'One' in the Bible

These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other.

And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him.

And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come.

And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe;

Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers,

Then you said to me, We have done evil against the Lord, we will go up to the attack, as the Lord our God has given us orders. And arming yourselves every one, you made ready to go up without care into the hill-country.

At that time we took all his towns; there was not one town of the sixty towns, all the country of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan, which we did not take.

But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.

Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story.

To which anyone causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate, might go in flight; so that in one of these towns he might be kept from death:

Give ear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord:

He will give their kings into your hands, and you will put their names out of existence under heaven; there is not one of them who will not give way before you, till their destruction is complete.

A land cared for by the Lord your God: the eyes of the Lord your God are on it at all times from one end of the year to the other.

But in the place marked out by the Lord in one of your tribes, there let your burned offerings be offered, and there do what I have given you orders to do.

Gods of the peoples round about you, near or far, from one end of the earth to the other;

And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you.

And if word comes to you, in one of the towns which the Lord your God is giving you for your resting-place,

You may not have as food anything which has come to a natural death; the man from another country who is living with you may take it for food, or you may get a price for it from one of another nation; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

Put on one side a tenth of all the increase of your seed, produced year by year.

If in any of your towns in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, there is a poor man, one of your countrymen, do not let your heart be hard or your hand shut to him;

If one of your countrymen, a Hebrew man or woman, becomes your servant for a price and does work for you six years, in the seventh year let him go free.

On the word of two or three witnesses, a man may be given the punishment of death; but he is not to be put to death on the word of one witness.

Acting in agreement with their teaching and the decision they give: not turning to one side or the other from the word they have given you.

Then see that you take as your king the man named by the Lord your God: let your king be one of your countrymen, not a man of another nation who is not one of yourselves.

So that his heart may not be lifted up over his countrymen, and he may not be turned away from the orders, to one side or the other: but that his life and the lives of his children may be long in his kingdom in Israel.

For example, if a man goes into the woods with his neighbour for the purpose of cutting down trees, and when he takes his axe to give a blow to the tree, the head of the axe comes off, and falling on to his neighbour gives him a wound causing his death; then the man may go in flight to one of these towns and be safe:

But if any man has hate for his neighbour, and waiting for him secretly makes an attack on him and gives him a blow causing his death, and then goes in flight to one of these towns;

The responsible men of his town are to send and take him, and give him up to the one who has the right of punishment to be put to death.

One witness may not make a statement against a man in relation to any sin or wrongdoing which he has done: on the word of two or three witnesses a question is to be judged.

If a man has two wives, one greatly loved and the other hated, and the two of them have had children by him; and if the first son is the child of the hated wife:

Then when he gives his property to his sons for their heritage, he is not to put the son of his loved one in the place of the first son, the son of the hated wife:

For he came across her in the open country, and there was no one to come to the help of the virgin in answer to her cry.

One whose father and mother are not married may not come into the meeting of the Lord's people, or any of his family to the tenth generation.

Do not take into the house of the Lord your God, as an offering for an oath, the price of a loose woman or the money given to one used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods: for these two things are disgusting to the Lord your God.

A newly married man will not have to go out with the army or undertake any business, but may be free for one year, living in his house for the comfort of his wife.

No one is to take, on account of a debt, the stones with which grain is crushed: for in doing so he takes a man's living.

If a man takes by force one of his countrymen, the children of Israel, using him as his property or getting a price for him, that thief is to be put to death: so you are to put away evil from among you.

Do not be hard on a servant who is poor and in need, if he is one of your countrymen or a man from another nation living with you in your land.

If there is an argument between men and they go to law with one another, let the judges give their decision for the upright, and against the wrongdoer.

If brothers are living together and one of them, at his death, has no son, the wife of the dead man is not to be married outside the family to another man: let her husband's brother go in to her and make her his wife, doing as it is right for a brother-in-law to do.

If two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them, coming to the help of her husband, takes the other by the private parts;

Cursed is he who gives a wrong decision in the cause of a man from a strange land, or of one without a father, or of a widow. And let all the people say, So be it.

Cursed is he who for a reward puts to death one who has done no wrong. And let all the people say, So be it.

By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways.

The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth.

Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away.

And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge.

How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up?

For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.

See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

And this is the blessing of Judah: he said, Give ear, O Lord, to the voice of Judah and make him one with his people: let your hands take up his cause, and be his help against his attackers.

And of Levi he said, Give your Thummim to Levi and let the Urim be with your loved one, whom you put to the test at Massah, with whom you were angry at the waters of Meribah;

And of Benjamin he said, Benjamin is the loved one of the Lord, he will be kept safe at all times; he will be covered by the Most High, resting between his arms.