7-Day Devotional: Torn Between Two Worlds – Embracing God’s Gifts Amid Unmet Longings

Priorities of the Kingdom

The Bible for Young Explorers: Mark

Ready as You Are

Stress Less: 9 Practices That Build Resilience God's Way

Fuel the Fire Pt 2

5 Prayers to Stop Thinking Negatively About Your Spouse

Getting Dating Right

Worship Him

Learning About Love With St. Valentine

The Listener’s Bible®: NIV Edition

New International Version™  (Anglicised), Audio Edition

Holy Bible, New International Version™ (Anglicised), South Asian Audio Edition

<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkDEU">
 <div class="chapter ch20" data-usfm="DEU.20">
 <div class="label">20</div><div class="s1">Going to War</div><div class="p"> 1When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3He shall say: &#8220;Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. 4For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 5The officers shall say to the army: &#8220;Has anyone built a new house and not yet begun to live in it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may begin to live in it. 6Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it. 7Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.&#8221; 8Then the officers shall add, &#8220;Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too.&#8221; 9When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.</div><div class="p"> 10When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.</div><div class="p"> 16However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17Completely destroy#20:17 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them. them&#8212;the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites&#8212;as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.</div><div class="p"> 19When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them?#20:19 Or down to use in the siege, for the fruit trees are for the benefit of people. 20However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkDEU">
 <div class="chapter ch21" data-usfm="DEU.21">
 <div class="label">21</div><div class="s1">Atonement for an Unsolved Murder</div><div class="p"> 1If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, 2your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer&#8217;s neck. 5The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7and they shall declare: &#8220;Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent person.&#8221; Then the bloodshed will be atoned for, 9and you will have purged from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord.</div><div class="s1">Marrying a Captive Woman</div><div class="p"> 10When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.</div><div class="s1">The Right of the Firstborn</div><div class="p"> 15If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, 16when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. 17He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father&#8217;s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.</div><div class="s1">A Rebellious Son</div><div class="p"> 18If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20They shall say to the elders, &#8220;This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.&#8221; 21Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.</div><div class="s1">Various Laws</div><div class="p"> 22If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, 23you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God&#8217;s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkDEU">
 <div class="chapter ch22" data-usfm="DEU.22">
 <div class="label">22</div><div class="p"> 1If you see your fellow Israelite&#8217;s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner. 2If they do not live near you or if you do not know who owns it, take it home with you and keep it until they come looking for it. Then give it back. 3Do the same if you find their donkey or cloak or anything else they have lost. Do not ignore it.</div><div class="p"> 4If you see your fellow Israelite&#8217;s donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help the owner get it to its feet.</div><div class="p"> 5A woman must not wear men&#8217;s clothing, nor a man wear women&#8217;s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.</div><div class="p"> 6If you come across a bird&#8217;s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. 7You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.</div><div class="p"> 8When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.</div><div class="p"> 9Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.#22:9 Or be forfeited to the sanctuary</div><div class="p"> 10Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.</div><div class="p"> 11Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.</div><div class="p"> 12Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.</div><div class="s1">Marriage Violations</div><div class="p"> 13If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, &#8220;I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,&#8221; 15then the young woman&#8217;s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16Her father will say to the elders, &#8220;I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17Now he has slandered her and said, &#8216;I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.&#8217; But here is the proof of my daughter&#8217;s virginity.&#8221; Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19They shall fine him a hundred shekels#22:19 That is, about 2 1/2 pounds or about 1.2 kilograms of silver and give them to the young woman&#8217;s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.</div><div class="p"> 20If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman&#8217;s virginity can be found, 21she shall be brought to the door of her father&#8217;s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father&#8217;s house. You must purge the evil from among you.</div><div class="p"> 22If a man is found sleeping with another man&#8217;s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.</div><div class="p"> 23If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death&#8212;the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man&#8217;s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.</div><div class="p"> 25But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.</div><div class="p"> 28If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29he shall pay her father fifty shekels#22:29 That is, about 1 1/4 pounds or about 575 grams of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.</div><div class="p"> 30A man is not to marry his father&#8217;s wife; he must not dishonor his father&#8217;s bed.#22:30 In Hebrew texts this verse (22:30) is numbered 23:1.</div>
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New International Version

<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkMRK">
 <div class="chapter ch14" data-usfm="MRK.14.26+MRK.14.27+MRK.14.28+MRK.14.29+MRK.14.30+MRK.14.31+MRK.14.32+MRK.14.33+MRK.14.34+MRK.14.35+MRK.14.36+MRK.14.37+MRK.14.38+MRK.14.39+MRK.14.40+MRK.14.41+MRK.14.42+MRK.14.43+MRK.14.44+MRK.14.45+MRK.14.46+MRK.14.47+MRK.14.48+MRK.14.49+MRK.14.50">
 <div class="p">26When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.</div><div class="s1">Jesus Predicts Peter&#8217;s Denial</div><div class="p"> 27 &#8220;You will all fall away,&#8221; Jesus told them, &#8220;for it is written:</div><div class="q1"> &#8220;&#8198;&#8216;I will strike the shepherd,</div><div class="q2"> and the sheep will be scattered.&#8217; # 14:27 
 Zech. 13:7
 </div><div class="m"> 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 29Peter declared, &#8220;Even if all fall away, I will not.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 30 &#8220;Truly I tell you,&#8221; Jesus answered, &#8220;today&#8212;yes, tonight&#8212;before the rooster crows twice#14:30 Some early manuscripts do not have twice. you yourself will disown me three times.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 31But Peter insisted emphatically, &#8220;Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.&#8221; And all the others said the same.</div><div class="s1">Gethsemane</div><div class="p"> 32They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, &#8220;Sit here while I pray.&#8221; 33He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34&#8220;My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,&#8221; he said to them. &#8220;Stay here and keep watch.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 35Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36&#8220;Abba, #14:36 Aramaic for father Father,&#8221; he said, &#8220;everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 37Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. &#8220;Simon,&#8221; he said to Peter, &#8220;are you asleep? Couldn&#8217;t you keep watch for one hour? 38Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 39Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.</div><div class="p"> 41Returning the third time, he said to them, &#8220;Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!&#8221;</div><div class="s1">Jesus Arrested</div><div class="p"> 43Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.</div><div class="p"> 44Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: &#8220;The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.&#8221; 45Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, &#8220;Rabbi!&#8221; and kissed him. 46The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.</div><div class="p"> 48 &#8220;Am I leading a rebellion,&#8221; said Jesus, &#8220;that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.&#8221; 50Then everyone deserted him and fled.</div><div class="p"> </div>
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