One Year Bible.

Justice and Mercy

¹“You shall not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked by being a malicious witness.

²You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd. ³And do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴If you encounter your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him.

⁵If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.

⁶You shall not deny justice to the poor in their lawsuits. ⁷Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent or the just, for I will not acquit the guilty.

⁸Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.

⁹Do not oppress a foreign resident, since you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners; for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Sabbath Laws

¹⁰For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce, ¹¹but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.

¹²For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you must cease, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the son of your maidservant may be refreshed, as well as the foreign resident.

¹³Pay close attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips.

The Three Feasts of Pilgrimage

¹⁴Three times a year you are to celebrate a feast to Me.

¹⁵You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread as I commanded you: At the appointed time in the month of Abib you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days, because that was the month you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before Me empty-handed.

¹⁶You are also to keep the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the produce from what you sow in the field.

And keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your produce from the field.

¹⁷Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD.

¹⁸You must not offer the blood of My sacrifices with anything leavened, nor may the fat of My feast remain until morning.

¹⁹Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.

You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

God’s Angel to Lead

²⁰Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. ²¹Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive rebellion, since My Name is in him.

²²But if you will listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. ²³For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will annihilate them.

²⁴You must not bow down to their gods or serve them or follow their practices. Instead, you are to demolish them and smash their sacred stones to pieces.

²⁵So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take away sickness from among you. ²⁶No woman in your land will miscarry or be barren; I will fulfill the number of your days.

²⁷I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn and run. ²⁸I will send the hornet before you to drive the Hivites and Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.

²⁹I will not drive them out before you in a single year; otherwise the land would become desolate and wild animals would multiply against you. ³⁰Little by little I will drive them out ahead of you, until you become fruitful and possess the land.

³¹And I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the Euphrates. For I will deliver the inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. ³²You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. ³³They must not remain in your land, lest they cause you to sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

The Covenant Sealed

¹Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD — you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders — and you are to worship at a distance. ²Moses alone shall approach the LORD, but the others must not come near. And the people may not go up with him.”

³When Moses came and told the people all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all responded with one voice: “All the words that the LORD has spoken, we will do.”

⁴And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD.

Early the next morning he got up and built an altar at the base of the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵Then he sent out some young men of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD.

⁶Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splattered on the altar. ⁷Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people, who replied, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

⁸So Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

⁹Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, ¹⁰and they saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was a work like a pavement made of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. ¹¹But God did not lay His hand on the nobles of Israel; they saw Him, and they ate and drank.

Moses on the Mountain

¹²Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here, so that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

¹³So Moses set out with Joshua his attendant and went up on the mountain of God. ¹⁴And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are here with you. Whoever has a dispute can go to them.”

¹⁵When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, ¹⁶and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered it, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. ¹⁷And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop in the eyes of the Israelites.

¹⁸Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. ²And he did evil in the sight of the LORD by following the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. ³For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he raised up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. And he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

⁴Manasseh also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.” ⁵In both courtyards of the house of the LORD, he built altars to all the host of heaven. ⁶He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.

⁷Manasseh even took the carved image he had made and set it up in the house of God, of which God had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My Name forever. ⁸I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to leave the land that I assigned to your fathers, if only they are careful to do all that I have commanded them through Moses— all the laws, statutes, and judgments.”

⁹So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

Manasseh’s Repentance and Restoration

¹⁰And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they did not listen. ¹¹So the LORD brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon. ¹²And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers. ¹³And when he prayed to Him, the LORD received his plea and heard his petition. So He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.

¹⁴After this, Manasseh rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David from west of Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and he brought it around the hill of Ophel and heightened it considerably. He also stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁵He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, along with all the altars he had built on the temple mount and in Jerusalem, and he dumped them outside the city. ¹⁶Then he restored the altar of the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and he told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁷Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.

¹⁸As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, they are indeed written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. ¹⁹His prayer and how God received his plea, as well as all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself, they are indeed written in the Records of the Seers. ²⁰And Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried at his palace. And his son Amon reigned in his place.

Amon Reigns in Judah

²¹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. ²²And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done.

Amon served and sacrificed to all the idols that his father Manasseh had made, ²³but he did not humble himself before the LORD as his father Manasseh had done; instead, Amon increased his guilt.

²⁴Then the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed him in his palace. ²⁵But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

¹When Jesus realized that the Pharisees were aware He was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John ²(although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples), ³He left Judea and returned to Galilee.

⁴Now He had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹“You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? ¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷“I have no husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. ¹⁸In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. ²⁴God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”

The Disciples Return and Marvel

²⁷Just then His disciples returned and were surprised that He was speaking with a woman. But no one asked Him, “What do You want from her?” or “Why are You talking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰So they left the town and made their way toward Jesus.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?”

³⁴Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ripe for harvest.

³⁶Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For in this case the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.

⁴¹And many more believed because of His message. ⁴²They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.”

Jesus Heals the Official’s Son

⁴³After two days, Jesus left for Galilee. ⁴⁴Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. ⁴⁵Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.

⁴⁶So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

⁴⁸Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.”

⁴⁹“Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at His word and departed. ⁵¹And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

⁵²So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”

⁵³Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.

⁵⁴This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.