16 verses
1These are the statutes and the ordinances which you must observe to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. 2You must utterly destroy all the places in which the nations you'll dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. 3Bbreak down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. Cut down the engraved images of their gods. Destroy their name from that place. 4Don't do this to Yahweh your God; 5But to the place where Yahweh your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name, seek his habitation, and you will come there. 6Bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there. 7You and your households eat there before Yahweh your God, and rejoice in all that you put your hand to, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you. 8Don't do all the things that we do here today, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; 9for you haven't yet come into the rest and into the inheritance which Yahweh your God is giving you. 10But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land which Yahweh your God causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you, so that you live in safety, 11then bring all that I command you to the place where Yahweh your God chooses to cause his name to reside: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to Yahweh. 12Rejoice before Yahweh your God- you, your sons, your daughters, your male servants, and your female servants; and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13Be careful that you don't offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; 14but in the place which Yahweh chooses in one of your tribes, offer your burnt offerings there, and do all that I command there.
15Yet you may kill and eat flesh within all your gates, after all the desire of your soul, according to Yahweh your God's blessing which he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer. 16Only don't eat the blood. Pour it out on the ground like water.
24 verses
1The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
2When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh."
3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.
4Yahweh said to him, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. 5In that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
6She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah; for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them. 7But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Yahweh their God, and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen."
8Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.
9He said, "Call his name Lo-Ammi; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours. 10Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can't be measured nor counted. Where it was said, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'Sons of the living God.' 11The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.
1"Say to your brothers, 'My people!' and to your sisters, 'My loved one!' 2Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. 4Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness; 5For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.' 6Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way. 7She will pursue her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.' 8For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. 9Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness. 10Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand. 11I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. 12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,' and the animals of the field shall eat them. 13I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me," says Yahweh.
19 verses
1There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy on men: 2a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but a foreigner eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
3If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he: 4for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness. 5Moreover it has not seen the sun nor known it. This has rest rather than the other. 6Yes, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet fails to enjoy good, don't all go to one place? 7All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. 8For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living? 9Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind. 10Whatever has been, its name was given long ago; and it is known what man is; neither can he contend with him who is mightier than he. 11For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man? 12For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
1A good name is better than fine perfume; and the day of death better than the day of one's birth. 2It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart. 3Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made good. 4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 5It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. 6For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. 7Surely extortion makes the wise man foolish; and a bribe destroys the understanding.
17 verses
1Where do wars and fightings come from among you-all? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your body-parts? 2You-all lust, and don't have. you-all murder and covet, and can't obtain. you-all fight and make war. You-all don't have, because you-all don't ask. 3You-all ask, and don't receive, because you-all ask with wrong motives, so that you-all may spend it on your pleasures. 4You-all adulteresses, don't you-all know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes themselves an enemy of God. 5Or do you-all think that the Scripture in vain says, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"? 6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 7So be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you-all. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you-all. Cleanse your hands, you-all shortcomers. Purify your hearts, you-all double-minded. 9Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of ForeverOne, and he will exalt you-all.
11Don't slander one another, brothers. The one who slanders a brother and judges their brother, slanders the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12There's only one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
13Come now, you-all who say, "Today or tomorrow let's go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit." 14You-all don't even know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then disappears. 15For you-all ought to say, "If it's ForeverOne's will, we will both live, and do this or that." 16But now you-all glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17So to the one who knows to do good but doesn't do it, to them it is a shortcoming.
