Deuteronomy 7–9
1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to possess and has driven out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, 2 and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you strike them down, then you must utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. 3 What is more, you shall not intermarry with them. You shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. 4 For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will be inflamed against you, and He will quickly destroy you. 5 But this is how you shall deal with them: You shall destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their Asherim and burn their graven images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His special people, treasured above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.
7 The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all the peoples. 8 But it is because the Lord loved you and because He kept the oath which He swore to your fathers. The Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations, 10 yet He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him. He will repay him to his face. 11 Therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command you today, by doing them.
12 If you listen to these judgments, keep them, and do them, then the Lord your God shall keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain, and your wine, and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples. There will not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15 The Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16 You must consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you. Your eye shall have no pity on them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
17 If you say in your heart, “These nations are greater than I—how can I dispossess them?” 18 you shall not be afraid of them. You must surely remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched-out arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So the Lord your God will do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them, until they who are left and hide themselves from you perish. 21 You must not be frightened of them, for the Lord your God is among you, a great and awesome God. 22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be able to destroy them all at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23 But the Lord your God will deliver them to you and will throw them into a great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will deliver their kings into your hand so that you may erase their names from under heaven. No man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. 25 You must burn the graven images of their gods with fire. You must not desire the silver or gold that is on them nor take any of it, lest you be snared by them, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. 26 You shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you become cursed like it, but you must absolutely detest and abhor it, for it is a cursed thing.
Chapter 8
1 You must carefully keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today, so that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers. 2 You must remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 He humbled you and let you suffer hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years. 5 You must also consider in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
6 Therefore you must keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.
10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. 11 Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12 Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built and occupied good houses, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, 15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought forth for you water out of the rock of flint, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might prove you, to do good for you in the end. 17 Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” 18 But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to get wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today.
19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, then I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 Just like the nations which the Lord will destroy before you, so shall you perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.
Chapter 9
1 Hear, O Israel! You are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified up to heaven, 2 a great and tall people, the children of the Anakites, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, “Who can stand before the children of Anak?” 3 Understand therefore today that the Lord your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He shall destroy them and shall bring them down before you, so that you drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has spoken to you.
4 Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “On account of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,” but it is because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is driving them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you enter to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess on account of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.
7 Remember, and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. 10 The Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God, and on them was written all the words which the Lord spoke to you at the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11 At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They are quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molded image for themselves.”
13 Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stubborn people. 14 Let Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”
15 So I returned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 I looked, and indeed, you had sinned against the Lord your God and had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned aside out of the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18 I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all your sins which you committed, doing what was wicked in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. 20 The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. 21 I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, and ground it very small until it was as small as dust. Then I threw the dust into the brook that descended down from the mountain.
22 Also at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.
23 Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or listen to His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.
25 So I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights; I fell down because the Lord had said He would destroy you. 26 I prayed therefore to the Lord, and said, “O Lord God, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, which You have redeemed through Your greatness, which You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or their sin. 28 Otherwise, the land from which You brought us may say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.’ 29 Yet they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your stretched-out arm.”
Mark 11:19–33
19 When evening came, He went out of the city.
20 In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter, calling to remembrance, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”
22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 For truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you will receive them, and you will have them. 25 And when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your sins. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your sins.”
27 They came again to Jerusalem, and as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, 28 and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority to do them?”
29 Jesus answered them, “I will also ask of you one question. Answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer Me.”
31 They debated among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘From men’”—they feared the people, for everyone held John to be a real prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”
Jesus answered them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”