Old Testament · 34 chapters

Deuteronomy

• No. 151 Deuteronomy 33:23-29

  Deuteronomy ends with Moses blessing the tribes one by one, just before he climbs the mountain to see the land and die without entering it. This passage is the last of the tribal blessings and the closing...

• No. 179 Deuteronomy 31:7-13

  Moses is about to die without entering the land. This passage is the handover, done in public, and then an instruction about the future that is easy to skim past.

• No. 237 Deuteronomy 22:20-30

  This is a stretch of ancient Israelite law about sex, marriage, and virginity, and it is hard to read now. It prescribes death by stoning for a bride found not to be a virgin, death for both parties in...

• No. 238 Deuteronomy 12:1-14

  This is one of the defining laws of Deuteronomy, given as Israel stands at the edge of the land it is about to enter. God tells them how worship will work once they are inside, and the instruction is...

• No. 251 Deuteronomy 8:1-10

  Moses is getting Israel ready to walk into a rich land after forty years in the desert, and this passage is a memory exercise. Before he lets them taste the abundance, he makes them look back hard at the road...

• No. 328 Deuteronomy 34:1-12

  This is the last chapter of the Torah, and it is Moses' death. He climbs Mount Nebo, and God shows him the whole land, spread out to the horizon, Gilead and Dan and Naphtali and Ephraim and Judah all the way...

• No. 369 Deuteronomy 1:22-28

  Moses is recounting the great failure at the border of the promised land, and it is a study in how fear can rewrite everything. The people had asked to send spies ahead, which seemed reasonable, and Moses...

• No. 390 Deuteronomy 22:6-11

  This is a cluster of small laws that look, at first, unrelated and even quaint: leave the mother bird when you take the eggs, do not sow two kinds of seed in your vineyard, do not plow with an ox and a donkey...

• No. 447 Deuteronomy 17:8-13

  This passage sets up a court of appeal for ancient Israel. When a legal case arises that is too hard for the local elders, a difficult matter of bloodshed, a disputed claim, an assault where the facts are...

• No. 552 Deuteronomy 33:12-17

  Moses, at the very end of his life, blesses the tribes of Israel one by one, and the blessing he speaks over Benjamin is one of the tenderest lines in the whole Bible. The beloved of the LORD, he says, will...

• No. 577 Deuteronomy 16:9-22

  These are instructions for Israel's great feasts, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths, and the striking thing is that God commands the people to rejoice. You shall rejoice in your feast, he says; you...

• No. 595 Deuteronomy 2:20-25

  In the middle of directing Israel toward the promised land, the narrative pauses for a curious set of historical footnotes. It mentions the Rephaim, a race of giants who once lived in the land the Ammonites...

• No. 616 Deuteronomy 11:1-7

  Moses calls the people to love the LORD and keep his commandments always, and then, crucially, he grounds that call in memory. Know this day, he says, and he is careful to note he is not speaking to their...

• No. 618 Deuteronomy 1:37-41

  Moses is recounting Israel's great failure at the border of the promised land. When God told them to go up and take it, they refused, terrified by the report of the spies, and rebelled. As a consequence God...

• No. 685 Deuteronomy 4:9-24

  Deuteronomy is Moses speaking to Israel one last time before he dies and they cross without him. Here he is pressing them to remember, and to make their children remember, one particular day: the day they...

• No. 715 Deuteronomy 5:1-5

  Moses is about to repeat the Ten Commandments to a new generation, most of whom were children or unborn when the words were first spoken, and he opens with a claim that quietly refuses the obvious. The LORD...

• No. 812 Deuteronomy 9:1-10

  Moses is preparing Israel to cross the Jordan and take a land held by nations bigger and stronger than they are, fortified cities and giants the people already fear. He assures them the LORD will go before...

• No. 827 Deuteronomy 19:1-13

  Deuteronomy commands Israel to set apart cities of refuge, and the law behind them is a careful, humane piece of moral reasoning. The problem it addresses is the avenger of blood, a relative who, in the hot...

• No. 867 Deuteronomy 25:1-6

  This is Moses in Deuteronomy laying out case law for life in the land. Three seemingly unrelated statutes sit side by side: a flogging is capped at forty stripes so a guilty brother is not degraded past a...

• No. 995 Deuteronomy 3:17-22

  Moses is recounting how the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh received their land east of the Jordan. But receiving it came with a condition. Their wives, children, and livestock could settle in the...

• No. 1122 Deuteronomy 23:21-25

  Two kinds of laws sit side by side here. First, on vows: if you make a vow to the LORD, do not delay to fulfill it, for God will require it of you; but if you refrain from vowing, that is no sin. Whatever your...

• No. 1200 Deuteronomy 18:6-16

  Moses lays down two things side by side. First, a firm prohibition: when you enter the land, do not learn the abominable practices of its nations, no one who sacrifices a child in the fire, no diviner,...

• No. 1296 Deuteronomy 33:7-11

  In his final blessings on the tribes, Moses speaks of Levi, the priestly tribe. He recalls their Urim and Thummim, their testing at Massah and Meribah. And then a striking description: Levi said of his father...

• No. 1312 Deuteronomy 10:12-22

  Moses reaches one of the great summaries of what God asks. And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you but to fear him, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve him with all your...

• No. 1359 Deuteronomy 6:1-9

  Here is the Shema, the words at the center of Israel's faith. Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your...

• No. 1376 Deuteronomy 10:1-5

  Moses recalls a moment of grace after a great failure. Israel had made the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain, and Moses, seeing it, had thrown down and shattered the first tablets of the covenant God...

• No. 1379 Deuteronomy 6:10-19

  Moses looks ahead to the day Israel will be settled and prosperous in the promised land. The LORD will bring you into great and good cities you did not build, he says, and houses full of good things you did...

• No. 1392 Deuteronomy 4:25-40

  Moses warns Israel that if, after long settlement in the land, they corrupt themselves with idols, they will be scattered among the nations, few in number, serving lifeless gods of wood and stone. But then,...

• No. 1395 Deuteronomy 20:10-20

  These are laws for Israel's warfare, and they hold hard and humane things side by side. When you march against a city, God commands, first offer it terms of peace; only if it refuses and makes war are you to...

• No. 1416 Deuteronomy 6:20-25

  Moses tells Israel what to say when, in time to come, a child asks the meaning of all the commandments and statutes God has given. You shall not answer with a list of rules, but with a story: we were Pharaoh's...

• No. 1419 Deuteronomy 5:6-10

  These are the opening words of the Ten Commandments as Moses restates them: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall...

• No. 1430 Deuteronomy 19:14-21

  This law protects the innocent against the lie that could destroy them. A single witness is not enough to convict; a matter must be established by two or three. And if a malicious witness accuses someone...

• No. 1616 Deuteronomy 14:1-16

  This chapter opens with a declaration of identity before it gives any commands: you are the children of the LORD your God, a holy people, whom the LORD has chosen to be his own treasured possession out of all...

• No. 1688 Deuteronomy 7:17-26

  Moses anticipates a fear Israel will feel on the edge of the promised land: these nations are more numerous than we are; how can we possibly dispossess them? Do not be afraid of them, he says; remember well...

• No. 1728 Deuteronomy 2:7-12

  As Moses reviews the wilderness years, he pauses on God's faithfulness through them. The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands, he says. He has known your going through this great...

• No. 1739 Deuteronomy 31:14-18

  God tells Moses his death is near and calls him and Joshua to the Tent of Meeting to commission Joshua as successor. But God also speaks a sober foretelling: after Moses is gone, this people will forsake me,...

• No. 1746 Deuteronomy 10:6-11

  In the middle of Moses' recounting comes a note about Aaron's death and the setting apart of the tribe of Levi to serve God, whose inheritance is the LORD himself. And Moses recalls his own intercession: I...

• No. 1769 Deuteronomy 18:17-22

  God promises Moses a prophet for the future: I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak all that I command him. Whoever will...

• No. 1814 Deuteronomy 2:13-19

  As Israel journeys toward the promised land, God directs their path around the territories of neighboring peoples. When you come near the land of the Ammonites, he says, do not harass them or contend with...

• No. 1855 Deuteronomy 14:22-29

  God gives instructions about the tithe, and they include a striking command to celebrate. Bring your tithe to the place God chooses, he says, and eat it there before the LORD; and if the journey is too long to...

• No. 1873 Deuteronomy 32:17-32

  In the Song of Moses, God grieves over a people who forsook him for worthless gods. They sacrificed to demons, to new gods their fathers never knew. And most pointedly: of the Rock who bore you, you are...

• No. 1916 Deuteronomy 22:1-5

  The law gives a homely but telling command about a neighbor's lost property. If you see your brother's ox or sheep straying, you shall not hide yourself from it, but bring it back to him. If you do not know...

• No. 1958 Deuteronomy 28:31-44

  Among the warnings of consequence for forsaking God is a series of frustrations that strike at the fruit of one's labor. You will carry much seed to the field but gather little, for the locust will consume it....

• No. 1996 Deuteronomy 23:9-14

  Among the laws for Israel's camp when they went to war are instructions about keeping the camp clean and free of defilement, even to the practical matter of burying waste outside the camp. And a reason is...

• No. 2006 Deuteronomy 23:15-20

  Among the laws Moses gives is one that stands out for its mercy toward the vulnerable. You shall not deliver to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you, he says; he shall dwell with you,...

• No. 2014 Deuteronomy 28:61-68

  Moses sets before Israel the consequences of forsaking God, and among the heaviest is not any outward disaster but an inward torment. The LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a pining...

• No. 2054 Deuteronomy 4:41-49

  Moses sets apart three cities east of the Jordan as places of refuge. Their purpose is specific: that the one who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him beforehand, might flee to one of...

• No. 2064 Deuteronomy 1:1-8

  As Moses begins to recount Israel's history, he recalls a word God spoke at Horeb, the mountain of Sinai, where they had camped a long while. The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, you have stayed long...

• No. 2069 Deuteronomy 2:31-37

  As Moses recounts Israel's approach to the promised land, he tells of their first victories east of the Jordan. God delivered Sihon king of Heshbon before them, and they took his cities one after another. And...

• No. 2075 Deuteronomy 3:1-16

  As Israel advances, they face Og king of Bashan, a formidable foe, the last of the giant Rephaim, whose iron bedstead was famous for its size. Og comes out against them with all his people. And before the...

• No. 2079 Deuteronomy 29:17-21

  Moses warns against a particular danger among the covenant people: someone whose heart secretly turns from God to idols, a root that bears bitter poison. And he describes the self-deception of such a person:...

• No. 2118 Deuteronomy 33:18-22

  As Moses blesses the tribes of Israel before his death, he gives each a distinct blessing suited to its character and calling. Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out, and Issachar, in your tents, he says,...

• No. 2163 Deuteronomy 16:1-8

  Moses commands Israel to keep the Passover each year, and he gives the reason plainly: that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. The annual feast, with its...

• No. 2212 Deuteronomy 12:20-32

  As Israel prepares to enter the land and dispossess the nations there, God gives a warning about their worship. Be careful, he says, that you are not ensnared to follow the nations after they are destroyed,...

• No. 2220 Deuteronomy 13:1-5

  Moses warns of a subtle danger: a prophet or dreamer who gives a sign or wonder that actually comes to pass, and yet uses it to say, let us go after other gods and serve them. Even then, Moses says, you shall...

• No. 2242 Deuteronomy 27:1-8

  As Israel prepares to cross the Jordan into the promised land, Moses commands them to do something when they arrive: set up large stones, coat them with plaster, and write on them all the words of the law,...

• No. 2289 Deuteronomy 29:1-16

  As Moses renews the covenant with Israel, he reminds them of all they have seen: the wonders in Egypt, the great trials, the signs, the forty years of God's provision in the wilderness. They had witnessed it...

• No. 2301 Deuteronomy 31:19-23

  As Moses nears the end of his life, God foretells what will happen to Israel in the good land. When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, God says, and they have eaten and filled...

• No. 2309 Deuteronomy 21:15-23

  Among the laws Moses gives is one about the burial of an executed criminal. If a man guilty of a capital crime is put to death and his body hung on a tree, it must not remain there overnight but be buried the...

• No. 2365 Deuteronomy 25:7-12

  Deuteronomy here works through case law, and this stretch is hard for modern ears. Its center is the duty of a man to marry his dead brother's childless widow and raise up a name for the brother who left no...

• No. 2407 Deuteronomy 30:1-10

  Looking past the exile he warns is coming, Moses promises a return. When the people, scattered among the nations, come to their senses and turn back to the LORD with all their heart, he will gather them even...

• No. 2411 Deuteronomy 13:12-18

  This is one of the hard laws of Deuteronomy, dealing with an entire town led into worshiping other gods. The penalty prescribed is severe, and it belongs to the ancient covenant setting, not to ours. But set...

• No. 2433 Deuteronomy 32:44-52

  Moses finishes reciting the long song of the law to all Israel, and presses it home with an urgent charge: set your heart on all these words, and teach them to your children. This is no idle thing for you, he...

• No. 2437 Deuteronomy 31:24-30

  Moses finishes writing the words of the law in a book and hands it to the Levites with an instruction: place it beside the ark of the covenant, where it will stand as a witness against you. He is clear-eyed...

• No. 2441 Deuteronomy 15:17-23

  Deuteronomy describes a striking moment in the law of servants. When a bondservant's six years are up and he is free to go, he may instead say he loves his master and does not want to leave. Then his master...

• No. 2480 Deuteronomy 7:1-16

  Moses tells Israel that God has chosen them as his own treasured people, and he is careful to rule out the flattering explanation. The LORD did not set his love on you and choose you because you were more...

• No. 2485 Deuteronomy 27:9-15

  On the day the covenant is renewed, Moses tells Israel, today you have become the people of the LORD. Then the tribes are divided across two mountains, some to pronounce blessings, some the curses, and the...

• No. 2526 Deuteronomy 15:1-16

  Deuteronomy commands a rhythm of release: every seventh year, debts among fellow Israelites are canceled. And it presses on the heart behind the practice. Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against...

• No. 2539 Deuteronomy 11:8-23

  Moses contrasts the land Israel is entering with the Egypt they left. Egypt you watered by foot, he says, hauling water to your garden by your own labor; but the promised land is a land of hills and valleys...

• No. 2570 Deuteronomy 17:14-20

  Deuteronomy anticipates the day Israel will want a king, and hedges the office with striking limits. The king must not accumulate horses, or wives, or great hoards of silver and gold, the things kings always...

• No. 2576 Deuteronomy 14:17-21

  Deuteronomy finishes its list of clean and unclean creatures and then gives the reason behind the whole business. You are not to eat what is unclean, or what dies of itself, and the ground for it is stated...

• No. 2602 Deuteronomy 24:6-13

  Deuteronomy sets limits on what a lender may take as security from a debtor. You may not take a millstone in pledge, for that is a person's livelihood; you take a life in pledge. You may not barge into a poor...

• No. 2618 Deuteronomy 5:28-33

  After the terrifying scene at Sinai, the people beg Moses to be their go-between, and God approves. They have said well, he tells Moses. Then comes a line that opens a window into the heart of God: oh, that...

• No. 2625 Deuteronomy 5:16-20

  In the heart of the Ten Commandments come the duties toward our neighbor: honor your father and mother, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness. And the first of them...

• No. 2664 Deuteronomy 24:14-22

  Deuteronomy gathers a cluster of laws that leave deliberate margin for the vulnerable. Pay a poor hired worker his wages the same day, before sunset, because he is poor and counting on it. And when you...

• No. 2682 Deuteronomy 26:1-11

  Moses gives Israel a rite for the day they finally settle the land. Bring the first of the ground's fruit in a basket to the sanctuary, hand it to the priest, and then recite the story out loud: "My father was...

• No. 2749 Deuteronomy 1:42-46

  Moses is recalling a bitter memory. Israel had just refused, in fear, to enter the land God gave them. So God told them the moment was gone: do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you, or your...

• No. 2868 Deuteronomy 27:16-20

  At the covenant renewal the Levites call out a series of curses, and after each one all the people answer, Amen. Cursed is anyone who dishonors his father or mother; who moves a neighbor's boundary marker; who...

• No. 2878 Deuteronomy 1:14-21

  Moses recalls how he appointed wise and respected men as judges over the people, and the charge he gave them: judge righteously between a man and his brother and the foreigner among him, show no partiality,...

• No. 2890 Deuteronomy 23:1-8

  This is a hard passage about who may enter the assembly of the LORD. Several groups are excluded, and the Ammonites and Moabites are barred to the tenth generation, because they refused Israel bread and water...

• No. 2896 Deuteronomy 5:21-27

  Moses recalls the giving of the commandments, closing with the tenth: you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, house, field, or anything that is his. God spoke these words out of the fire on the mountain, and...

• No. 2913 Deuteronomy 2:1-6

  Israel has been circling Mount Seir a long time when God says, you have gone around this mountain long enough; turn north. You will pass through the land of your kinsmen, the descendants of Esau, and they will...

• No. 2988 Deuteronomy 27:21-26

  The Levites continue calling out curses, and the people answer Amen to each: cursed is the one who commits these hidden sins, who strikes down a neighbor in secret, who takes a bribe to kill the innocent. And...

• No. 3138 Deuteronomy 33:1-6

  This is the blessing Moses spoke over Israel before his death. He recalls the LORD coming from Sinai in blazing glory, and then he says something remarkable about God's posture toward the people: yes, he loves...

• No. 3152 Deuteronomy 24:1-5

  This law regulates divorce: a man who divorces his wife must give her a formal certificate; if she remarries and that marriage ends, her first husband may not take her back. And a separate provision: a newly...

• No. 3274 Deuteronomy 2:26-30

  As Israel approaches the land of Sihon king of Heshbon, Moses first sends messengers with words of peace: let me pass through your land on the highway, turning neither right nor left; I will buy food and water...

• No. 3309 Deuteronomy 30:11-20

  Moses makes two great points. First, God's word is not out of reach: not up in heaven, nor across the sea, but very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. And second, he lays before...

• No. 3325 Deuteronomy 25:13-19

  Two commands sit side by side. First, honest weights and measures: you shall not carry two kinds of weights, one heavy and one light, but a full and fair weight, for dishonest scales are an abomination to the...

• No. 3370 Deuteronomy 11:24-32

  As Israel prepares to enter the land, Moses sets before them a stark choice, framed as a blessing and a curse to be proclaimed from two mountains, Gerizim and Ebal. The blessing if they obey the commandments...

• No. 3383 Deuteronomy 21:1-9

  This law addresses a body found slain in the open country, with no known killer. Rather than shrug off an unsolved murder, the whole community must act. The elders of the nearest town perform a solemn rite,...

• No. 3435 Deuteronomy 1:9-13

  Moses recalls admitting his own limits: I am not able to bear you by myself alone; the burden is too heavy. Even Moses, the great leader who spoke with God face to face, could not do it all, and he does not...

• No. 3439 Deuteronomy 28:45-60

  This is one of the harrowing passages in Scripture, a long catalog of the disasters that would follow persistent covenant-breaking, including the horrors that fall upon a besieged and starving city. It is...

• No. 3444 Deuteronomy 3:23-29

  Moses pours out a longing prayer: let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon. He has led the people forty years through the wilderness toward this land, and now...

• No. 3446 Deuteronomy 32:33-43

  The Song of Moses declares God's sole sovereignty over life and death and judgment. Vengeance is mine, and recompense, he says, reserving to himself alone the right to repay evil, which frees his people from...

• No. 3468 Deuteronomy 29:22-29

  Moses looks ahead to a day when later generations, and even foreigners, will see a ruined land and ask, why has the LORD done this? And the answer will be plain: because this people forsook the covenant of the...

• No. 3498 Deuteronomy 13:6-11

  This is one of the severe laws of the old covenant, and we read it soberly, understanding that its penalties belonged to Israel's life as a covenant nation and are not ours to carry out. The enduring truth it...

• No. 3516 Deuteronomy 5:11-15

  In Deuteronomy's version of the Sabbath command, a distinctive reason is given for it: remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out; therefore he commanded you to...

• No. 3571 Deuteronomy 8:11-20

  Moses warns of a subtle danger that comes not with hardship but with prosperity: take care lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses and your wealth has multiplied, your heart be...

• No. 3606 Deuteronomy 21:10-14

  This is a hard law from the ancient world of war, and we read it carefully, not as an ideal but as a restraint. In an age when captive women were simply seized as property, this law surprisingly moves to...

• No. 3635 Deuteronomy 1:29-36

  Moses recalls his encouragement to a fearful Israel at the border of the land: do not be terrified; the LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did in Egypt, and as you saw in...

• No. 3665 Deuteronomy 31:1-6

  Moses, now a hundred and twenty years old and about to die, gives Israel his parting encouragement before Joshua leads them into the land. And its heart is one of Scripture's great assurances: be strong and...

• No. 3734 Deuteronomy 4:1-8

  Moses urges Israel to listen to and keep God's statutes, neither adding to nor taking away from his word. And he gives a striking reason: keeping God's commands will be their wisdom and understanding in the...

• No. 3944 Deuteronomy 9:11-29

  After Israel makes the golden calf, God's anger burns, and he speaks of destroying them. But Moses, having broken the tablets at the sight of their sin, throws himself down before God for forty days and...

• No. 3947 Deuteronomy 12:15-19

  As God gives instructions about worship and eating in the land, a warm refrain runs through: you shall eat before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. Worship was not to be grim but joyful, a...

• No. 3948 Deuteronomy 22:12-19

  Among these ancient laws is one that protects a woman from a cruel injustice. A husband who has turned against his new wife and publicly slanders her, falsely charging her with disgrace, is not simply...

• No. 3964 Deuteronomy 28:15-30

  This is a hard passage to read, a long and heavy catalog of curses that would follow if Israel forsook the LORD and refused to obey him. We do not linger over the harrowing details, but we do not skip past the...

• No. 4011 Deuteronomy 17:1-7

  This passage sets out how a grave accusation was to be handled in Israel, and embedded in these ancient laws are principles of justice that still matter. When someone was accused of a serious offense, the...

• No. 4214 Deuteronomy 32:1-16

  In the Song of Moses, God's care for his people is painted in tender images. He found Jacob in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he encircled him, cared for him, and kept him as the apple of his...

• No. 4228 Deuteronomy 28:1-14

  Moses sets before Israel the blessings that would follow obedience to God: blessing in the city and in the field, in their families, their work, their coming and going. If they would listen to God's voice and...

• No. 4253 Deuteronomy 26:12-19

  As Moses instructs Israel about their offerings, the passage rises to a beautiful moment of mutual declaration. You have declared today, he says, that the LORD is your God, and that you will walk in his ways....

• No. 4281 Deuteronomy 20:1-9

  As Israel prepares for battle against enemies with more horses, chariots, and troops, God's instruction through the priest is not a strategy but a word of courage: do not let your heart faint; do not be afraid...

• No. 4310 Deuteronomy 18:1-5

  The tribe of Levi, set apart for God's service, received no portion of land as the other tribes did, no fields or territory to call their own. Instead, God gave them something else, and something greater: the...