That will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hooves.

The godly ¹  grow like a palm tree; they grow high like a cedar in Lebanon. ² 

They bear fruit even when they are old; they are filled with vitality and have many leaves. ¹ 

A person’s life is like grass. ¹  Like a flower in the field it flourishes,

The trees of the Lord ¹  receive all the rain they need, ²  the cedars of Lebanon which he planted,

May they be like the grass on the rooftops which withers before one can even pull it up, ¹ 

The one who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous ¹  will flourish like a green leaf. ² 

Other seeds fell among the thorns, ¹  and they grew up and choked them. ² 

Other seed fell among the thorns, ¹  and they grew up with it and choked ²  it.

Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled ¹  hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents. ² 

“‘If you present a grain offering of first ripe grain to the Lord, you must present your grain offering of first ripe grain as soft kernels roasted in fire – crushed bits of fresh grain. ¹ 

If, as far as the priest can see, the scall has stayed the same ¹  and black hair has sprouted in it, the scall has been healed; the person is clean. So the priest is to pronounce him clean. ² 

The priest is to examine it, ¹  and if ²  the swelling of the infection is reddish white in the back or front bald area like the appearance of a disease on the skin of the body, ³ 

Certainly ¹  no man who has a physical flaw is to approach: a blind man, or one who is lame, or one with a slit nose, ²  or a limb too long,

“‘You must not present to the Lord something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, ¹  or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. ²  You must not give any of these as a gift ³  on the altar to the Lord.

You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned ¹  vines; the land must have a year of complete rest.

That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. ¹ 

Like a vine he will let his sour grapes fall, ¹  and like an olive tree he will shed his blossoms. ² 

You, by your power, ¹  defeated nations and settled our fathers on their land; ²  you crushed ³  the people living there ⁴  and enabled our ancestors to occupy it. ⁵