Add parallel Print Page Options

For you are a people holy to the Lord, your God; the Lord, your God, has chosen you from all the peoples on the face of the earth to be a people specially his own.(A)

Read full chapter

21 You shall not eat the carcass of any animal that has died of itself; but you may give it to a resident alien within your gates to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord, your God.(A)

You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.[a]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 14:21 Boil a young goat in its mother’s milk: the meaning of this regulation is obscure but it may have a humane concern similar to the prohibitions against slaughtering an animal and its young on the same day (Lv 22:27–28) and capturing a mother bird along with her fledgling or eggs (Dt 22:6–7). See note on Ex 23:19.

18 And today the Lord has accepted your agreement: you will be a people specially his own, as he promised you, you will keep all his commandments, 19 and he will set you high in praise and renown and glory above all nations he has made, and you will be a people holy to the Lord, your God, as he promised.

Read full chapter

When the Most High allotted each nation its heritage,
    when he separated out human beings,(A)
He set up the boundaries of the peoples
    after the number of the divine beings;[a]
But the Lord’s portion was his people;
    his allotted share was Jacob.(B)

10 He found them in a wilderness,
    a wasteland of howling desert.
He shielded them, cared for them,
    guarded them as the apple of his eye.(C)
11 As an eagle incites its nestlings,
    hovering over its young,
So he spread his wings, took them,
    bore them upon his pinions.(D)
12 The Lord alone guided them,
    no foreign god was with them.(E)

13 (F)He had them mount the summits of the land,[b]
    fed them the produce of its fields;
He suckled them with honey from the crags
    and olive oil from the flinty rock;
14 Butter from cows and milk from sheep,
    with the best of lambs;
Bashan[c] bulls and goats,
    with the cream of finest wheat;
    and the foaming blood of grapes you drank.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 32:8 Divine beings: lit., “sons of God” (see also v. 43); members of the divine assembly; cf. 1 Kgs 22:19; Jb 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Ps 82; 89:6–7. The nations are portrayed as having their respective tutelary deities.
  2. 32:13 The land: Canaan.
  3. 32:14 Bashan: a fertile grazing land east of the Jordan, famous for its sleek, strong cattle. Cf. Ps 22:13; Ez 39:18; Am 4:1.

Now, if you obey me completely and keep my covenant,[a] you will be my treasured possession among all peoples,(A) though all the earth is mine. You will be to me a kingdom of priests,[b] a holy nation.(B) That is what you must tell the Israelites.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 19:5 Covenant: while covenants between individuals and between nations are ubiquitous in the ancient Near East, the adaptation of this concept to express the relationship that will henceforth characterize God’s relationship to Israel represents an important innovation of biblical faith. Other gods might “choose” nations to fulfill a special destiny or role in the world; but only Israel’s God is bound to a people by covenant. Thereby Israel’s identity as a people is put upon a foundation that does not depend upon the vicissitudes of Israelite statehood or the normal trappings of national existence. Israel will be a covenant people.
  2. 19:6 Kingdom of priests: inasmuch as this phrase is parallel to “holy nation,” it most likely means that the whole Israelite nation is set apart from other nations and so consecrated to God, or holy, in the way priests are among the people (cf. Is 61:6; 1 Pt 2:5, 9).

[a]For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,
    Israel as his treasured possession.(A)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 135:4 Though all nations are God’s, Israel has a special status as God’s “treasured” people: Ex 19:5; Dt 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Mal 3:17.

17 (A)They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts,
    my own special possession, on the day when I take action.
And I will have compassion on them,
    as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.

Read full chapter