Now the Lord God said, “It is not good (beneficial) for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [one who balances him—a counterpart who is] suitable and complementary for him.”

God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten [fruit] from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, a sevenfold vengeance [that is, punishment seven times worse] shall be taken on him [by Me].” And the Lord set a [protective] mark (sign) on Cain, so that no one who found (met) him would kill him.

that I would not take anything that is yours, from a thread to a sandal strap, so you could not say, ‘I [the King of Sodom] have made Abram rich.’

If five of the fifty righteous are lacking, will You destroy the entire city for lack of five?” And He said, “If I find [at least] forty-five [righteous people] there, I will not destroy it.”

If the woman is not willing to follow you [to this land], then you will be free from this my oath and blameless; only you must never take my son back there.”

The men of the place asked him about his wife, and he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “my wife”—thinking, “the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, since she is very beautiful.”

When your brother’s anger toward you subsides and he forgets what you did to him, then I will send and bring you back from there. Why should I be deprived of you both in a single day?”

Then Laban said to Jacob, “Just because you are my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be?”

If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and [the Feared One] of Isaac, had not been with me, most certainly you would have sent me away now empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and humiliation and the [exhausting] labor of my hands, so He rendered judgment and rebuked you last night.”

If you should mistreat (humiliate, oppress) my daughters, or if you should take other wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us [as a witness], see and remember, God is witness between you and me.”

But Jacob replied, “You know, my lord, that the children are frail and need gentle care, and the nursing flocks and herds [with young] are of concern to me; for if the men should drive them hard for a single day, all the flocks will die.

But they said, “Should he [be permitted to] treat our sister as a prostitute?”

Onan knew that the child (heir) would not be his [but his dead brother’s]; so whenever he lay with his brother’s widow, he spilled his seed on the ground [to prevent conception], so that he would not give a child to his brother.

Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow at your father’s house until Shelah my [youngest] son is grown”; [but he was deceiving her] for he thought that [if Shelah should marry her] he too might die like his brothers did. So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

For in fact I was taken (stolen) from the land of the Hebrews by [unlawful] force, and even here I have done nothing for which they should put me in the dungeon.”

But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s [younger] brother, with his brothers, for he said, “I am afraid that some harm or injury may come to him.”

But Jacob said, “My son shall not go down [to Egypt] with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left [of Rachel’s children]. If any harm or accident should happen to him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol (the place of the dead) in sorrow.”

But Joseph said, “Far be it from me that I should do that; but the man in whose hand the cup has been found, he will be my servant; and as for [the rest of] you, get up and go in peace to your father.”

But we said to my lord, ‘The young man cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’

If you take this one also from me, and harm or an accident happens to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.’

And when the money was exhausted in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food! Why should we die before your very eyes? For our money is gone.”

Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed [to plant], that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt—valid to this day—that Pharaoh should have the fifth part [of the crops]; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day].

Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they will not multiply and in the event of war, join our enemies, and fight against us and escape from the land.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”

Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil [intent] their God brought them out to kill them in the mountains and destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from Your burning anger and change Your mind about harming Your people.

For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked (stubborn, rebellious) people! If I should come among you for one moment, I would destroy you. Now therefore, [penitently] take off your ornaments, so that I may know what to do with you.’”

there was an opening [for the head] in the middle of the robe, like the opening in a coat of armor, with a hem around it, so that it would not be frayed or torn.

Then Moses said to Aaron and to his [younger] sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not uncover your heads nor let your hair hang loose nor tear your clothes [as expressions of mourning], so that you will not die [also] and so that He will not express His wrath and anger toward all the congregation. But your relatives, the whole house of Israel, may mourn the burning which the Lord has brought about.

Behold, its blood was not brought into the Holy Place; you certainly should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary, just as I commanded.”

Do not make yourselves loathsome (impure, repulsive) by [eating] any swarming thing; you shall not make yourselves unclean by them so as to defile yourselves.

You are to be holy to Me; for I the Lord am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples (nations) to be Mine.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright [with heads held high as free men].

I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the Israelites, to perform the service of the Israelites at the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) and to make atonement for them, so that there will be no plague among the Israelites if they should approach the sanctuary.”

So Moses told the Israelites to observe the Passover.

Was it I who conceived all these people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms as a nurse carries the nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’?

Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, so that we may eat.’

But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up outside the camp for seven days, and afterward she may return.”

and they put him in custody, because it had not been explained [by God] what should be done to him.

as a reminder to the sons of Israel so that no layman—that is, one who is not of the descendants of Aaron should approach to offer incense before the Lord; so that he will not become like Korah and as his company—just as the Lord had said to him through Moses.

Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness to die here, we and our livestock?

And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?”

“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken and will He not make it good and fulfill it?

Why should the name of our father be removed from his family because he had no son? Give to us a possession (land) among our father’s brothers.”

because the offender should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the high priest’s death the offender shall return to the land of his possession.

I commanded you at that time [regarding] all the things that you should do.

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men [into the land] before us, so that they may explore and search the area for us, and bring back to us word regarding the way we should go, and the cities we should enter.’

who went before you along the way, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to seek a place for you to make camp and to show you the way in which you should go.

“Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may do them in the land which you are entering to possess.

“Now the Lord was angry with me [at the waters of Meribah] because of you, and He swore [an oath] that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.

He may have him beaten forty times, but no more. He is not to be beaten with more stripes than these and he is not to be degraded [that is, treated like an animal] in your sight.

so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).

It is not [a secret hidden] in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’

Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’

Had I not feared the provocation of the enemy,
That their adversaries would misjudge,
That they would say, “Our [own] hand has prevailed,
And the Lord has not done all this.”’

All Israel, the stranger as well as the native born [among them], with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on either side of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at first to bless the people of Israel.

Now on that day Joshua made them cutters and gatherers of firewood and water carriers for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, to this day, in the place which He would choose.

For it was [the purpose] of the Lord to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle so that Israel would utterly destroy them, that they would receive no mercy, but that Israel would destroy them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

They spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, “The Lord commanded Moses to give us cities to live in, with their pasture lands for our cattle.”

So we said, ‘If your descendants should say this to us or to our descendants in time to come, then we can reply, “See the copy of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made, not for burnt offering or for sacrifice, but rather it is a witness between us and you.”’

Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away from following the Lord this day, by building an altar for burnt offering, for grain offering or for sacrifice, besides the altar of the Lord our God which is before His tabernacle [in Shiloh].”

But the leaders of Succoth said, “Are Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hands, that we should give bread to your army?”

He came to the men of Succoth and said, “Look here, Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your men who are exhausted?’”

But the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I give up my fatness by which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?’

But the fig tree said to them, ‘Should I give up my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?’

And the vine replied, ‘Should I give up my new wine, which makes God and men happy, and go to wave over the trees?’

Gaal the son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not [merely] the son of Jerubbaal and is Zebul not his lieutenant? Serve the men of Hamor the father (founder) of Shechem. Why then should we serve Abimelech?

Then Zebul said to Gaal, “Where is your [boasting] mouth now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should serve him?’ Is this not the people whom you despised? Go out now and fight with them!”

And now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed and driven out the Amorites from before His people Israel, so [why] should you possess it?

So the men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill about thirty men of Israel, for they said, “Certainly they are defeated before us as in the first battle!”

They said, “O Lord, God of Israel, why has this come about in Israel, that there should be today one tribe missing from Israel?”

Go back, my daughters, go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, and if I actually had a husband tonight and even gave birth to sons,

Then she kneeled face downward, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should notice me, when I am a foreigner?”

Therefore the Lord God of Israel declares, ‘I did indeed say that your house and that of [Aaron] your father would walk [in priestly service] before Me forever.’ But now the Lord declares, ‘Far be it from Me—for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be insignificant and contemptible.

The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them.

The servant said to him, “Look here, in this city there is a man of God, and the man is held in honor; everything that he says comes true. Now let us go there; perhaps he can advise us about our journey [and tell us where we should go].”

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way.

Also the Splendor and Glory and Eminence of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”

Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes the disgrace [of his taunting] from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he has taunted and defied the armies of the living God?”

The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with [shepherd’s] staffs?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my life or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be the king’s son-in-law?”

But at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, she was [instead] given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.

Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?” Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’”

Jonathan said to him, “Far from it! You shall not die. My father does nothing important or insignificant without telling me. So why would he hide this thing from me? It is not so!”

David said to Jonathan, “Behold, tomorrow is the New Moon [observance], and I should sit at the table to eat [the sacrificial meal] with the king; but let me go, so that I may hide myself in the field until the third evening.

Therefore show kindness to your servant, because you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is iniquity (guilt) in me, kill me yourself; for why should you bring me to your father [to be killed]?”

Jonathan answered Saul his father, “Why must he be put to death? What has he done?”

He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, since he is the anointed of the Lord.”

The Lord forbid that I would put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed; but now take the spear that is by his head and the jug of water, and let us go.”

Now therefore, please let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If the Lord has incited you against me, let Him accept an offering [from me]; but if it is men, may they be cursed before the Lord, because they have driven me out this day to keep me from sharing in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’

But David said in his heart, “Now I will die one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me inside the borders of Israel, and I will escape from his hand [once and for all].”

Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your sight, let me be given a place [of my own] in one of the cities in the country, so that I may live there; for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?”

David did not leave a man or a woman alive to bring news to Gath, saying [to himself], “Otherwise they will tell about us, saying, ‘This is what David has done, and this has been his practice all the time that he has lived in the country of the Philistines.’”

Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Saul answered, “I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are making war against me, and God has left me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you to make known to me what I should do.”