Bible in a Year.

On the seventy-first day, we follow Balaam prophesying blessing upon Israel, even under pressure from Balak. Numbers 23 reveals how God transforms a curse into a blessing for His people. In Deuteronomy 24-25, Moses presents laws that reflect social justice and care for others, demonstrating the importance of integrity in human relationships. Psalm 106 reminds us of Israel's unfaithfulness, but also extols the mercy of God, who remains faithful despite human failings.

1. And Balaam said to Balac: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams.

2. And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they laid together a calf and a ram upon every altar.

3. And Balaam said to Balac: Stand a while by thy burnt offering, until I go, to see if perhaps the Lord will meet me, and whatsoever he shall command, I will speak to thee.

4. And when he was gone with speed, God met him. And Balaam speaking to him, said: I have erected seven altars, and have laid on everyone a calf and a ram.

5. And the Lord put the word in his mouth, and said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou speak.

6. Returning he found Balac standing by his burnt offering, with all the princes of the Moabites:

7. And taking up his parable, he said: Balac king of the Moabites hath brought me from Aram, from the mountains of the east: Come, said he, and curse Jacob: make haste and detest Israel.

8. How shall I curse him, whom God hath not cursed? By what means should I detest him, whom the Lord detesteth not?

9. I shall see him from the tops of the rocks, and shall consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

10. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and know the number of the stock of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them.

11. And Balac said to Balaam: What is this that thou dost? I sent for thee to curse my enemies: and thou contrariwise blessest them.

12. He answered him: Call I speak any thing else but what the Lord commandeth?

13. Balac therefore said: Come with me to another place from whence thou mayest see part of Israel, and canst not see them all: curse them from thence.

14. And when he had brought him to a high place, upon the top of mount Phasga, Balaam built seven altars, and laying on every one a calf and a ram,

15. He said to Balac: Stand here by thy burnt offering while I go to meet him.

16. And when the Lord had met him, and had put the word in his mouth, he said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou say to him.

17. Returning he found him standing by his burnt sacrifice, and the princes of the Moabites with him. And Balac said to him: What hath the Lord spoken?

18. But he taking up his parable, said: Stand, O Balac, and give ear: hear, thou son of Sephor:

19. God is not a man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said then, and will he not do? hath he spoken, and will he not fulfil?

20. I was brought to bless, the blessing I am not able to hinder.

21. There is no idol in Jacob, neither is there an image god to be seen in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the victory of the king in him.

22. God hath brought him out of Egypt, whose strength is like to the rhinoceros.

23. There is no soothsaying in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. In their times it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God hath wrought.

24. Behold the people shall rise up as a lioness, and shall lift itself up as a lion: it shall not lie down till it devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

25. And Balac said to Balaam: Neither curse, nor bless him.

26. And he said: Did I not tell thee, that whatsoever God should command me, that I would do?

27. And Balac said to him: Come and I will bring thee to another place; if peradventure it please God that thou mayest curse them from thence.

28. And when he had brought him upon the top of mount Phogor, which looketh towards the wilderness,

29. Balaam said to him: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams.

30. Balac did as Balaam had said: and he laid on every altar, a calf and a ram.

Chapter 24

1. If a man take a wife, and have her, and she find not favour in his eyes, for some uncleanness: he shall write a bill of divorce, and shall give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

2. And when she is departed, and marrieth another husband,

3. And he also hateth her, and hath given her a bill of divorce, and hath sent her out of his house or is dead:

4. The former husband cannot take her again to wife: because she is defiled, and is become abominable before the Lord: lest thou cause thy land to sin, which the Lord thy God shall give thee to possess.

5. When a man hath lately taken a wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall any public business be enjoined him, but he shall be free at home without fault, that for one year he may rejoice with his wife.

6. Thou shalt not take the nether, nor the upper millstone to pledge: for he hath pledged his life to thee.

7. If ally man be found soliciting his brother of the children of Israel, and selling him shall take a price, he shall be put to death, and thou shalt take away the evil from the midst of thee.

8. Observe diligently that thou incur not the stroke of the leprosy, but thou shalt do whatsoever the priests of the Levitical race shall teach thee, according to what I have commanded them, and fulfil thou it carefully.

9. Remember what the Lord your God did to Mary, in the way when you came out of Egypt.

10. When thou shalt demand of thy neighbour any thing that he oweth thee, thou shalt not go into his house to take away a pledge :

11. But then shalt stand without, and he shall bring out to thee what he hath.

12. But if he be poor, the pledge shall not lodge with thee that night,

13. But thou shalt restore it to him presently before the going down of the sun: that he may sleep in his own raiment and bless thee, and thou mayst have justice before the Lord thy God.

14. Thou shalt not refuse the hire of the needy, and the poor, whether he be thy brother, or a stranger that dwelleth with thee in the land, and is within thy gates:

15. But thou shalt pay him the price of his labour the same day, before the going down of the sun, because he is poor, and with it maintaineth his life: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be reputed to thee for a sin.

16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers, but every one shall die for his own sin.

17. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger nor of the fatherless, neither shalt thou take away the widow's raiment for a pledge.

18. Remember that thou wast a slave in Egypt, and the Lord thy God delivered thee from thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing.

19. When thou hast reaped the corn in thy field, and hast forgot and left a sheaf, thou shalt not return to take it away: but thou shalt suffer the stranger, and the fatherless and the widow to tabs it away: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thy hands.

20. If thou have gathered the fruit of thy olive trees, thou shalt not return to gather whatsoever remaineth on the trees: but shalt leave it for the stranger, for the fatherless, and the widow.

21. If thou make the vintage of thy vineyard, thou shalt not gather the clusters that remain, but they shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.

22. Remember that thou also wast a bondman in Egypt, and therefore I command thee to do this thing.

Chapter 25

1. If there be a controversy between men, and they call upon the judges: they shall give the prize of justice to him whom they perceive to be just: and him whom they find to be wicked, they shall condemn of wickedness.

2. And if they see that the offender be worthy of stripes: they shall lay him down, and shall cause him to be beaten before them. According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be:

3. Yet so, that they exceed not the number of forty: lest thy brother depart shamefully torn before thy eyes.

4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor.

5. When brethren dwell together, and one of them dieth without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another: but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother:

6. And the first son he shall have of her he shall call by his name, that his name be not abolished out of Israel.

7. But if he will not take his brother's wife, who by law belongeth to him, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and call upon the ancients, and say: My husband's brother refuseth to raise up his brother's name in Israel: and will not take me to wife.

8. And they shall cause him to be sent for forthwith, and shall ask him. If he answer: I will not take her to wife:

9. The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother's house:

10. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of the unshod.

11. If two men have words together, and one begin to fight against the other, and the other's wife willing to deliver her husband out of the hand of the stronger, shall put forth her hand, and take him by the secrets,

12. Thou shalt cut off her hand, neither shalt thou be moved with any pity in her regard.

13. Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag, a greater and a less:

14. Neither shall there be in thy house a greater bushel and a less.

15. Thou shalt have a just and a true weight, and thy bushel shall be equal and true: that thou mayest live a long time upon the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee.

16. For the Lord thy God abhorreth him that doth these things, and he hateth all injustice.

17. Remember what Amalec did to thee in the way when thou camest out of Egypt:

18. How he met thee: and slew the hindmost of the army, who sat down, being weary, when thou wast spent with hunger and labour, and he feared not God.

19. Therefore when the Lord thy God shall give thee rest, and shall have subdued all the nations round about in the land which he hath promised thee: thou shalt blot out his name from under heaven. See thou forget it not.

1. Alleluia. Give glory to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

2. Who shall declare the powers of the Lord? who shall set forth all his praises?

3. Blessed are they that keep judgment, and do justice at all times.

4. Remember us, O Lord, in the favour of thy people: visit us with thy salvation.

5. That we may see the good of thy chosen, that we may rejoice in the joy of thy nation: that thou mayst be praised with thy inheritance.

6. We have sinned with our fathers: we have acted unjustly, we have wrought iniquity.

7. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt: they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies: And they provoked to wrath going up to the sea, even the Red Sea.

8. And he saved them for his own name's sake: that he might make his power known.

9. And he rebuked the Red Sea, and it was dried up: and he led them through the depths, as in a wilderness.

10. And he saved them from the hand of them that hated them: and he redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

11. And the water covered them that afflicted them: there was not one of them left.

12. And they believed his words: and they sang his praises.

13. They had quickly done, they forgot his works: and they waited not for his counsels.

14. And they coveted their desire in the desert: and they tempted God in the place without water.

15. And he gave them their request: and sent fulness into their souls.

16. And they provoked Moses in the camp, Aaron the holy one of the Lord.

17. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan: and covered the congregation of Abiron.

18. And a fire was kindled in their congregation: the flame burned the wicked.

19. They made also a calf in Horeb: and they adored the graven thing.

20. And they changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass.

21. They forgot God, who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt,

22. wondrous works in the land of Cham: terrible things in the Red Sea.

23. And he said that he would destroy them: had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach: To turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

24. And they set at nought the desirable land. They believed not his word,

25. and they murmured in their tents: they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord.

26. And he lifted up his hand over them: to overthrow them in the desert;

27. And to cast down their seed among the nations, and to scatter them in the countries.

28. They also were initiated to Beelphegor: and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

29. And they provoked him with their inventions: and destruction was multiplied among them.

30. Then Phinees stood up, and pacified him: and the slaughter ceased.

31. And it was reputed to him unto justice, to generation and generation for evermore.

32. They provoked him also at the waters of contradiction: and Moses was afflicted for their sakes:

33. because they exasperated his spirit. And he distinguished with his lips.

34. They did not destroy the nations of which the Lord spoke unto them.

35. And they were mingled among the heathens, and learned their works:

36. and served their idols, and it became a stumblingblock to them.

37. And they sacrificed their sons, and their daughters to devils.

38. And they shed innocent blood: the blood of their sons and of their daughters which they sacrificed to the idols of Chanaan. And the land was polluted with blood,

39. and was defiled with their works: and they went aside after their own inventions.

40. And the Lord was exceedingly angry with his people: and he abhorred his inheritance.

41. And he delivered them into the hands of the nations: and they that hated them had dominion over them.

42. And their enemies afflicted them: and they were humbled under their hands:

43. many times did he deliver them. But they provoked him with their counsel: and they were brought low by their iniquities.

44. And he saw when they were in tribulation: and he heard their prayer.

45. And he was mindful of his covenant: and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

46. And he gave them unto mercies, in the sight of all those that had made them captives.

47. Save us, O Lord, our God: and gather us from among nations: That we may give thanks to thy holy name, and may glory in thy praise.

48. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say: So be it, so be it.