Deuteronomy 21
1 If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him, 2 your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. 3 Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked—that has never pulled with the yoke— 4 and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck. 5 Then the Levitical priests will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, and to decide every judicial verdict) , 6 and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. 7 Then they must proclaim, “Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we witnessed the crime. 8 Do not blame your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person.” Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. 9 In this manner you will purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before the Lord.
10 When you go out to do battle with your enemies and the Lord your God allows you to prevail and you take prisoners, 11 if you should see among them an attractive woman whom you wish to take as a wife, 12 you may bring her back to your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails, 13 discard the clothing she was wearing when captured, and stay in your house, lamenting for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may sleep with her and become her husband and she your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go where she pleases. You cannot in any case sell her; you must not take advantage of her, since you have already humiliated her.
15 Suppose a man has two wives, one whom he loves more than the other, and they both bear him sons, with the firstborn being the child of the less-loved wife. 16 In the day he divides his inheritance he must not appoint as firstborn the son of the favorite wife in place of the other wife’s son who is actually the firstborn. 17 Rather, he must acknowledge the son of the less-loved wife as firstborn and give him the double portion of all he has, for that son is the beginning of his father’s procreative power—to him should go the right of the firstborn.
18 If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail, 19 his father and mother must seize him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his city. 20 They must declare to the elders of his city, “Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no attention to what we say—he is a glutton and drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge wickedness from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid.
22 If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree, 23 his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day, for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Psalms 108-109
1 I am determined, O God.
I will sing and praise you with my whole heart.
2 Awake, O stringed instrument and harp.
I will wake up at dawn.
3 I will give you thanks before the nations, O Lord.
I will sing praises to you before foreigners.
4 For your loyal love extends beyond the sky,
and your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
5 Rise up above the sky, O God.
May your splendor cover the whole earth.
6 Deliver by your power and answer me,
so that the ones you love may be safe.
7 God has spoken in his sanctuary:
“I will triumph! I will parcel out Shechem;
the Valley of Sukkoth I will measure off.
8 Gilead belongs to me,
as does Manasseh.
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah my royal scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin.
I will make Edom serve me.
I will shout in triumph over Philistia.”
10 Who will lead me into the fortified city?
Who will bring me to Edom?
11 Have you not rejected us, O God?
O God, you do not go into battle with our armies.
12 Give us help against the enemy,
for any help men might offer is futile.
13 By God’s power we will conquer;
he will trample down our enemies.
1 O God whom I praise, do not ignore me.
2 For they say cruel and deceptive things to me;
they lie to me.
3 They surround me and say hateful things;
they attack me for no reason.
4 They repay my love with accusations,
but I continue to pray.
5 They repay me evil for good,
and hate for love.
6 Appoint an evil man to testify against him.
May an accuser stand at his right side.
7 When he is judged, he will be found guilty.
Then his prayer will be regarded as sinful.
8 May his days be few.
May another take his job.
9 May his children be fatherless,
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children roam around begging,
asking for handouts as they leave their ruined home.
11 May the creditor seize all he owns.
May strangers loot his property.
12 May no one show him kindness.
May no one have compassion on his fatherless children.
13 May his descendants be cut off.
May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives.
14 May his ancestors’ sins be remembered by the Lord.
May his mother’s sin not be forgotten.
15 May the Lord be constantly aware of them,
and cut off the memory of his children from the earth.
16 For he never bothered to show kindness;
he harassed the oppressed and needy,
and killed the disheartened.
17 He loved to curse others, so those curses have come upon him.
He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings.
18 He made cursing a way of life,
so curses poured into his stomach like water
and seeped into his bones like oil.
19 May a curse attach itself to him, like a garment one puts on,
or a belt one wears continually.
20 May the Lord repay my accusers in this way,
those who say evil things about me.
21 O Sovereign Lord,
intervene on my behalf for the sake of your reputation.
Because your loyal love is good, deliver me.
22 For I am oppressed and needy,
and my heart beats violently within me.
23 I am fading away like a shadow at the end of the day;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 I am so starved my knees shake;
I have turned into skin and bones.
25 I am disdained by them.
When they see me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God.
Because you are faithful to me, deliver me.
27 Then they will realize this is your work,
and that you, Lord, have accomplished it.
28 They curse, but you will bless.
When they attack, they will be humiliated,
but your servant will rejoice.
29 My accusers will be covered with shame,
and draped in humiliation as if it were a robe.
30 I will thank the Lord profusely.
In the middle of a crowd I will praise him,
31 because he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to deliver him from those who threaten his life.
Isaiah 48
1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob,
you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’
and are descended from Judah,
who take oaths in the name of the Lord,
and invoke the God of Israel—
but not in an honest and just manner.
2 Indeed, they live in the holy city;
they trust in the God of Israel,
whose name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
3 “I announced events beforehand,
I issued the decrees and made the predictions;
suddenly I acted and they came to pass.
4 I did this because I know how stubborn you are.
Your neck muscles are like iron
and your forehead like bronze.
5 I announced them to you beforehand;
before they happened, I predicted them for you,
so you could never say,
‘My image did these things,
my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’
6 You have heard; now look at all the evidence!
Will you not admit that what I say is true?
From this point on I am announcing to you new events
that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about.
7 Now they come into being, not in the past;
before today you did not hear about them,
so you could not say,
‘Yes, I know about them.’
8 You did not hear,
you do not know,
you were not told beforehand.
For I know that you are very deceitful;
you were labeled a rebel from birth.
9 For the sake of my reputation I hold back my anger;
for the sake of my prestige I restrain myself from destroying you.
10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have purified you in the furnace of misery.
11 For my sake alone I will act,
for how can I allow my name to be defiled?
I will not share my glory with anyone else!
12 Listen to me, O Jacob,
Israel, whom I summoned.
I am the one;
I am present at the very beginning
and at the very end.
13 Yes, my hand founded the earth;
my right hand spread out the sky.
I summon them;
they stand together.
14 All of you, gather together and listen!
Who among them announced these things?
The Lord’s ally will carry out his desire against Babylon;
he will exert his power against the Babylonians.
15 I, I have spoken—
yes, I have summoned him;
I lead him and he will succeed.
16 Approach me—listen to this!
From the very first I have not spoken in secret;
when it happens, I am there.”
So now, the Sovereign Lord has sent me, accompanied by his Spirit.
17 This is what the Lord, your Protector, says,
the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you how to succeed,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had obeyed my commandments,
prosperity would have flowed to you like a river,
deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand,
and your children like its granules.
Their name would not have been cut off
and eliminated from my presence.
20 Leave Babylon!
Flee from the Babylonians!
Announce it with a shout of joy!
Make this known—
proclaim it throughout the earth!
Say, ‘The Lord protects his servant Jacob.
21 They do not thirst as he leads them through dry regions;
he makes water flow out of a rock for them;
he splits open a rock and water flows out.’
22 There will be no prosperity for the wicked,” says the Lord.
Revelations 18
1 After these things I saw another angel, who possessed great authority, coming down out of heaven, and the earth was lit up by his radiance. 2 He shouted with a powerful voice:
“Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great!
She has become a lair for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detested beast.
3 For all the nations have fallen from
the wine of her immoral passion,
and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth have gotten rich from the power of her sensual behavior.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues, 5 because her sins have piled up all the way to heaven and God has remembered her crimes. 6 Repay her the same way she repaid others; pay her back double corresponding to her deeds. In the cup she mixed, mix double the amount for her. 7 As much as she exalted herself and lived in sensual luxury, to this extent give her torment and grief because she said to herself, ‘I rule as queen and am no widow; I will never experience grief!’ 8 For this reason, she will experience her plagues in a single day: disease, mourning, and famine, and she will be burned down with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is powerful!”
9 Then the kings of the earth who committed immoral acts with her and lived in sensual luxury with her will weep and wail for her when they see the smoke from the fire that burns her up. 10 They will stand a long way off because they are afraid of her torment, and will say,
“Woe, woe, O great city,
Babylon the powerful city!
For in a single hour your doom has come!”
11 Then the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her because no one buys their cargo any longer— 12 cargo such as gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all sorts of things made of citron wood, all sorts of objects made of ivory, all sorts of things made of expensive wood, bronze, iron and marble, 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, perfumed ointment, frankincense, wine, olive oil and costly flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and four-wheeled carriages, slaves and human lives.
14 (The ripe fruit you greatly desired
has gone from you,
and all your luxury and splendor
have gone from you—
they will never ever be found again!)
15 The merchants who sold these things, who got rich from her, will stand a long way off because they are afraid of her torment. They will weep and mourn, 16 saying,
“Woe, woe, O great city—
dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet clothing,
and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls—
17 because in a single hour such great wealth has been destroyed!”
And every ship’s captain, and all who sail along the coast—seamen, and all who make their living from the sea, stood a long way off 18 and began to shout when they saw the smoke from the fire that burned her up, “Who is like the great city?” 19 And they threw dust on their heads and were shouting with weeping and mourning,
“Woe, Woe, O great city—
in which all those who had ships on the sea got rich from her wealth—
because in a single hour she has been destroyed!”
20 (Rejoice over her, O heaven,
and you saints and apostles and prophets,
for God has pronounced judgment against her on your behalf!)
21 Then one powerful angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone, threw it into the sea, and said,
“With this kind of sudden violent force
Babylon the great city will be thrown down
and it will never be found again!
22 And the sound of the harpists, musicians,
flute players, and trumpeters
will never be heard in you again.
No craftsman who practices any trade
will ever be found in you again;
the noise of a mill will never be heard in you again.
23 Even the light from a lamp
will never shine in you again!
The voices of the bridegroom and his bride
will never be heard in you again.
For your merchants were the tycoons of the world,
because all the nations were deceived by your magic spells!
24 The blood of the saints and prophets was found in her,
along with the blood of all those who had been killed on the earth.”
