World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 16
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Observe the month of , and keep to your ; for in the month of your brought you out of by night. You shall to your , of the flock and the herd, in the place which shall choose to cause his name to there. You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat with it seven days, even the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of in haste) that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of all the days of your life. No shall be seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the meat, which you the first day at evening, all night until the morning. You may not within any of your which your gives you; but at the place which your shall choose to cause his name to in, there you shall at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of . You shall roast and eat it in the place which your chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents. Six days you shall eat . On the seventh day shall be a solemn to your . You shall do no work. You shall count for yourselves seven weeks. From the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks. You shall keep the to your with a tribute of a free will of your hand, which you shall give according to how your blesses you. You shall rejoice before your : you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the who is within your , the , , and the who are among you, in the place which your shall choose to cause his name to there. You shall remember that you were a in . You shall observe and do these . You shall keep the feast of seven days, after you have gathered in from your and from your press. You shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the , the , , and the who are within your . You shall keep a feast to your seven days in the place which chooses, because your will you in all your increase and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful. Three times in a year all of your males shall appear before your in the place which he chooses: in the feast of , in the , and in the feast of . They shall not appear before empty. Every man shall give as he is able, according to your which he has given you. You shall make judges and officers in all your , which your gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with . You shall not pervert . You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of and perverts the words of . You shall follow that which is altogether , that you may live and the land which your gives you. You shall not plant for yourselves an of any kind of tree beside your , which you shall make for yourselves. Neither shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which your hates.
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.