Deuteronomy 15

¹⁰Then Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of remission of debt, during the Feast of Tabernacles,

²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord.

³For six years you may sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather its crops.

¹⁰For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce,

¹¹but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.

²If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything.

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

¹The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners,

²to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of our God’s vengeance, to comfort all who mourn,

¹³For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.

³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

⁴²When they were unable to repay him, he forgave both of them. Which one, then, will love him more?”

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

⁷and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!” So I called a large assembly against them

⁸and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

²⁵Since the man was unable to pay, the master ordered that he be sold to pay his debt, along with his wife and children and everything he owned.

²⁶Then the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Have patience with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’

²⁰You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess.

⁶Instead, one brother goes to law against another, and this in front of unbelievers!

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you are thoroughly defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

²⁵“Yes,” he answered. When Peter entered the house, Jesus preempted him. “What do you think, Simon?” He asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs and taxes: from their own sons, or from others?”

²⁶“From others,” Peter answered. “Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him.

¹⁰Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to the family of faith.

³⁵A slave does not remain in the house forever, but a son remains forever.

²⁵If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest.

¹⁰and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will go forth in the darkness, and your night will be like noonday.

¹¹The Lord will always guide you; He will satisfy you in a sun-scorched land and strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

²⁹Then the Levite (because he has no portion or inheritance among you), the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied. And the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁷Whoever gives to the poor will not be in need, but he who hides his eyes will receive many curses.

²⁴One gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds what is right, only to become poor.

²⁵A generous soul will prosper, and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

²¹He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who shows kindness to the poor.

¹¹The Lord will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

¹“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

²And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the Lord your God:

⁷Above all, be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe all the law that My servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may prosper wherever you go.

¹⁹If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.

²⁰But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

²⁷Nevertheless, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending together as one for the faith of the gospel,

³If you follow My statutes and carefully keep My commandments,

⁴I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

¹¹By them indeed Your servant is warned; in keeping them is great reward.

¹²The Lord will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

¹³The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am giving you today.

³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

⁷The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²¹The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous are gracious and giving.

⁹Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

¹³Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too shall cry out and receive no answer.

¹⁶By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

¹⁷If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

¹⁵Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

¹⁶If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that?

³⁰But he refused. Instead, he went and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay his debt.

³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.

⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

¹⁵You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

¹⁵Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

²¹For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

²²greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.

¹⁰I, the Lord, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve.

⁹Do not complain about one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged. Look, the Judge is standing at the door!

²³If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to Me in distress, I will surely hear their cry.

⁹A generous man will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.

²⁹Then the Levite (because he has no portion or inheritance among you), the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied. And the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.

¹⁶And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

¹⁸Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share,

¹⁹treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

¹⁹If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

¹⁰and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will go forth in the darkness, and your night will be like noonday.

⁷The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you will not always have Me.

¹¹The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.

⁸The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.”

⁸Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.

¹⁶By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

¹⁷If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

³²The multitude of believers was one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they owned.

³³With great power the apostles continued to give their testimony about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And abundant grace was upon them all.

¹⁴Every seventh year, each of you must free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself to you. He may serve you six years, but then you must let him go free. But your fathers did not listen or incline their ear.

²If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything.

³If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him.

³⁹If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.

⁴⁰Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.

³⁵A slave does not remain in the house forever, but a son remains forever.

³⁶So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

¹At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.

¹³“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his countrymen serve without pay, and fails to pay their wages,

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

²⁷Do not withhold good from the deserving when it is within your power to act.

²⁸Do not tell your neighbor, “Come back tomorrow and I will provide”—when you already have the means.

²¹And I will grant this people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that when you leave, you will not go away empty-handed.

⁴²If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment.”

¹Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

³⁵In everything, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus Himself: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

¹⁰Your flock settled therein; O God, from Your bounty You provided for the poor.

²²The blessing of the Lord enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

¹⁰Then Nehemiah told them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send out portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

²On the first day of every week, each of you should set aside a portion of his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will be needed.

¹²Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and carefully follow these statutes.

³²Then the master summoned him and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave all your debt because you begged me.

³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’

¹⁶By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹⁴but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do.

¹⁵Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

¹“Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn.

⁵But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’

⁶then his master is to bring him before the judges. And he shall take him to the door or doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he shall serve his master for life.

⁸I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”

⁶Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.

²²but Hannah did not go. “After the boy is weaned,” she said to her husband, “I will take him to appear before the Lord and to stay there permanently.”

³⁹If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.

⁴⁰Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.

¹⁶For this is what the Lord says to me: “Within one year, as a hired worker would count it, all the glory of Kedar will be gone.

¹⁴And now the Lord says, “In three years, as a hired worker counts the years, Moab’s splendor will become an object of contempt, with all her many people. And those who are left will be few and feeble.”

⁷Which of you whose servant comes in from plowing or shepherding in the field will say to him, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?

⁸Instead, won’t he tell him, ‘Prepare my meal and dress yourself to serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you may eat and drink’?

²“Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The firstborn from every womb among the Israelites belongs to Me, both of man and beast.”

¹²you are to present to the Lord the firstborn male of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord.

¹⁷Within your gates you must not eat the tithe of your grain or new wine or oil, the firstborn of your herds or flocks, any of the offerings that you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.

¹⁵The firstborn of every womb, whether man or beast, that is offered to the Lord belongs to you. But you must surely redeem every firstborn son and every firstborn male of unclean animals.

²⁶But no one may consecrate a firstborn of the livestock, because a firstborn belongs to the Lord. Whether it is an ox or a sheep, it is the Lord’s.

¹⁴And you shall rejoice in your feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.

²³And you are to eat a tenth of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks, in the presence of the Lord your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

⁵Instead, you must seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.

⁶To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

¹⁷Within your gates you must not eat the tithe of your grain or new wine or oil, the firstborn of your herds or flocks, any of the offerings that you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.

¹You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep with any defect or serious flaw, for that is detestable to the Lord your God.

⁷By presenting defiled food on My altar. But you ask, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By saying that the table of the Lord is contemptible.

⁸When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present the lame and sick ones, is it not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁹must offer an unblemished male from the cattle, sheep, or goats in order for it to be accepted on your behalf.

²⁰You must not present anything with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.

¹⁵But whenever you want, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you. Both the ceremonially clean and unclean may eat it as they would a gazelle or deer,

¹⁶but you must not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.

²¹If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His Name is too far from you, then you may slaughter any of the herd or flock He has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat it within your gates whenever you want.

²²Indeed, you may eat it as you would eat a gazelle or deer; both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it.

¹⁶but you must not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.

²³Only be sure not to eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.

²⁶You must not eat the blood of any bird or animal in any of your dwellings.

²⁵Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘You eat meat with the blood in it, lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land?

³²So they rushed greedily to the plunder, taking sheep, cattle, and calves. They slaughtered them on the ground and ate meat with the blood still in it.