'Law' in the Bible

For he says: “Law after law, law after law,line after line, line after line,a little here, a little there.”

Then the word of the Lord came to them:“Law after law, law after law,line after line, line after line,a little here, a little there,”so they go stumbling backward,to be broken, trapped, and captured.

The priests quit asking, “Where is the Lord?”The experts in the law no longer knew Me,and the rulers rebelled against Me.The prophets prophesied by Baaland followed useless idols.

Listen, earth!I am about to bring disaster on these people,the fruit of their own plotting,for they have paid no attention to My word.They have rejected My instruction.

“How can you claim, ‘We are wise;the law of the Lord is with us’?In fact, the lying pen of scribeshas produced falsehood.

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.

Then you will answer them: Because your fathers abandoned Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and followed other gods, served them, and worshiped them. Indeed, they abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.

Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or an oracle from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.”

You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to Me by living according to My instruction that I set before you

“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.

They entered and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice or live according to Your instructions. They failed to perform all You commanded them to do, and so You have brought all this disaster on them.

They have not become humble to this day, and they have not feared or followed My instruction or My statutes that I set before you and your ancestors.

Because you burned incense and sinned against the Lord and didn’t obey the Lord’s voice and didn’t follow His instruction, His statutes, and His testimonies, this disaster has come to you, as you see today.”

One man within you commits a detestable act with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his father’s daughter.

Her priests do violence to My instruction and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they do not explain the difference between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

This is the law of the temple: all its surrounding territory on top of the mountain will be especially holy. Yes, this is the law of the temple.

Then these men said, “We will never find any charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God.”

Therefore, Your Majesty, establish the edict and sign the document so that, as a law of the Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable and cannot be changed.”

So they approached the king and asked about his edict: “Didn’t you sign an edict that for 30 days any man who petitions any god or man except you, the king, will be thrown into the lions’ den?”The king answered, “As a law of the Medes and Persians, the order stands and is irrevocable.”

Then these men went to the king and said to him, “You as king know it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no edict or ordinance the king establishes can be changed.”

All Israel has broken Your law and turned away, refusing to obey You. The promised curse written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against Him.

Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not appeased the Lord our God by turning from our iniquities and paying attention to Your truth.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.Because you have rejected knowledge,I will reject you from serving as My priest.Since you have forgotten the law of your God,I will also forget your sons.

They sacrifice on the mountaintops,and they burn offerings on the hills,and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,because their shade is pleasant.And so your daughters act promiscuouslyand your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughterswhen they act promiscuouslyor your daughters-in-lawwhen they commit adultery,for the men themselves go off with prostitutesand make sacrifices with cult prostitutes.People without discernment are doomed.

Put the horn to your mouth!One like an eagle comesagainst the house of the Lord,because they transgress My covenantand rebel against My law.

Though I were to write out for himten thousand points of My instruction,they would be regarded as something strange.

The Lord says:I will not relent from punishing Judahfor three crimes, even four,because they have rejected the instruction of the Lordand have not kept His statutes.The lies that their ancestors followedhave led them astray.

Surely a son considers his father a fool,a daughter opposes her mother,and a daughter-in-law is against her mother-in-law;a man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

This is why the law is ineffectiveand justice never emerges.For the wicked restrict the righteous;therefore, justice comes out perverted.

They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts.

“Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.

Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them—this is the Law and the Prophets.

When Jesus went into Peter’s house, He saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.

For I came to turna man against his father,a daughter against her mother,a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John;

Or haven’t you read in the Law that on Sabbath days the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent?

And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test Him:

“Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. These things should have been done without neglecting the others.

Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever, and they told Him about her at once.

And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord

(just as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord)

and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons).

Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple complex. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for Him what was customary under the law,

When they had completed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

After He left the synagogue, He entered Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him about her.

On one of those days while He was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and also from Jerusalem. And the Lord’s power to heal was in Him.

But since the Pharisees and experts in the law had not been baptized by him, they rejected the plan of God for themselves.)

Just then an expert in the law stood up to test Him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the law?” He asked him. “How do you read it?”

One of the experts in the law answered Him, “Teacher, when You say these things You insult us too.”

Then He said: “Woe also to you experts in the law! You load people with burdens that are hard to carry, yet you yourselves don’t touch these burdens with one of your fingers.

“Woe to you experts in the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge! You didn’t go in yourselves, and you hindered those who were going in.”

They will be divided, father against son,son against father,mother against daughter,daughter against mother,mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law,and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

In response, Jesus asked the law experts and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”

“The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is strongly urged to enter it.

But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the law to drop out.

Then He told them, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

for the law was given through Moses,grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth!”

Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law! Why do you want to kill Me?”

If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses won’t be broken, are you angry at Me because I made a man entirely well on the Sabbath?

But this crowd, which doesn’t know the law, is accursed!”

“Our law doesn’t judge a man before it hears from him and knows what he’s doing, does it?”

In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?”

Even in your law it is written that the witness of two men is valid.

Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your scripture, I said, you are gods?

Then the crowd replied to Him, “We have heard from the scripture that the Messiah will remain forever. So how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”

But this happened so that the statement written in their scripture might be fulfilled: They hated Me for no reason.

First they led Him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

So Pilate told them, “Take Him yourselves and judge Him according to your law.”“It’s not legal for us to put anyone to death,” the Jews declared.

“We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God.”

A Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was respected by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered the men to be taken outside for a little while.

They also presented false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.

You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”

After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any message of encouragement for the people, you can speak.”

and everyone who believes in Him is justified from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.

But some of the believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses!”

“This man,” they said, “persuades people to worship God contrary to the law!”

But if these are questions about words, names, and your own law, see to it yourselves. I don’t want to be a judge of such things.”

When they heard it, they glorified God and said, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.

Take these men, purify yourself along with them, and pay for them to get their heads shaved. Then everyone will know that what they were told about you amounts to nothing, but that you yourself are also careful about observing the law.

shouting, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place. What’s more, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has profaned this holy place.”

He continued, “I am a Jewish man, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel and educated according to the strict view of our patriarchal law. Being zealous for God, just as all of you are today,

Someone named Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good reputation with all the Jews residing there,

Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! You are sitting there judging me according to the law, and in violation of the law are you ordering me to be struck?”

I found out that the accusations were about disputed matters in their law, and that there was no charge that merited death or chains.

He even tried to desecrate the temple, so we apprehended him [and wanted to judge him according to our law.

But I confess this to you: I worship my fathers’ God according to the Way, which they call a sect, believing all the things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets.

while Paul made the defense that, “Neither against the Jewish law, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I sinned at all.”

After arranging a day with him, many came to him at his lodging. From dawn to dusk he expounded and witnessed about the kingdom of God. He tried to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets.

All those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous.

So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts will either accuse or excuse them

Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rest in the law, boast in God,

know His will, and approve the things that are superior, being instructed from the law,