The pastures in the wilderness glisten with moisture, ¹  and the hills are clothed with joy. ² 

My child, ¹  if your heart is wise, then my heart also will be glad;

By ¹  wisdom a house is built, ²  and through understanding it is established;

with all humility and gentleness, ¹  with patience, bearing with ²  one another in love,

because the person who gives him a greeting shares in his evil deeds. ¹ 

Come now, let’s kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and then say that a wild ¹  animal ate him. Then we’ll see how his dreams turn out!” ² 

The priest who succeeds him ¹  from his sons, when he first comes ²  to the tent of meeting to minister in the Holy Place, is to wear them for seven days. ³ 

when it happens that he sins and he is found guilty, ¹  then he must return whatever he had stolen, or whatever he had extorted, or the thing that he had held in trust, ²  or the lost thing that he had found,

“‘All ¹  animals that divide the hoof but it is not completely split in two ²  and do not chew the cud ³  are unclean to you; anyone who touches them becomes unclean. ⁴ 

Anything their carcass may fall on will become unclean. An oven or small stove must be smashed to pieces; they are unclean, and they will stay unclean ¹  to you.

“Tell the Israelites, ‘When a woman produces offspring ¹  and bears a male child, ²  she will be unclean seven days, as she is unclean during the days of her menstruation. ³ 

“‘When the man with the discharge becomes clean from his discharge he is to count off for himself seven days for his purification, and he must wash his clothes, bathe in fresh water, ¹  and be clean.

“Command the Israelites to expel ¹  from the camp every leper, ²  everyone who has a discharge, ³  and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. ⁴ 

or when jealous feelings come over a man and he becomes suspicious of his wife; then he must have the woman stand before the Lord, and the priest will carry out all this law upon her.

“‘If anyone dies very suddenly ¹  beside him and he defiles ²  his consecrated head, ³  then he must shave his head on the day of his purification – on the seventh day he must shave it.

If your fellow Hebrew ¹  – whether male or female ²  – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant ³  go free. ⁴ 

Set the empty pot on the coals, ¹  until it becomes hot and its copper glows, until its uncleanness melts within it and its rot ²  is consumed.

The ¹  seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth ²  choke the word, ³  so it produces nothing.

No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse.

Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ¹  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.