jesus said, and they started looking for a way to kill him. They were afraid of him, because the crowds were completely amazed at his teaching.

₁₉That evening, Jesus and the disciples went outside the city.