1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the rift valley plains of Moab along the Jordan near Jericho. He said: 2 “Instruct the Israelites to give the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites will possess. You must also give the Levites grazing land around the towns. 3 Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals. 4 The grazing lands around the towns that you will give to the Levites must extend to a distance of 500 yards from the town wall.
5 “You must measure from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns. 6 Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. And you must give them forty-two other towns.
7 “So the total of the towns you will give the Levites is forty-eight. You must give these together with their grazing lands. 8 The towns you will give must be from the possession of the Israelites. From the larger tribes you must give more; and from the smaller tribes fewer. Each must contribute some of its own towns to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance allocated to each.
9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 10 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you cross over the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, 11 you must then designate some towns as towns of refuge for you, to which a person who has killed someone unintentionally may flee. 12 And they must stand as your towns of refuge from the avenger in order that the killer may not die until he has stood trial before the community. 13 These towns that you must give shall be your six towns for refuge.
14 “‘You must give three towns on this side of the Jordan, and you must give three towns in the land of Canaan; they must be towns of refuge. 15 These six towns will be places of refuge for the Israelites, and for the resident foreigner, and for the settler among them, so that anyone who kills any person accidentally may flee there.
16 “‘But if he hits someone with an iron tool so that he dies, he is a murderer. The murderer must surely be put to death. 17 If he strikes him by throwing a stone large enough that he could die, and he dies, he is a murderer. The murderer must surely be put to death. 18 Or if he strikes him with a wooden hand weapon so that he could die, and he dies, he is a murderer. The murderer must surely be put to death. 19 The avenger of blood himself must kill the murderer; when he meets him, he must kill him.
20 “‘But if he strikes him out of hatred or throws something at him intentionally so that he dies, 21 or with enmity he strikes him with his hand and he dies, the one who struck him must surely be put to death, for he is a murderer. The avenger of blood must kill the murderer when he meets him.
22 “But if he strikes him suddenly, without enmity, or throws anything at him unintentionally, 23 or with any stone large enough that a man could die, without seeing him, and throws it at him, and he dies, even though he was not his enemy nor sought his harm, 24 then the community must judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these decisions. 25 The community must deliver the slayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the community must restore him to the town of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the consecrated oil. 26 But if the slayer at any time goes outside the boundary of the town to which he had fled, 27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside the borders of the town of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the slayer, he will not be guilty of blood, 28 because the slayer should have stayed in his town of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest, the slayer may return to the land of his possessions. 29 So these things must be a statutory ordinance for you throughout your generations, in all the places where you live.
30 “Whoever kills any person, the murderer must be put to death by the testimony of witnesses, but one witness cannot testify against any person to cause him to be put to death. 31 Moreover, you must not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death; he must surely be put to death. 32 And you must not accept a ransom for anyone who has fled to a town of refuge, to allow him to return home and live on his own land before the death of the high priest.
33 “‘You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it. 34 Therefore do not defile the land that you will inhabit, in which I live, for I the Lord live among the Israelites.’”
1 O God, foreigners have invaded your chosen land;
they have polluted your holy temple
and turned Jerusalem into a heap of ruins.
2 They have given the corpses of your servants
to the birds of the sky,
the flesh of your loyal followers
to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have made their blood flow like water
all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them.
4 We have become an object of disdain to our neighbors;
those who live on our borders taunt and insult us.
5 How long will this go on, O Lord?
Will you stay angry forever?
How long will your rage burn like fire?
6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you,
on the kingdoms that do not pray to you.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and destroyed his home.
8 Do not hold us accountable for the sins of earlier generations.
Quickly send your compassion our way,
for we are in serious trouble.
9 Help us, O God, our deliverer!
For the sake of your glorious reputation, rescue us.
Forgive our sins for the sake of your reputation.
10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Before our very eyes may the shed blood of your servants
be avenged among the nations.
11 Listen to the painful cries of the prisoners.
Use your great strength to set free those condemned to die.
12 Pay back our neighbors in full.
May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord.
13 Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture,
will continually thank you.
We will tell coming generations of your praiseworthy acts.
1 At that time the Lord will punish
with his destructive, great, and powerful sword
Leviathan the fast-moving serpent,
Leviathan the squirming serpent;
he will kill the sea monster.
2 When that time comes,
sing about a delightful vineyard!
3 “I, the Lord, protect it;
I water it regularly.
I guard it night and day,
so no one can harm it.
4 I am not angry.
I wish I could confront some thorns and briers!
Then I would march against them for battle;
I would set them all on fire,
5 unless they became my subjects
and made peace with me;
let them make peace with me.”
6 The time is coming when Jacob will take root;
Israel will blossom and grow branches.
The produce will fill the surface of the world.
7 Has the Lord struck down Israel as he did their oppressors?
Has Israel been killed like their enemies?
8 When you summon her for divorce, you prosecute her;
he drives her away with his strong wind in the day of the east wind.
9 So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven,
and this is how they will show they are finished sinning:
They will make all the stones of the altars
like crushed limestone,
and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand.
10 For the fortified city is left alone;
it is a deserted settlement
and abandoned like the wilderness.
Calves graze there;
they lie down there
and eat its branches bare.
11 When its branches get brittle, they break;
women come and use them for kindling.
For these people lack understanding,
therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;
the one who formed them has no mercy on them.
12 At that time the Lord will shake the tree, from the Euphrates River to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. 13 At that time a large trumpet will be blown, and the ones lost in the land of Assyria will come, as well as the refugees in the land of Egypt. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
1 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been fathered by God, and everyone who loves the father loves the child fathered by him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments do not weigh us down, 4 because everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world.
This is the conquering power that has conquered the world: our faith. 5 Now who is the person who has conquered the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 Jesus Christ is the one who came by water and blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify, 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement.
9 If we accept the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son. 10 (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.) 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has this eternal life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have this eternal life.
13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
14 And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, then we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. 16 If anyone sees his fellow Christian committing a sin not resulting in death, he should ask, and God will grant life to the person who commits a sin not resulting in death. There is a sin resulting in death. I do not say that he should ask about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, but there is sin not resulting in death.
18 We know that everyone fathered by God does not sin, but God protects the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us insight to know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.
