“‘If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold. ¹ 

I will grant peace in the land so that ¹  you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. ²  I will remove harmful animals ³  from the land, and no sword of war ⁴  will pass through your land.

“‘Surely no man may consecrate a firstborn that already belongs to the Lord as a firstborn among the animals; whether it is an ox or a sheep, it belongs to the Lord. ¹ 

“‘But the person ¹  who acts defiantly, ²  whether native-born or a resident foreigner, insults ³  the Lord. ⁴  That person ⁵  must be cut off ⁶  from among his people.

They must join ¹  with you, and they will be responsible for the care of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent, but no unauthorized person ²  may approach you.

Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ¹  And you must give them forty-two other towns.

Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ¹  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ²  and breaks his covenant

If a homicide victim ¹  should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, ²  and no one knows who killed ³  him,

If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, ¹  and regards him as mere property ²  and sells him, that kidnapper ³  must die. In this way you will purge ⁴  evil from among you.

Fathers must not be put to death for what their children ¹  do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin.

You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; ¹  you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.

When we heard the news we lost our courage and no one could even breathe for fear of you. ¹  For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below!

The men said to her, “If you ¹  die, may we die too! ²  If you do not report what we’ve been up to, ³  then, when the Lord hands the land over to us, we will show unswerving allegiance ⁴  to you.” ⁵ 

The Israelites plundered all the goods of these cities and the cattle, but they totally destroyed all the people ¹  and allowed no one who breathed to live.

The one who committed manslaughter ¹  should escape to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate, and present his case to the leaders of that city. ²  They should then bring him into the city, give him a place to stay, and let him live there. ³ 

He had a son named Saul, a handsome young man. There was no one among the Israelites more handsome than he was; he stood head and shoulders above all the people.

(Now it used to be in Israel that whenever someone went to inquire of God he would say, “Come on, let’s go to the seer.” For today’s prophet used to be called a seer.)

But some wicked men ¹  said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and did not even bring him a gift. But Saul said nothing about it. ² 

So on the day of the battle no sword or spear was to be found in the hand of anyone in the army that was with Saul and Jonathan. No one but Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

There was fierce war with the Philistines all the days of Saul. So whenever Saul saw anyone who was a warrior or a brave individual, he would conscript him.