World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 13
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If a or a dreamer of arises among you, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, "Let's go after other gods" (which you have not known) "and let's them," you shall not listen to the words of that , or to that dreamer of ; for your is you, to know whether you love your with all and with all your . You shall walk after your , fear him, keep his , and his voice. You shall him, and cling to him. That , or that dreamer of , shall be put to , because he has spoken rebellion against your , who brought you out of the land of and you out of the house of bondage, to draw you aside out of which your commanded you to walk in. So you shall remove the evil from among you. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your , or your friend who is as your own , entices you secretly, saying, "Let's go and other gods"—which you have not known, you, nor your fathers; 7of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth— you shall not consent to him nor listen to him; neither shall your eye him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him; but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first on him to put him to , and afterwards the hands of all the people. You shall stone him to with stones, because he has sought to draw you away from your , who brought you out of the land of , out of the house of bondage. All Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall not do any more wickedness like this among you. If you hear about one of your cities, which your gives you to there, that certain fellows have gone out from among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, "Let's go and other gods," which you have not known, then you shall inquire, investigate, and ask diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such was done among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of , destroying it utterly, with all that is therein and its livestock, with the edge of . You shall gather all its plunder into the middle of its street, and shall burn with the city, with all of its plunder, to your . It shall be a heap . It shall not be built again. Nothing of shall cling to your hand, that may turn from the fierceness of his and show you mercy, and have on you and multiply you, as he has to your fathers, when you listen to your voice, to keep all his which I command you today, to do that which is right in your eyes.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.