Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.

The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God. "You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

"The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

"Do not drink wine or strong drink, you and your sons with you, when you enter into the Meeting Tent, so that you do not die, which is a perpetual statute throughout your generations,

You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed, you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear a garment made of two different kinds of fabric.

You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the Lord.

Priests must not have a bald spot shaved on their head, they must not shave the corner of their beard, and they must not cut slashes in their body.

You must not present to the Lord something with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off; you must not do this in your land.

You must not slaughter an ox or a sheep and its young on the same day.

You are children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead.

You must not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed; otherwise the entire yield, both of the seed you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled. You must not plow with an ox and a donkey harnessed together. read more. You must not wear clothing made with wool and linen meshed together.

A person of illegitimate birth may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so.

For the music director, according to the gittith style; a psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth! You reveal your majesty in the heavens above!

For the music director; a psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky displays his handiwork.

By the Lord's decree the heavens were made; by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created. He piles up the water of the sea; he puts the oceans in storehouses.

Even before the mountains came into existence, or you brought the world into being, you were the eternal God.

to the one who spread out the earth over the water, for his loyal love endures,

The Lord created me as the beginning of his works, before his deeds of long ago. From eternity I was appointed, from the beginning, from before the world existed. read more. When there were no deep oceans I was born, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were set in place -- before the hills -- I was born, before he made the earth and its fields, or the beginning of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he marked out the horizon over the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when the fountains of the deep grew strong, when he gave the sea his decree that the waters should not pass over his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, rejoicing before him at all times,

This is what the Lord, your protector, says, the one who formed you in the womb: "I am the Lord, who made everything, who alone stretched out the sky, who fashioned the earth all by myself,

For here he is! He formed the mountains and created the wind. He reveals his plans to men. He turns the dawn into darkness and marches on the heights of the earth. The Lord, the God who commands armies, is his name!"

"You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you more valuable than they are?

Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin.

He told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. read more. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. They sprang up quickly because the soil was not deep. But when the sun came up, they were scorched, and because they did not have sufficient root, they withered. Other seeds fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked them. But other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty. The one who has ears had better listen!"

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen."

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,

For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves.

And will not the physically uncircumcised man who keeps the law judge you who, despite the written code and circumcision, transgress the law?

For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace for him,

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed -- perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.

We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners,

Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all.

among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest

For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is subdued and has been subdued by humankind.

Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire.

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace for him,

among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest

For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness.

Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace for him,

We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners,

among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest