The Chronological Bible Reading Plan
March 7
Deuteronomy 23-25
Chapter 23
Persons Excluded from the Assembly
1 “No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter
the assembly of the Lord.
2 “No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none
of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of
the Lord.
3 “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of
their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly
of the Lord,
4 because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came
out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from
Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
5 “Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam,
but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord
your God loves you.
6 “You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.
7 “You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not
detest an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.
8 “The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the
assembly of the Lord.
9 “When you go out as an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself
from every evil thing.
10 “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal
emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp.
11 “But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with
water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp.
12 “You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there,
13 and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit
down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement.
14 “Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver
you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy;
and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.
15 “You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from
his master to you.
16 “He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose
in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him.
17 “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall
any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute.
18 “You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into
the house of the Lord your God for any votive offering, for both of these are
an abomination to the Lord your God.
19 “You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money,
food, or anything that may be loaned at interest.
20 “You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you
shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that
you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.
21 “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay
it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord your God will surely require it
of you.
22 “However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you.
23 “You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just
as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised.
24 “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes
until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket.
25 “When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck
the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s
standing grain.
Chapter 24
Law of Divorce
1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds
no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes
her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his
house,
2 and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife,
3 and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate
of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the
latter
husband dies who took her to be his wife,
4 then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again
to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before
the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives
you as an inheritance.
5 “When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be
charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness
to his wife whom he has taken.
Sundry Laws
6 “No one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone in pledge, for he
would be taking a life in pledge.
7 “If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel,
and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you
shall purge the evil from among you.
8 “Be careful against an infection of leprosy, that you diligently observe
and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; as I have commanded
them, so you shall be careful to do.
9 “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came
out of Egypt.
10 “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not enter
his house to take his pledge.
11 “You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall
bring the pledge out to you.
12 “If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.
13 “When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that
he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you
before the Lord your God.
14 “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether
he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your
towns.
15 “You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he
is poor and sets his heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the
Lord and it become sin in you.
16 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be
put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.
17 “You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take
a widow’s garment in pledge.
18 “But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the
Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this
thing.
19 “When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf
in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for
the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God may bless you
in all the work of your hands.
20 “When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again;
it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.
21 “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over
it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.
22 “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore
I am commanding you to do this thing.
Chapter 25
Sundry Laws
1 “If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges
decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,
2 then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall
then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes
according
to his guilt.
3 “He may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him
with many more stripes than these and your brother is not degraded in your eyes.
4 “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.
5 “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the
wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man.
Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife
and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.
6 “It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name
of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.
7 “But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then
his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My
husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel;
he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’
8 “Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if
he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’
9 then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders,
and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, ‘Thus
it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’
10 “In Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal
is removed.’
11 “If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and
the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who
is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals,
12 then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
13 “You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small.
14 “You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a
small.
15 “You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just
measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God
gives you.
16 “For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an
abomination to the Lord your God.
17 “Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from
Egypt,
18 how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at
your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.
19 “Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you
rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives
you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from
under heaven; you must not forget.
"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)