Deuteronomy 15
15
Loans
(Leviticus 25.1-7)
Moses said:
1-2Every seven years you must announce, “The Lord says loans do not need to be paid back.” Then if you have loaned money to another Israelite, you can no longer ask for payment.#15.1,2 The Lord says … no longer ask for payment: Or “ ‘The Lord says loans do not need to be paid back this year.’ Then if you have loaned money to another Israelite, you cannot ask for payment until the next year.” 3This law applies only to loans you have made to other Israelites. Foreigners will still have to pay back what you have loaned them.
4-6No one in Israel should ever be poor. The Lord your God is giving you this land, and he has promised to make you very successful, if you obey his laws and teachings that I'm giving you today. You will lend money to many nations, but you won't have to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they won't rule you.
7 #
Lv 25.35. After the Lord your God gives land to each of you, there may be poor Israelites in the town where you live. If there are, then don't be mean and selfish with your money. 8Instead, be kind and lend them what they need. 9Be careful! Don't say to yourself, “Soon it will be the seventh year, and then I won't be able to get my money back.” It would be horrible for you to think that way and to be so selfish that you refuse to help the poor. They are your relatives, and if you don't help them, they may ask the Lord to decide whether you have done wrong. And he will say that you are guilty. 10You should be happy to give the poor what they need, because then the Lord will make you successful in everything you do.
11 #
Mt 26.11; Mk 14.7; Jn 12.8. There will always be some Israelites who are poor and needy. That's why I am commanding you to be generous with them.
Setting Slaves Free
(Exodus 21.1-11)
Moses said to Israel:
12 #
Lv 25.39-46. If any of you buy Israelites as slaves, you must set them free after six years. 13And don't just tell them they are free to leave— 14give them sheep and goats and a good supply of grain and wine. The more the Lord has given you, the more you should give them. 15I am commanding you to obey the Lord as a reminder that you were slaves in Egypt before he set you free. 16But one of your slaves may say, “I love you and your family, and I would be better off staying with you, so please don't make me leave.” 17Take the slave to the door of your house and push a sharp metal rod through one earlobe and into the door. Such slaves will belong to you for life, whether they are men or women.
18Don't complain when you have to set a slave free. After all, you got six years of service at half the cost of hiring someone to do the work.#15.18 six years … work: Or “six years of service, and it cost you no more than if you had hired someone to do the work”; or “six years of service, for what you would have had to pay a worker for two years.”
First-Born Animals
(Leviticus 27.26,27; Numbers 18.15-18)
Moses said to Israel:
19 #
Ex 13.12. If the first-born animal of a cow or sheep or goat is a male, it must be given to the Lord. Don't put first-born cattle to work or cut wool from first-born sheep. 20Instead, each year you must take the first-born of these animals to the place where the Lord your God chooses to be worshiped. You and your family will sacrifice them to the Lord and then eat them as part of a sacred meal.
21But if the animal is lame or blind or has something else wrong with it, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. 22You can butcher it where you live, and eat it just like the meat of a deer or gazelle that you kill while hunting. Even those people who are unclean and unfit for worship can have some. 23#Gn 9.4; Lv 7.26,27; 17.10-14; 19.26; Dt 12.5-19,23,24. But you must never eat the blood of an animal—let it drain out on the ground.
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Deuteronomy 15: CEVDCI
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Deuteronomy 15
15
1At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. 2And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because the LORD'S release hath been proclaimed. 3Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it: but whatsoever of thine is with thy brother thine hand shall release. 4Howbeit there shall be no poor with thee; (for the LORD will surely bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it;) 5if only thou diligently hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command thee this day. 6For the LORD thy God will bless thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee. 7If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: 8but thou shalt surely open thine hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth. 9Beware that there be not a base thought in thine heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou give him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 10Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. 11For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt surely open thine hand unto thy brother, to thy needy, and to thy poor, in thy land.
12If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. 13And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty: 14thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress: as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. 15And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today. 16And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee; 17then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. 18It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou lettest him go free from thee; for to the double of the hire of an hireling hath he served thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.
19All the firstling males that are born of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thine ox, nor shear the firstling of thy flock. 20Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household. 21And if it have any blemish, as if it be lame or blind, any ill blemish whatsoever, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God. 22Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the hart. 23Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it out upon the ground as water.
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