Deuteronomy 10; Deuteronomy 11; Deuteronomy 12; Mark 12:1-27

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Deuteronomy 10

1 "Then the Lord said to me, "Cut two stone tablets like the first ones and make a wooden Box to put them in. Come up to me on the mountain,
2 and I will write on those tablets what I wrote on the tablets that you broke, and then you are to put them in the Box.'
3 "So I made a Box of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first ones and took them up the mountain.
4 Then the Lord wrote on those tablets the same words that he had written the first time, the Ten Commandments that he gave you when he spoke from the fire on the day you were gathered at the mountain. The Lord gave me the tablets,
5 and I turned and went down the mountain. Then, just as the Lord had commanded, I put them in the Box that I had made - and they have been there ever since."
6 (The Israelites set out from the wells that belonged to the people of Jaakan, and went to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest.
7 From there they went to Gudgodah and then on to Jotbathah, a well-watered place.
8 At the mountain the Lord appointed the men of the tribe of Levi to be in charge of the Covenant Box, to serve him as priests, and to pronounce blessings in his name. And these are still their duties.
9 That is why the tribe of Levi received no land as the other tribes did; what they received was the privilege of being the Lord's priests, as the Lord your God promised.)
10 "I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as I did the first time. The Lord listened to me once more and agreed not to destroy you.
11 Then he told me to go and lead you, so that you could take possession of the land that he had promised to give to your ancestors.
12 "Now, people of Israel, listen to what the Lord your God demands of you: Worship the Lord and do all that he commands. Love him, serve him with all your heart,
13 and obey all his laws. I am giving them to you today for your benefit.
14 To the Lord belong even the highest heavens; the earth is his also, and everything on it.
15 But the Lord's love for your ancestors was so strong that he chose you instead of any other people, and you are still his chosen people.
16 So then, from now on be obedient to the Lord and stop being stubborn.
17 The Lord your God is supreme over all gods and over all powers. He is great and mighty, and he is to be obeyed. He does not show partiality, and he does not accept bribes.
18 He makes sure that orphans and widows are treated fairly; he loves the foreigners who live with our people, and gives them food and clothes.
19 So then, show love for those foreigners, because you were once foreigners in Egypt.
20 Have reverence for the Lord your God and worship only him. Be faithful to him and make your promises in his name alone.
21 Praise him - he is your God, and you have seen with your own eyes the great and astounding things that he has done for you.
22 When your ancestors went to Egypt, there were only seventy of them. But now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Deuteronomy 11

1 "Love the Lord your God and always obey all his laws.
2 Remember today what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with him. It was you, not your children, who had these experiences. You saw the Lord's greatness, his power, his might,
3 and his miracles. You saw what he did to the king of Egypt and to his entire country.
4 You saw how the Lord completely wiped out the Egyptian army, along with their horses and chariots, by drowning them in the Red Sea when they were pursuing you.
5 You know what the Lord did for you in the desert before you arrived here.
6 You recall what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben. In the sight of everyone the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their families, their tents, and all their servants and animals.
7 Yes, you are the ones who have seen all these great things that the Lord has done.
8 "Obey everything that I have commanded you today. Then you will be able to cross the river and occupy the land that you are about to enter.
9 And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors and their descendants.
10 The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields;
11 but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain.
12 The Lord your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.
13 "So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart.
14 If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine, and olive oil for you,
15 and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food you want.
16 Do not let yourselves be led away from the Lord to worship and serve other gods.
17 If you do, the Lord will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.
18 "Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder.
19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working.
20 Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.
21 Then you and your children will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.
22 "Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you: Love the Lord your God, do everything he commands, and be faithful to him.
23 Then he will drive out all those nations as you advance, and you will occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you.
24 All the ground that you march over will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
25 Wherever you go in that land, the Lord your God will make the people fear you, as he has promised, and no one will be able to stop you.
26 "Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse -
27 a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today;
28 but a curse, if you disobey these commands and turn away to worship other gods that you have never worshiped before.
29 When the Lord brings you into the land that you are going to occupy, you are to proclaim the blessing from Mount Gerizim and the curse from Mount Ebal.
30 (These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are toward the west, not far from the sacred trees of Moreh near the town of Gilgal.)
31 You are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it and settle there,
32 be sure to obey all the laws that I am giving you today.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Deuteronomy 12

1 "Here are the laws that you are to obey as long as you live in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Listen to them!
2 In the land that you are taking, destroy all the places where the people worship their gods on high mountains, on hills, and under green trees.
3 Tear down their altars and smash their sacred stone pillars to pieces. Burn their symbols of the goddess Asherah and chop down their idols, so that they will never again be worshiped at those places.
4 "Do not worship the Lord your God in the way that these people worship their gods.
5 Out of the territory of all your tribes the Lord will choose the one place where the people are to come into his presence and worship him.
6 There you are to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep.
7 There, in the presence of the Lord your God, who has blessed you, you and your families will eat and enjoy the good things that you have worked for.
8 "When that time comes, you must not do as you have been doing. Until now you have all been worshiping as you please,
9 because you have not yet entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you, where you can live in peace.
10 When you cross the Jordan River, the Lord will let you occupy the land and live there. He will keep you safe from all your enemies, and you will live in peace.
11 The Lord will choose a single place where he is to be worshiped, and there you must bring to him everything that I have commanded: your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, and those special gifts that you have promised to the Lord.
12 Be joyful there in his presence, together with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns; remember that the Levites will have no land of their own.
13 You are not to offer your sacrifices wherever you choose;
14 you must offer them only in the one place that the Lord will choose in the territory of one of your tribes. Only there are you to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and do all the other things that I have commanded you.
15 "But you are free to kill and eat your animals wherever you live. You may eat as many as the Lord gives you. All of you, whether ritually clean or unclean, may eat them, just as you would eat the meat of deer or antelope.
16 But you must not eat their blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water.
17 Nothing that you offer to the Lord is to be eaten in the places where you live: neither the tithes of your grain, your wine, or your olive oil, nor the first-born of your cattle and sheep, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, or any other offerings.
18 You and your children, together with your servants and the Levites who live in your towns, are to eat these offerings only in the presence of the Lord your God, in the one place of worship chosen by the Lord your God. And you are to be happy there over everything that you have done.
19 Be sure, also, not to neglect the Levites, as long as you live in your land.
20 "When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised, you may eat meat whenever you want to.
21 If the one place of worship is too far away, then, whenever you wish, you may kill any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord has given you, and you may eat the meat at home, as I have told you.
22 Anyone, ritually clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as he would eat the meat of deer or antelope.
23 Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
24 Do not use the blood for food; instead, pour it out on the ground like water.
25 If you obey this command, the Lord will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants.
26 Take to the one place of worship your offerings and the gifts that you have promised the Lord.
27 Offer there the sacrifices which are to be completely burned on the Lord's altar. Also offer those sacrifices in which you eat the meat and pour the blood out on the altar.
28 Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you, and all will go well for you and your descendants forever, because you will be doing what is right and what pleases the Lord your God.
29 "The Lord your God will destroy the nations as you invade their land, and you will occupy it and settle there.
30 After the Lord destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way.
31 Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.
32 "Do everything that I have commanded you; do not add anything to it or take anything from it.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Mark 12:1-27

1 Then Jesus spoke to them in parables: "Once there was a man who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip.
2 When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent a slave to the tenants to receive from them his share of the harvest.
3 The tenants grabbed the slave, beat him, and sent him back without a thing.
4 Then the owner sent another slave; the tenants beat him over the head and treated him shamefully.
5 The owner sent another slave, and they killed him; and they treated many others the same way, beating some and killing others.
6 The only one left to send was the man's own dear son. Last of all, then, he sent his son to the tenants. "I am sure they will respect my son,' he said.
7 But those tenants said to one another, "This is the owner's son. Come on, let's kill him, and his property will be ours!'
8 So they grabbed the son and killed him and threw his body out of the vineyard.
9 "What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do?" asked Jesus. "He will come and kill those tenants and turn the vineyard over to others.
10 Surely you have read this scripture? "The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all.
11 This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!' "
12 The Jewish leaders tried to arrest Jesus, because they knew that he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.
13 Some Pharisees and some members of Herod's party were sent to Jesus to trap him with questions.
14 They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know that you tell the truth, without worrying about what people think. You pay no attention to anyone's status, but teach the truth about God's will for people. Tell us, is it against our Law to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor? Should we pay them or not?"
15 But Jesus saw through their trick and answered, "Why are you trying to trap me? Bring a silver coin, and let me see it."
16 They brought him one, and he asked, "Whose face and name are these?" "The Emperor's," they answered.
17 So Jesus said, "Well, then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor, and pay to God what belongs to God." And they were amazed at Jesus.
18 Then some Sadducees, who say that people will not rise from death, came to Jesus and said,
19 "Teacher, Moses wrote this law for us: "If a man dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man's brother must marry the widow so that they can have children who will be considered the dead man's children.'
20 Once there were seven brothers; the oldest got married and died without having children.
21 Then the second one married the woman, and he also died without having children. The same thing happened to the third brother,
22 and then to the rest: all seven brothers married the woman and died without having children. Last of all, the woman died.
23 Now, when all the dead rise to life on the day of resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven of them had married her."
24 Jesus answered them, "How wrong you are! And do you know why? It is because you don't know the Scriptures or God's power.
25 For when the dead rise to life, they will be like the angels in heaven and will not marry.
26 Now, as for the dead being raised: haven't you ever read in the Book of Moses the passage about the burning bush? There it is written that God said to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'
27 He is the God of the living, not of the dead. You are completely wrong!"
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.