Nancy: Welcome To Immerse: The Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 100 and 56
when you go out to fight your enemies and you face horses and chariots and an army
greater than your own, do not be afraid.
The Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt is with you.
When you prepare for battle, the priest must come forward to speak to the troops.
He will say to them, listen to me, all you men of Israel.
Do not be afraid as you go out to fight your enemies today.
Do not lose heart or panic or tremble before them.
For the Lord, your God is going with you.
He will fight for you against your enemies and he will give you victory.
Then the officers of the army must address the troops and say,
has anyone here just built a new house but not yet dedicated it?
If so, you may go home, you might be killed in the battle and someone
else would dedicate your house.
Has anyone here just planted a vineyard but not yet eaten any of its fruit?
If so, you may go home, you might die in battle, and someone
else would eat the first fruit.
Has anyone here just become engaged to a woman but not yet married her?
Well, you may go home and get married.
You might die in the battle and someone else would marry her.
Then the officers will also say, is anyone here afraid or worried?
If you are, you may go home before you frighten anyone else.
When the officers have finished speaking to their troops, they
will appoint the unit commanders.
As you approach a town to attack it, you must first offer
its people terms for peace.
If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people
inside will serve you in forced labor.
But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight,
you must attack the town.
When the Lord your God, hands the town over to you.
Use your swords to kill every man in the town, but you may keep for
yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder.
You may enjoy the plunder from your enemies, but the
Lord your God has given you.
But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the
towns of the nations in the land.
You will enter in those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special
possession, destroy every living thing.
You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites,
parasites, HIEs, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you.
This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their
detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to
sin deeply against the Lord your God.
When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not
cut down the trees with your axes.
You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees.
Are the trees your enemies that you should attack them?
You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food.
Use them to make the equipment You need to attack the enemy town until it falls.
When you are in the land, the Lord your God is giving you.
Someone may be found murdered in a field and you don't know
who committed the murder.
In such a case, your elders and judges must measure the distance from the
site of the crime to the nearby towns.
When the nearest town has been determined that town's elders must select from
their herd, a heifer that has never been trained or yoked to a plow, they must
lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted, and that has a stream
running through it there in the valley.
They must break the heifer's neck.
Then the Levitical priests must step forward for the Lord.
Your God has chosen them to minister before him and to pronounce
blessings in the Lord's name.
They are to decide all legal and criminal cases.
The elders of the town must wash their hands over the
heifer whose neck was broken.
Then they must say, our hands did not shed this person's
blood, nor did we see it happen.
Oh Lord, forgive your people Israel, whom you have redeemed.
Do not charge your people with the guilt of murdering an innocent
person, then they will be absolved of the guilt of this person's blood.
By following these instructions, you will do what is right in the
Lord's sight and will cleanse the guilt of murder from your community.
Suppose you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your
God hands them over to you and you take some of them as captives.
And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you are
attracted to her and want to marry her.
If this happens, you may take her to your home where she must shave her head,
cut her nails, and change the clothes she was wearing when she was captured.
She will stay in your home, but let her mourn for her father
and mother for a full month.
Then you may marry her and you will be her husband and she will be your wife.
If you marry her and she does not please you, you must let her go free.
You may not sell her or treat her as a slave for you have humiliated her.
Suppose a man has two wives, but he loves one and not the other.
And both have given him sons.
And suppose the firstborn son is the son of the wife.
He does not love when the man divides his inheritance.
He may not give the larger inheritance to his younger son.
The son of the wife, he loves as if he were the firstborn son.
He must recognize the rights of his oldest son, the son of the wife.
He does not love by giving him a double portion.
He is the first son of his father's virility and the rights
of the firstborn belong to him.
Suppose a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not
obey his father or mother even though they discipline him.
In such a case, the father and mother must take the on to
the elders as they hold court.
At the town gate.
The parents must say to the elders, this son of ours is stubborn and
rebellious and refuses to obey.
He is a glutton and a drunkard.
Then all the men of his town must stone him to death.
In this way, you will purge this evil from among you and all Israel
will hear about it and be afraid.
If someone has committed a crime worthy of death and is executed and
hung on a tree, the body must not remain hanging from the tree overnight.
You must bury the body that same day.
For anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God.
In this way, you will prevent the defilement of the land.
The Lord your God is giving you as your special possession.
If you see your neighbor's ox or sheep or goat wandering away,
don't ignore your responsibility.
Take it back to its owner.
If its owner does not live nearby or you don't know who the owner is,
take it to your place and keep it until the owner comes looking for it.
Then you must return it.
Do the same.
If you find your neighbor's donkey, clothing, or anything
else your neighbor loses.
Don't ignore your responsibility.
If you see that your neighbor's donkey or ox has collapsed on the
road, do not look the other way.
Go and help your neighbor get it back on its feet.
A woman must not put on men's clothing and a man must not wear women's clothing.
Anyone who does this is detestable at the sight of the Lord your God.
If you happen to find a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground and there
are young ones or eggs in it with the mother sitting in the nest, do
not take the mother with the young.
You may take the young, but let the mother go so that you may
prosper and enjoy a long life.
When you build a new house, you must build a railing around
the edge of its flat roof.
That way you will not be considered guilty of murder if someone falls from the roof.
You must not plant any other crop between the rows of your vineyard.
If you do, you are forbidden to use either the grapes from
the vineyard or the other crop.
You must not plow with an ox and a donkey harnessed together.
You must not wear clothing made of wool and linen woven together.
You must put four tassels on the hem of the cloak with which you cover
yourself on the front, back, and sides.
This concludes today's immerse reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.