Later, Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve. She became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "I have given birth to a male child the LORD."

Later on, after Adam had sexual relations with his wife, she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, because "God granted me another offspring to replace Abel, since Cain murdered him."

So Sarai told Abram, "You are well aware that the LORD has prevented me from giving birth to a child. Go have sex with my servant, so that I may possibly bear a son through her."

"Look, you are pregnant and will give birth to a son," the angel of the LORD continued to say to her. "You will name him Ishmael, because the LORD has heard your cry of misery.

Abraham fell to the ground, laughed, and told himself, "Can a child be born to a 100-year-old man? Can a 90-year-old Sarah give birth?"

That's why Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, "After I'm so old and my husband is old, too, am I going to have sex?"

The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab, and he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.

The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi, and he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the very time that God had told him.

She also said, "Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse sons? Yet I have given birth to a son in my husband's old age!"

Jacob also noticed that the way Laban had been looking at him wasn't as nice as it had been just two days earlier.

They told them, "We can't do this. We can't give our sister to a man who isn't circumcised, because that would be insulting to us.

Later, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a beautiful child, and hid him for three months.

Later she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, because he used to say, "I became an alien in a foreign land."

so I have come down to deliver them from their domination by the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the territory of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

I have said that I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites to a land flowing with milk and honey."'

The Israelis ate manna for 40 years until they came to a land where they could settle. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

"Anyone who sacrifices to a god, except the LORD alone, is to be utterly destroyed.

You are not to show partiality to a poor man in his lawsuit.

Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I won't go up among you, because you are an obstinate people, and otherwise I might consume you along the way."

For six days work is to be done, but on the seventh day you are to have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest in dedication to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day is to be executed.

You are to anoint them just as you anointed their father so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing is to qualify them to belong to a perpetual priesthood from generation to generation."

along with the rest of the bull, he is to bring it outside the camp to a clean place, where fat ashes are to be poured over it and then it is to be thoroughly burned over wood with fire. It is to be burned where the fat ashes are poured out."

Then he is to change his clothes, dressing himself with a different set of clothes, and take the ashes to a clean place outside the camp.

"If she gives birth to a female, then she is to remain unclean for two weeks, just like her menstruation. She is to remain in purification for 66 days due to her blood loss.

When the priest examines it and finds that the swelling of the skin rash is white or reddish on his bald head or forehead, similar in appearance to an infectious disease in the skin of the body,

The male goat will bear on itself all their sins to a solitary land as Aaron sends the goat out to the wilderness.

"You are not to present yourself to an animal in order to have sexual relations with it and by doing so to defile yourself. A woman is not to present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it. It's detestable.

Also present a meal offering of two tenths of a measure of fine flour mixed with olive oil as an offering made by fire to the LORD, a pleasing aroma. Now as to a drink offering, you are to present a fourth of a hin of wine.

So if you had sold property to a neighbor or had acquired land from your neighbor, you are not to cheat one another.

"If your brother becomes so poor that he has to a sell portion of his inheritance, then his nearest kinsman redeemer is to come and redeem what his brother has sold.

"If a resident alien or traveler becomes rich, but your relative who lives next to him is so poor that he sells himself to that resident alien or traveler among you or to a member of the resident alien's family,

then the priest is to account to him the evaluated worth until the year of jubilee. Then he is to give the amount of valuation on that day as a holy gift to the LORD.

But if the person has no related redeemer to whom compensation may be made, the payment is to be brought to the LORD and given to the priest, in addition to a ram for atonement with which he is to be atoned.

then the priest is to have the woman commit to an oath by saying to the woman, "May the LORD make you a curse and a curse among your people. When the LORD makes your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell

Just as you explored the land for 40 days, you'll bear the consequences of your iniquities for 40 years one year for each day as you experience my hostility.

You are to offer a cake made from the first of your bread dough as a raised offering to the LORD. Offer it as a raised offering right off your threshing floor.

If these people die a death similar to all other human beings, or if they are punished with a punishment common to other men, then the LORD didn't send me.

to serve as a memorial to the Israelis, a reminder that no unauthorized person, who isn't a descendant of Aaron, is to attempt to burn incense in the LORD'S presence, so that he may not become like Korah and his group, just as the LORD had spoken by the authority of Moses.

Then the LORD instructed Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent out of brass and fasten it to a pole. Anyone who has been bitten and who looks at it will live."

So Moses made a bronze serpent and fastened it to a pole. If a person who had been bitten by a poisonous serpent looked to the serpent, he lived.

And so he went to a high place, where the LORD met with Balaam, who told him, "I've prepared seven altars and offered bulls and rams on an altar."

followed the Israeli man inside his tent, and impaled the two of them the Israeli man and the woman right through both of them and into her abdomen. Then the plague infecting the Israelis was brought to a halt. Nevertheless,

for him and for his descendants after him, too, a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelis."

If his father doesn't have brothers, then give his inheritance to a relative who is nearest to him from the family and he'll take possession of it. This is to be a permanent ordinance for the Israelis, just as the LORD commanded Moses."

This burnt offering, which was prescribed at Mount Sinai, is to be offered every day as a pleasing aroma made by fire to the LORD.

"When a young woman makes a vow to the LORD or pledges herself to an obligation while she still lives in her father's house,

You are not to receive payment of a ransom for someone who had fled to a town of refuge but then left to live in his homeland before the death of the high priest.

because the LORD your God is bringing you to a good land a land with rivers and deep springs flowing to the valleys and hills.

"You must not eat any carcass. But you may give it to the alien in your cities so he may eat it or sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the LORD your God. "You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

For instance, he may have accompanied his friend to go to a forest to cut trees. Then he swung his axe to cut some wood, but the ax head flew off the handle and hit his friend, so that he died. The killer may flee to one of these cities to live.

And is there a man here who is engaged to a woman and has not yet married her? Let him go back home. Otherwise, he may die in battle and another man marry her.'

and are to lead the heifer to a flowing stream in a valley that has never been tilled or planted. They are to break the heifer's neck there.

"A woman must not wear what is appropriate to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, because anyone who does this is detestable to the LORD your God.

invents charges against her, and defames her by saying, "I have married this woman, but when I had sexual relations with her I found that she wasn't a virgin.'

Furthermore, no one born due to an illicit sexual relationship may participate in the assembly of the LORD, including his descendants to the tenth generation.

You may charge interest to a foreigner, but don't charge interest to your relatives, so the LORD your God may bless you in everything you undertake in the land that you are about to enter and possess.

"Don't deny justice to a foreigner or to an orphan, nor take a widow's garment as collateral for a loan.

"When two brothers are living together and one of them dies without leaving a son, his widow must not be married outside the family to a foreigner. Instead, the brother-in-law must go to her, take her as his wife, and by doing so perform the duty of a brother-in-law.

"You'll be engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You'll build a house, but you won't live in it. You'll plant a vineyard, but you won't harvest it.

"The LORD will banish you and your king whom you will appoint over you to go to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you'll serve other gods of wood and stone.

May my instructions descend like rain and may my words flow like dew, as light rain upon the grass, and as showers upon new plants.

I'll bury them in misfortunes and bring them to an end with my arrows.

Indeed, lover of people, all of his holy ones are in your control. They gather at your feet to do as you have instructed.

Meanwhile, Joshua had sent some soldiers from Jericho to Ai, which was near Beth-aven, east of Bethel. He ordered them, "Go up and scout the land." So the soldiers went up and scouted Ai and

The LORD then told Joshua, "Don't be afraid or lose heart! Take all the fighting men with you, and go up right now to Ai. Take note that I have handed over the king of Ai into your control, along with his people, his city, and his land.

Do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, but take its spoil and its livestock as war booty for yourselves. Set an ambush around the city."

There wasn't a single man left in Ai or Bethel who didn't run out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel.

When Israel had completed executing all of the residents of Ai in the open wilderness where they had chased them, and after all of them to the very last of them had been killed by swords, the entire fighting force of Israel returned to Ai and attacked it with swords.

King Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem eventually heard how Joshua had conquered Ai, utterly destroying it, doing to Ai and its king the same thing that he had done to Jericho and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were now living among them.

There wasn't a single city that made a peace accord with the Israelis, except the Hivites who lived in Gibeon. The Israelis captured all the rest in battle,

These were appointed to be cities for all the Israelis and for the foreigner who lives among them, so that whoever kills anyone unintentionally may run there and not die at the hands of a closely related avenger until he stands for trial before the community.

However, after the leader had died, they would relapse to a condition more corrupt than their ancestors, following other gods, serving them, and worshiping them. They would not abandon their activities or their obstinate lifestyles.

Meanwhile, Sisera had escaped on foot to a tent belonging to Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, since there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the household of Heber the Kenite.

New gods were chosen, then war came to the city gates, but there wasn't a shield or spear to be seen among 40,000 soldiers of Israel.

So Gideon asked him, "Please, if I have received favor from you, then do a miracle for me that shows that you're making this promise to me.

Gideon arrived just as a soldier was talking to a friend about a dream. "Look!" he was saying. "I had a dream that went like this: A loaf of barley bread rolled into the Midianite encampment, came to a tent, and collided with it. The loaf of bread fell down, turned upside down, and the tent collapsed!"

When they put away their foreign gods and served the LORD, he brought Israel's misery to an end.

The elders of Gilead responded to Jephthah, "May the Lord serve as a witness that we're making this agreement between ourselves to do as we've said."

One day the angel of the LORD presented himself to the woman. "Hello!" he greeted her. "Though you are infertile at this time and haven't borne a child, you're about to conceive and give birth to a son.

because surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son! Don't put a razor to his head, because the young man will be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from inside the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from domination by the Philistines."

He told me, "Surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son!' and as for you, "Be sure that you don't drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don't eat anything unclean,' "because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from inside the womb' until the day he dies."

Later on, the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew strong and the LORD blessed him.

When he had returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 of the silver coins and handed them over to a silversmith. He crafted them into a carved image and into a cast image, and they were set up in Micah's house.

They told him, "Shut up and keep quiet. Come with us and be our spiritual father and priest. It's better for you, isn't it, to be a priest to an entire tribe and family in Israel than to be priest to the home of one man?"

But the descendants of Dan took what Micah had made, along with the priest who had worked for him, and went to Laish, to a quiet and carefree people, and killed them with swords. Then they set fire to the city.

Now the people of Israel had taken a vow in Mizpah that went like this: "Not even one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a descendant of Benjamin!"

Boaz answered her, "It has been clearly disclosed to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law following the death of your husband how you abandoned your father, your mother, and your own land, and came to a people you did not previously know.

That very same day, a man who was a descendant of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh, with his garments torn and dirt on his head.

As she was about to die, the women standing around her said, "Don't be afraid! You've given birth to a son." But she did not respond or pay attention.

Then Samuel took Saul and his young man and brought them to a room where he gave them a place at the head of those who were invited, of whom there were about 30 men.

Saul told the people who were with him, "Do a roll call and see who has left us." They did a roll call, and Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there.

David was the son of that Ephrathite man named Jesse from Bethlehem in Judah. He had eight sons; at the time when Saul was king he was old, having lived to an advanced age.

Saul said, "This is what you are to tell David, "The king desires no bride price except 100 Philistine foreskins to take vengeance on the king's enemies.'" Now Saul thought he would cause David to die at the hand of the Philistines.

David told Ahimelech the priest, "The king commanded me about a matter, saying to me, "Don't let anyone know anything about the matter I'm sending you to do and about which I've commanded you. I've directed the young men to a certain place.'

The next day, a man escaped from Saul's camp! With torn clothes and dirty hair, he approached David, fell to the ground, and bowed down to him.

Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, left and arrived during the hottest part of the day at the home of Ish-bosheth while he was taking a noon day nap.

Mephibosheth bowed low again and asked, "Who am I, your servant, that you would pay attention to a dead dog like me?"

So as Joab began to attack the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew valiant men would be stationed.

Who killed Jerubbesheth's son Abimelech? Didn't a woman kill him by throwing an upper millstone on him from the wall at Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?' then tell him, "Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.'"