By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.

So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he mobilized his 318 trained men who had been born in his household, and he pursued the invaders as far as Dan.

Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people -- he has failed to carry out my requirement."

Abraham then took some curds and milk, along with the calf that had been prepared, and placed the food before them. They ate while he was standing near them under a tree.

I will say to a young woman, 'Please lower your jar so I may drink.' May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, 'Drink, and I'll give your camels water too.' In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master."

After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham died. Isaac gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

So he named it Shibah; that is why the name of the city has been Beer Sheba to this day.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham so that you may possess the land God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident."

There he said to them, "I can tell that your father's attitude toward me has changed, but the God of my father has been with me.

"I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

If the God of my father -- the God of Abraham, the one whom Isaac fears -- had not been with me, you would certainly have sent me away empty-handed! But God saw how I was oppressed and how hard I worked, and he rebuked you last night."

He commanded them, "This is what you must say to my lord Esau: 'This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

then you must say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.'"

Please take my present that was brought to you, for God has been generous to me and I have all I need." When Jacob urged him, he took it.

So Esau said, "Let me leave some of my men with you." "Why do that?" Jacob replied. "My lord has already been kind enough to me."

Jacob's sons killed them and looted the city because their sister had been violated.

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went."

He recognized it and exclaimed, "It is my son's tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!"

So she removed her widow's clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.)

He asked the men who were there, "Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim by the road?" But they replied, "There has been no cult prostitute here."

So he returned to Judah and said, "I couldn't find her. Moreover, the men of the place said, 'There has been no cult prostitute here.'"

Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

The dream was repeated to Pharaoh because the matter has been decreed by God, and God will make it happen soon.

The first disappeared and I said, "He has surely been torn to pieces." I have not seen him since.

For these past two years there has been famine in the land and for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.

Jacob said to Pharaoh, "All the years of my travels are 130. All the years of my life have been few and painful; the years of my travels are not as long as those of my ancestors."

Then he blessed Joseph and said, "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked -- the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,

"Go and bring together the elders of Israel and tell them, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers, appeared to me -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- saying, "I have attended carefully to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt,

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed from the earth.

Hail fell and fire mingled with the hail; the hail was so severe that there had not been any like it in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

They will fill your houses, the houses of your servants, and all the houses of Egypt, such as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since they have been in the land until this day!'" Then Moses turned and went out from Pharaoh.

The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled down in all the territory of Egypt. It was very severe; there had been no locusts like them before, nor will there be such ever again.

There will be a great cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.

and her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (for Moses had said, "I have been a foreigner in a foreign land"),

and the other Eliezer (for Moses had said, "The God of my father has been my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh").

Moses said, "You have been consecrated today for the Lord, for each of you was against his son or against his brother, so he has given a blessing to you today."

Moses said to the Lord, "See, you have been saying to me, 'Bring this people up,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. But you said, 'I know you by name, and also you have found favor in my sight.'

He said, "See, I am going to make a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you.

But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded.

What has been done on this day the Lord has commanded to be done to make atonement for you.

You must reside at the entrance of the Meeting Tent day and night for seven days and keep the charge of the Lord so that you will not die, for this is what I have been commanded."

You must eat it in a holy place because it is your allotted portion and the allotted portion of your sons from the gifts of the Lord, for this is what I have been commanded.

Also, the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution offering you must eat in a ceremonially clean place, you and your sons and daughters with you, for they have been given as your allotted portion and the allotted portion of your sons from the peace offering sacrifices of the Israelites.

Later Moses sought diligently for the sin offering male goat, but it had actually been burnt. So he became angry at Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, saying,

But Aaron spoke to Moses, "See here! Just today they presented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord and such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten a sin offering today would the Lord have been pleased?"

If, as far as the priest can see, the scall has stayed the same and black hair has sprouted in it, the scall has been healed; the person is clean. So the priest is to pronounce him clean.

The priest must then examine it after the infection has been washed out, and if the infection has not changed its appearance even though the infection has not spread, it is unclean. You must burn it up in the fire. It is a fungus, whether on the back side or front side of the article.

But if the priest has examined it and the infection has faded after it has been washed, he is to tear it out of the garment or the leather or the warp or the woof.

The priest is to go outside the camp and examine the infection. If the infection of the diseased person has been healed,

"If, however, the priest enters and examines it, and the infection has not spread in the house after the house has been replastered, then the priest is to pronounce the house clean because the infection has been healed.

Aaron must then present the goat which has been designated by lot for the Lord, and he is to make it a sin offering,

but the goat which has been designated by lot for Azazel is to be stood alive before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending it away to Azazel into the wilderness.

You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you have been living, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you; you must not walk in their statutes.

"'Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you have been defiled with all these things.

You must obey my charge to not practice any of the abominable statutes that have been done before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God.'"

"'When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, although she is a slave woman designated for another man and she has not yet been ransomed, or freedom has not been granted to her, there will be an obligation to pay compensation. They must not be put to death, because she was not free.

"'The high priest -- who is greater than his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured, who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments -- must neither dishevel the hair of his head nor tear his garments.

So Moses and Aaron took these men who had been mentioned specifically by name,

So Moses numbered them according to the word of the Lord, just as he had been commanded.

Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their clans, made an offering. They were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who had been supervising the numbering.

The Lord said to Moses, "If her father had only spit in her face, would she not have been disgraced for seven days? Shut her out from the camp seven days, and afterward she can be brought back in again."

When they went up through the Negev, they came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of Anak, were living. (Now Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers presented by those who had been burned up, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar.

So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, and has made atonement for the Israelites.'"

But there was not a man among these who had been among those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they numbered the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai.

"Give these instructions to the Israelites, and tell them: 'When you enter Canaan, the land that has been assigned to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan with its borders,

All along the way I, the Lord your God, have blessed your every effort. I have been attentive to your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have been with you; you have lacked for nothing.'"

So it was that after all the military men had been eliminated from the community,

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it.

You have been taught that the Lord alone is God -- there is no other besides him.

You have been rebelling against him from the very first day I knew you!

After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same."

You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors.

You must not encroach on your neighbor's property, which will have been defined in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

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 --

You must not charge interest on a loan to your fellow Israelite, whether on money, food, or anything else that has been loaned with interest.

for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death!

His people have been unfaithful to him; they have not acted like his children -- this is their sin. They are a perverse and deceitful generation.

For a fire has been kindled by my anger, and it burns to lowest Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and ignites the foundations of the mountains.

The men said to her, "If you die, may we die too! If you do not report what we've been up to, then, when the Lord hands the land over to us, we will show unswerving allegiance to you."

If you should report what we've been up to, we are not bound by this oath you made us swear."

When all the men had been circumcised, they stayed there in the camp until they had healed.

If only we had been satisfied to live on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say now that Israel has retreated before its enemies?

These wineskins we filled were brand new, but look how they have ripped. Our clothes and sandals have worn out because it has been a very long journey."

There has not been a day like it before or since. The Lord obeyed a man, for the Lord fought for Israel!

Joshua was told, "The five kings have been found hiding in the cave at Makkedah."

seven Israelite tribes had not been assigned their allotted land.

But you must be loyal to the Lord your God, as you have been to this very day.

"The Lord drove out from before you great and mighty nations; no one has been able to resist you to this very day.

But in the same way every faithful promise the Lord your God made to you has been realized, it is just as certain, if you disobey, that the Lord will bring on you every judgment until he destroys you from this good land which the Lord your God gave you.

Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him in Gibeah in the hill country of Ephraim, where his son Phinehas had been assigned land.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies. There were about fifteen thousand survivors from the army of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand sword-wielding soldiers had been killed.

Israel has been living in Heshbon and its nearby towns, in Aroer and its nearby towns, and in all the cities along the Arnon for three hundred years! Why did you not reclaim them during that time?

The Lord's messenger did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the Lord's messenger.

Samson said to her, "If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be just like any other man."