World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 18
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere. The ✦ marks a verse the New Testament takes up.
The priests and the —all the tribe of —shall have no nor with Israel. They shall eat the of made by and his . They shall have no among their brothers. is their , as he has spoken to them. This shall be the priests' due from the people, from those who offer a , whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the priest: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the inner parts. You shall give him the of your grain, of your , and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep. For your has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in name, him and his sons . If a comes from any of your out of all Israel where he lives, and comes with all the of his to the place which shall choose, then he shall minister in the name of his , as all his brothers the do, who stand there before . They shall have like portions to eat, in addition to that which comes from the sale of his family possessions. When you have come into the land which your gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the of those nations. There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the , one who uses , one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a , or a charmer, or someone who consults with a familiar , or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an to . Because of these , your drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless with your . For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practice and to ; but as for you, your has not allowed you so to do. your will raise up to you a from among you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him. This is according to all that you of your in in the day of , saying, "Let me not hear again my voice, neither let me see this great any more, that I not ." said to me, "They have well said that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a from among their brothers, like you. I will put my words in his , and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same shall ." You may say in , "How shall we know the word which has not spoken?" When a speaks in name, if the thing doesn't follow, nor happen, that is the thing which has not spoken. The has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.
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.