Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse)

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.600 · 1.625–1.1251 · 1.1277–2.396 · 2.420–2.1012 · 2.1041–4.1 · 4.25–4.618 · 4.643–5.274 · 6.1–7.26 · 7.50–7.674 · 7.700–7.745

1. 1.1The poem opens with the six days of creation, from heaven and earth and light to the land animals.
2. 1.25God makes man in his likeness with his own hand, forms Eve from Adam’s rib, rests on the seventh day, has Adam name the animals, and blesses the couple.
3. 1.50Paradise with its tree of life and death and its four rivers is described; Adam and Eve are set there and warned not to eat the forbidden fruit, and the serpent approaches.
4. 1.75The serpent persuades Eve, she and Adam eat, their eyes are opened, and God questions Adam, who blames the woman.
5. 1.101Eve blames the serpent, and God pronounces judgment on the serpent, the woman, and Adam.
6. 1.126Adam and Eve are expelled and clothed with skins; Cain and Abel are born and offer their gifts, Abel’s lamb pleases God, and God rebukes the angry Cain.
7. 1.151Cain murders Abel, is cursed and marked by God, goes to the land of Nod, and founds a city named after his firstborn.
8. 1.176The descendants of Cain to Lamech and his children are listed, then Seth and Enosh, with the ages of Adam, Enosh and Kenan.
9. 1.202The line of Seth continues through Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch (taken by God), Methuselah and Lamech, who prophesies over Noah, the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
10. 1.228God limits human life to 120 years; the holy ones from heaven beget giants with women; God resolves to destroy the world by flood and orders Noah to build the ark.
11. 1.253The ark is built to God’s measurements, and God tells Noah to enter with his family, the clean animals by sevens and the unclean by pairs, and food, for the flood will come in seven days.
12. 1.279Noah enters the ark, the flood covers the earth for forty days and destroys all life, and as the waters fall Noah sends out the raven, which does not return.
13. 1.303The dove returns, then brings an olive branch, then does not return; the earth dries, Noah leaves the ark and offers a pleasing sacrifice.
14. 1.329God promises no more flood and sets the rainbow, blesses Noah, forbids eating blood and requires blood for blood; Noah plants a vine, becomes drunk, and Ham mocks him.
15. 1.354Shem and Japheth cover their father, Noah curses the offender, dies at 950, and the nations descended from his sons found their cities.
16. 1.377Nimrod, the giant hunter who sets himself against God, founds the cities of Babylonia and Assyria, and the builders of the tower in Shinar have their single language confused by the Lord.
17. 1.401The place of the tower is called Confusion; Abram and Lot marry, Terah leads them toward Canaan, God calls Abram with a promise, and Abram builds altars at Shechem and on a mountain.
18. 1.426Famine drives Abram to Egypt, where Sarai, called his sister, is taken by Pharaoh, until God strikes Pharaoh, who rebukes Abram and sends them away with their wealth.
19. 1.450Abram and Lot separate because their herds quarrel; Lot chooses the Jordan plain, Abram is shown the promised land and countless descendants and builds an altar at Mamre.
20. 1.474Four kings defeat the five kings of the plain and capture Lot; Abram with 318 servants routs them by night, rescues Lot, and is blessed by Melchizedek, to whom he gives a tenth.
21. 1.499Abram refuses the king of Sodom’s spoil; God promises him an heir and offspring as countless as the stars, among them one who is the Son of the eternal King, and Abram believes and asks for a sign.
22. 1.526Abram prepares the covenant sacrifice, a terrifying darkness falls, and God foretells four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, the people’s return, and Abram’s peaceful death.
23. 1.549God promises the land from the Nile to the Euphrates and consumes the sacrifice with fire; barren Sarai gives Hagar to Abram, Ishmael is born, and an angel sends the fleeing Hagar back.
24. 1.575Hagar names the spring; at ninety-nine Abram receives the covenant, the new names and the promise of a son, circumcises his household, laughs at the promise, and receives three visitors at noon.
25. 1.600Abraham and Sarah entertain the three visitors, whom the poet calls God under a threefold image; the Lord promises a son within a year, Sarah laughs and denies it, and the visitors look toward Sodom.
26. 1.625The Lord tells Abraham of the outcry against Sodom, Abraham bargains from fifty righteous men down to ten, and two visitors come to Lot, whose house the men of the city besiege.
27. 1.650The men of Sodom are blinded; Lot leaves with his family, his wife becomes salt, fire destroys the cities, and Lot’s daughters make their father drunk.
28. 1.675Moab and Ammon are born; in Gerar Abimelech takes Sarah, is warned by God in a dream, rebukes Abraham, who explains that she is his half-sister, and makes amends with gifts.
29. 1.700Abraham’s prayer heals Abimelech’s house; Isaac is born, circumcised and weaned with a feast, and Sarah has Hagar and Ishmael driven out into the wilderness near Beersheba.
30. 1.725God comforts Hagar and Ishmael grows up an archer; Abraham makes a covenant with Abimelech over the wells, and God commands him to sacrifice his only son, whom he leads to the mountain.
31. 1.750A lamb replaces Isaac on the altar; Sarah dies and is buried in the double cave bought from Ephron; Abraham’s servant swears to find Isaac a wife from his kin and meets Rebecca at the spring.
32. 1.775Rebecca marries Isaac; Abraham dies and is buried; after long barrenness Rebecca conceives twins and learns that two peoples are in her womb and the elder will serve the younger.
33. 1.799Esau and Jacob are born and grow up, Jacob buys the birthright for lentil stew, and famine sends Isaac to Gerar, where God forbids him to go to Egypt and renews the promise.
34. 1.824In Gerar Isaac calls Rebecca his sister until the king sees them together and protects her; Isaac prospers, the Philistines stop his wells out of envy, and he digs new wells and names one Strife.
35. 1.849Isaac names the well of peace, God appears to him at Beersheba, Abimelech makes a covenant with him, and the blind Isaac sends Esau to hunt so that he may bless him.
36. 1.874Rebecca disguises Jacob, who receives Isaac’s blessing in Esau’s place; Esau returns too late, plans revenge, and Rebecca sends Jacob to Laban in Haran.
37. 1.900Isaac charges Jacob not to marry a Canaanite but to seek a wife from Bethuel’s house; on the way Jacob sleeps on a stone and sees the ladder with the angels and the Lord above it.
38. 1.924God promises Jacob the land and his return; Jacob anoints the stone at Bethel and vows a tenth, then meets Rachel at the well, waters her sheep and makes himself known.
39. 1.948Jacob serves Laban seven years for Rachel, is given Leah instead, serves again for Rachel, and Leah bears Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah before Rachel conceives.
40. 1.973Joseph is born; Jacob arranges his wage with Laban, makes the flocks speckled with peeled rods, grows rich, and leaves while Laban is shearing, Rachel hiding her father’s household gods.
41. 1.998Laban pursues Jacob, is warned by God, searches in vain for his gods, and makes a covenant at the heap of stones; Jacob sees God’s camp, sends gifts ahead to Esau, who comes with four hundred men, and prays.
42. 1.1024Jacob prays to be saved from Esau, wrestles with God through the night, is lamed and blessed, and receives the new name, interpreted ‘Seeing the Lord’.
43. 1.1049Israel does not eat the sinew of the thigh; Jacob and Esau are reconciled; Jacob settles at Succoth and Shechem, where Dinah is violated by the Hivite, who seeks to marry her.
44. 1.1075Simeon and Levi kill the Shechemites; Jacob puts away the household gods, goes to Bethel, receives God’s promise, and anoints the stone; Rachel dies bearing Benjamin; the sons of the handmaids are listed.
45. 1.1100Isaac dies at 180 and goes to the joys of the righteous; Esau settles in Seir and Jacob in Canaan, where the seventeen-year-old Joseph, outshining his brothers, arouses their envy.
46. 1.1124Jacob loves Joseph and gives him a many-coloured robe; Joseph’s dreams of the sheaves and of the sun, moon and eleven stars make his brothers hate him, and they go off with the flocks.
47. 1.1149Joseph finds his brothers, who plot to kill him; Reuben persuades them to cast him into a pit, Judah to sell him to traders bound for Egypt; Jacob mourns, and Joseph is bought by Pharaoh’s officer.
48. 1.1175Tamar bears the twins Perez and Zerah; in Egypt Joseph prospers in his master’s house, refuses the advances of his master’s wife, and flees leaving his garment.
49. 1.1200Potiphar’s wife accuses Joseph, who is imprisoned, trusted by the keeper, and asks the king’s two imprisoned servants their dreams; the cupbearer tells of the vine with three branches.
50. 1.1225Joseph interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker, asks to be remembered, and both are fulfilled; two years later Pharaoh dreams of seven sleek heifers.
51. 1.1251Pharaoh dreams of the lean cows and thin ears devouring the fat; the cupbearer remembers Joseph, who is brought from prison and explains seven years of plenty and seven of famine.
52. 1.1277Joseph advises Pharaoh to appoint a wise man to store a fifth of the harvests; Pharaoh makes Joseph ruler of Egypt, gives him Asenath as wife, Manasseh and Ephraim are born, and Joseph fills the granaries.
53. 1.1302The famine spreads; Jacob sends ten sons to buy grain in Egypt, keeping Benjamin at home; Joseph recognizes them, accuses them of spying, and they tell him of their father and brothers.
54. 1.1328Joseph imprisons his brothers for three days and keeps Simeon as hostage; they confess their guilt toward Joseph, who weeps; on the way home they find their money returned, and Jacob laments.
55. 1.1353When the grain runs out, Reuben and Judah persuade Jacob to send Benjamin; the brothers return to Egypt with gifts and double money, are invited to Joseph’s house, and fear a trap.
56. 1.1377The steward reassures the brothers and releases Simeon; Joseph greets them, asks after their father, blesses Benjamin, weeps in private, and feasts them, giving Benjamin the largest portion.
57. 1.1400Joseph has his cup hidden in Benjamin’s sack; the brothers are overtaken, return and plead, and Joseph makes himself known and sends them to bring Jacob to settle in Egypt during the famine.
58. 1.1424Pharaoh welcomes Joseph’s family, gifts are sent, Jacob sets out for Egypt with seventy-five souls, Judah goes ahead, Joseph meets his father, and Pharaoh settles the brothers in rich land.
59. 1.1448Jacob appears before Pharaoh; Joseph buys up the money, flocks and land of Egypt for the king, exempting the priests, and imposes the fifth; Jacob makes Joseph swear to bury him with his fathers and blesses Ephraim and Manasseh.
60. 1.1473Jacob blesses Ephraim above Manasseh, gives Joseph Shechem, blesses his twelve sons and dies; Egypt mourns him seventy days; Joseph forgives his brothers and, dying at 110, asks that his bones be carried back.
61. 2.1After Joseph’s generation dies, a new king fears the multiplying Israelites and resolves to break them with forced labour.
62. 2.22The Israelites build Pithom, Rameses and On, but grow stronger; Pharaoh orders the midwives to kill the boys, they fear God and refuse, and Pharaoh orders all boys thrown into the Nile.
63. 2.46A Levite hides his beautiful son three months, then sets him adrift; Pharaoh’s daughter finds him and, through his sister, gives him to his own mother to nurse.
64. 2.72Moses grows up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, kills an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, is challenged by a quarrelling Hebrew, and flees from Pharaoh.
65. 2.96Moses defends Jethro’s daughters at the well in Midian, marries Zipporah, and has two sons, Gershom and Eliezer; Pharaoh dies and the Israelites cry to God.
66. 2.120God remembers his promises; Moses, keeping Jethro’s sheep at Horeb, sees the burning bush, is told to remove his sandals, and hides his face as God declares himself the God of the patriarchs.
67. 2.144God declares that he has seen his people’s affliction and will bring them to the land flowing with milk and honey, sends Moses to Pharaoh with the promise of his presence, and Moses asks his name.
68. 2.168God reveals his name, ‘I am who I am’, sends Moses to ask Pharaoh for a three days’ journey, foretells the plagues and the spoiling of Egypt, and gives the sign of the rod turned into a serpent.
69. 2.196God gives Moses the signs of the leprous hand and the water turned to blood; Moses pleads his slowness of speech, God is angered and gives him Aaron, and Moses takes leave of Jethro.
70. 2.222On the way an angel threatens Moses, and Zipporah circumcises her son; Aaron meets Moses, the elders believe the signs, but Pharaoh refuses and increases the labour.
71. 2.249Pharaoh withholds the straw; the people reproach Moses and Aaron; God makes Moses as God to Pharaoh with Aaron as his prophet; the rod become serpent and the Nile turned to blood do not move Pharaoh, whose magicians imitate them.
72. 2.272The magicians imitate the frogs, which die at Moses’ prayer; the plague of gnats makes the magicians confess the finger of God; the swarms of dog-flies spare Goshen, and Pharaoh promises to let the people go.
73. 2.296The flies depart but Pharaoh hardens again; the cattle plague spares Israel; the boils afflict men and beasts; and an unheard-of hail with fire destroys men, cattle and trees, sparing only the unripe wheat and spelt.
74. 2.319The hail ends at Moses’ prayer but Pharaoh hardens; he offers a limited release, Moses refuses, the locusts come and are swept into the Red Sea, three days of darkness fall on Egypt while Israel has light, and the dogs do not bark at the Israelites.
75. 2.348Pharaoh threatens Moses; God strikes the firstborn of Egypt, the Egyptians drive out the Israelites with their goods, and after 440 years God brings them out.
76. 2.372The poet describes the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread: the unblemished lamb eaten with bones unbroken, its blood on the doorposts, the rule of circumcision for those who share it, and the unleavened loaves.
77. 2.396The Passover is kept with girded loins, staffs and the blood sprinkled with hyssop; the people leave with Joseph’s bones, led through the desert by Christ in the pillar of cloud and fire, and camp by the sea.
78. 2.420God hardens Pharaoh, who pursues with his chariots to the Red Sea; the terrified Israelites reproach Moses for bringing them out of Egypt.
79. 2.446The Israelites say slavery in Egypt was better than death in the desert; Moses tells them to stand firm and see God’s salvation, for God will fight for them while they keep silent.
80. 2.468The angel and the pillar move between the camps; at Moses’ outstretched rod a wind dries the sea, Israel crosses between walls of water, and the pursuing chariots of Pharaoh are clogged.
81. 2.493The sea returns and drowns the Egyptians; Israel fears God, believes Moses, and begins the song of Moses.
82. 2.518The song continues: the Egyptians sank like lead though Pharaoh boasted of spoil; none is like God, the nations tremble, and the redeemed people will come to God’s holy mountain.
83. 2.543Miriam and the women repeat the song; Israel travels through the wilderness of Shur, finds bitter water at Marah, which Moses sweetens with a tree, and God promises freedom from Egypt’s diseases to the obedient.
84. 2.570God promises to heal; Israel camps at Elim with its twelve springs and seventy palms, then in the wilderness of Sin the people complain of hunger and wish they had died in Egypt.
85. 2.592The people ask to return to Egypt; Moses and Aaron rebuke them, for their complaints are against the Lord, and promise bread from heaven; the Lord appears in the cloud.
86. 2.615Quail cover the camp and manna falls like coriander seed; each gathers a day’s portion, and what is kept rots, except the double portion gathered for the sabbath, on which no manna falls.
87. 2.639A portion of manna is kept in a golden vessel for future generations; at Rephidim the people quarrel for water, and at God’s command Moses strikes the rock at Horeb and water flows.
88. 2.663The place is named Temptation because the people tested God; Amalek attacks, Joshua fights, and Israel prevails while Aaron and Hur hold up Moses’ hands on the mountain.
89. 2.687Moses records the victory and builds an altar; Jethro visits, sacrifices, and advises Moses to appoint officers to judge the people; in the third month Israel reaches Sinai and Moses climbs the mountain.
90. 2.712God promises that if Israel obeys it will be his treasured people, a priestly kingdom and holy nation; the people agree, and they consecrate themselves for three days, kept back from the mountain.
91. 2.739The people, purified, see the thunder, lightning, cloud and trumpet on Sinai, and God begins the Ten Commandments: no other gods, no idols, no worship of the heavenly bodies.
92. 2.764The commandments continue: God’s mercy to the obedient, his name, the sabbath grounded in creation, honour to parents, and the prohibitions of adultery, murder, perjury, theft, false witness and coveting, followed by the law of the altar.
93. 2.789Laws of the Hebrew slave released in the seventh year or bound for life, of a daughter sold as a slave-wife and her rights if her master takes another, and of murder and the place of refuge for accidental killing.
94. 2.818Laws on wilful murder, striking or cursing parents, kidnapping, injury in a quarrel, killing a slave, and a blow that causes a pregnant woman to miscarry an unformed child.
95. 2.843The law of retaliation (eye for eye), freedom for a slave maimed by his master, and the laws of the goring ox and the negligent owner.
96. 2.866Further laws on the goring ox, the uncovered pit, an ox killing another ox, theft of livestock, and the thief caught breaking in by night or by day.
97. 2.889Laws on damage to another’s field by grazing or fire, and on goods and cattle given in trust and stolen.
98. 2.913Laws on animals killed by beasts, borrowed or hired animals, the seduction of an unbetrothed virgin, sorcery, bestiality, sacrifice to demons, and care for strangers, widows and orphans.
99. 2.938Laws against usury and on returning a pledged cloak by sunset, against reviling the gods and rulers, on first fruits and the firstborn, on unclean meat, false witness and partiality, and on helping an enemy’s beast.
100. 2.963Laws against bribery, the sabbatical year for the poor, the three annual feasts of unleavened bread, harvest and ingathering, and the rule that no one appear before God empty-handed.
101. 2.988Laws on sacrifice and the kid in its mother’s milk; God promises to send his angel before the people to bring them into the land and to drive out the nations, and forbids worship of their gods.
102. 2.1012God promises blessing, health, fertility and long life, hornets to drive out the nations gradually, and borders from the Red Sea to the Euphrates; he calls Moses, Aaron and seventy elders up the mountain, and Moses builds an altar.
103. 2.1041Moses sets up twelve pillars, sacrifices, sprinkles the people with the blood of the covenant and reads the book; the elders see the sapphire pavement under God’s feet; Moses goes up with Joshua and the cloud covers the mountain six days.
104. 2.1066For forty days God gives Moses the pattern of the sanctuary: the gold-covered ark with its rings, the cherubim, and the many vessels, which the poet says are too many for verse to name.
105. 2.1090The curtains, the priestly vestments with the twelve engraved gems of the breastplate, the gold plate, the linen undergarments, and the sacrifices of atonement are described.
106. 2.1115The ever-burning lamp, the anointing oil and the incense are prescribed; Bezalel and Oholiab are given skill; Moses receives the tablets written by God’s finger; and the people press Aaron for gods, and he asks for their gold earrings.
107. 2.1143Aaron makes the golden calf and proclaims a feast; the people revel, and God tells Moses to go down, for the people have sinned, and resolves to destroy them.
108. 2.1167God offers to make a greater nation of Moses, who intercedes: the Egyptians would say God led Israel out to die, and God swore to the patriarchs to multiply their offspring.
109. 2.1193God relents; Moses comes down with the tablets, finds the people dancing around the calf, breaks the tablets, destroys the calf, makes the people drink its powder, and rebukes Aaron, who blames the people.
110. 2.1218The Levites kill the idolaters; Moses intercedes, offering to be blotted out of God’s book, and God answers that only the sinner will be blotted out.
111. 2.1242God sends the people on with an angel but will not go with them; the people mourn; Moses pitches the tent of witness outside the camp, and the cloud descends on it.
112. 2.1265Moses asks to see God’s face and that God go with them; God grants that he see his back from the cleft of the rock; Moses hews new tablets and goes up alone.
113. 2.1290Moses praises God’s mercy and justice and asks him to remain with the stiff-necked people; God forbids marriage with foreign wives who would lead them to idolatry; Moses fasts forty days.
114. 2.1314Moses’ face shines and he veils it except when he speaks with God; the people bring gifts for the tabernacle, which is completed and filled with the cloud, and the cloud and fire guide their journeys.
115. 3.1The third book retells Leviticus: the sacrifices, the fire from heaven on the offering, the death of Nadab and Abihu for strange fire, the ban on mourning and on wine for the priests, and the food laws.
116. 3.30Unclean birds are forbidden as food, and the purification of a mother after the birth of a son or daughter is prescribed.
117. 3.51Leprosy and its cleansing by offerings, which the poor may make with smaller gifts, are described, and the uncleanness of a nocturnal emission.
118. 3.76Laws of cleansing from bodily discharges, of vessels touched, of intercourse, and of menstruation and abnormal flows; after the death of Aaron’s sons, God appoints the times when the priest may enter before the ark.
119. 3.102The Day of Atonement with the two goats, the ban on eating blood or carcasses, and the beginning of the forbidden degrees of marriage: mother, sister, granddaughter, aunt, daughter-in-law, brother’s wife, and a woman and her daughter.
120. 3.127The forbidden unions continue (stepmother, two sisters, a neighbour’s wife), with the bans on child sacrifice, homosexual intercourse and bestiality; then the laws of gleaning, honesty, wages, and care for the deaf.
121. 3.150Laws of impartial judgment, against hatred and revenge, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, against mixing kinds, and on intercourse with a betrothed slave woman.
122. 3.174The law of the betrothed slave woman continues; then laws on the first fruits of new trees, divination, cutting the hair and beard, tattoos, prostituting a daughter, respect for the aged, honest measures, mediums, and mourning rites.
123. 3.200Laws of priestly marriage (no adulteress, divorced woman or widow), of priests with bodily defects, of unblemished offerings, of a priest’s daughter married to a layman, of eating holy things in error, and of the lamp.
124. 3.225A man who blasphemes the name of the Lord in a quarrel is stoned; then laws of the redemption of land and houses in the year of release and of lending without interest.
125. 3.248Laws on the Israelite who sells himself into service and his release or redemption in the jubilee; then the blessings of peace, plenty and victory promised to the obedient.
126. 3.273The curses on the disobedient: terror, famine, wild beasts, barren crops, parents eating their children, captivity, and the burning of cities.
127. 3.297The laws of the valuation of vowed persons, houses and fields, of redemption, and of tithes conclude the book.
128. 4.1The fourth book retells Numbers: a year after the exodus God orders a census of men of twenty and over, who number 603,550, while the Levites of Gershon, Kohath and Merari are counted separately.
129. 4.25The tribes are arranged around the tabernacle with the Levites at its east; the firstborn are redeemed; 8,580 Levites are assigned to carry it; the unclean are put outside the camp; and the law of the jealous husband begins.
130. 4.51The ordeal of the woman suspected of adultery, who drinks the water of cursing; then the beginning of the Nazirite vow, with abstinence from wine and all that comes from the vine.
131. 4.76The Nazirite abstains from vinegar and raisins, lets his hair grow, and avoids the dead; if defiled by a death he shaves, offers birds, and begins again; at the end of the vow he offers lambs and a ram.
132. 4.102The Nazirite completes his vow; the priestly blessing is given, addressed by the poet to Christ; the tabernacle and its vessels are anointed, and the wagons and oxen given by the tribal leaders are distributed among the Levites.
133. 4.127The twelve tribal leaders bring their identical offerings on separate days, beginning with Nahshon of Judah; then God speaks to Moses from between the cherubim.
134. 4.151The lamps are lit; the Levites serve from twenty-five to fifty and are cleansed; men defiled by a corpse ask about the Passover and are allowed to keep it later, while one who neglects it without cause is condemned.
135. 4.176Moses makes the silver trumpets that signal the march of each camp; Israel sets out to the wilderness of Paran, and Moses asks Hobab, son of Reuel, to come with them to the promised land.
136. 4.202Hobab wishes to return home, and Moses urges him at length to continue with Israel to the promised land; Israel leaves the mountain of God.
137. 4.227The ark goes before the people and Moses prays, ‘Rise up, O God, and scatter your enemies’; the people murmur, fire breaks out in the camp and is quenched at Moses’ prayer, and Moses complains that he cannot bear the people alone.
138. 4.252God gives Moses seventy elders who prophesy; Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp and Moses refuses Joshua’s request to stop them; at Hazeroth Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses’ Ethiopian wife, and Moses keeps silent.
139. 4.278God rebukes Miriam and Aaron: to other prophets he speaks in dreams, but to Moses, faithful in all his house, face to face; Miriam is struck with leprosy.
140. 4.303Aaron begs forgiveness, Moses prays for Miriam’s healing, and she is shut out of the camp seven days; at Paran twelve spies are sent into Canaan and reach Hebron.
141. 4.328The spies bring back figs, pomegranates and a huge cluster of grapes, but report giant peoples and lofty walls; the people weep and wish they had died in Egypt, complaining of the manna.
142. 4.351The people recall the fish, melons, cucumbers, leeks and onions of Egypt, propose to appoint a leader and return, and take up stones, while Moses and Aaron fall on their faces and the chiefs tear their clothes.
143. 4.376Caleb and Joshua urge the people to trust the spies chosen from the leaders, for God will give them the good land flowing with milk and honey despite the giants.
144. 4.399God’s glory appears; he decrees that the whole generation except Caleb and Joshua will die in the wilderness during forty years, despite Moses’ intercession; the people then attack the hill country on their own.
145. 4.423The Israelites are routed because God was not with them; a sabbath-breaker gathering sticks is stoned; blue tassels are commanded; Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebel and are swallowed by the earth, and fire consumes the 250 who offered incense.
146. 4.449The people murmur and 14,700 die in a plague stayed by Moses’ intercession; the censers are hammered into plating for the altar; and Aaron’s rod among the twelve buds and bears almonds.
147. 4.473The law of the red heifer and the water of purification from contact with the dead; Miriam dies at Kadesh, the people quarrel for water, and God commands Moses to bring the rod to the rock.
148. 4.498Moses strikes the rock in unbelief and water flows, but God forbids Moses and Aaron to lead the people into the land; Edom refuses passage, and Aaron dies on Mount Hor, Eleazar succeeding him.
149. 4.523Israel is first routed and then defeats the Canaanites at Hormah; the people complain of leaving Egypt, fiery serpents bite them, and those who look at the bronze serpent Moses sets on a pole are healed.
150. 4.547Israel journeys by Oboth, Iye-abarim, Zered and Arnon to Beer, where God gives water and the people sing the song of the well, and then comes to the land of Sihon.
151. 4.571Israel defeats Sihon and takes Jazer; Balak king of Moab, terrified, sends for Balaam to curse Israel, but God forbids it in the night, and Balak sends a second embassy.
152. 4.597Balaam sets out on his ass; the angel of the Lord with drawn sword blocks the way three times, the ass turns aside, crushes his foot against a wall and lies down, and God opens her mouth.
153. 4.618The ass reproaches Balaam, the angel appears and tells him he would have been slain but for the ass; Balaam repents, goes on to Balak, and builds seven altars.
154. 4.643Balaam sacrifices and, instead of cursing, blesses Israel, a people dwelling apart and beyond number, and prays to die the death of the righteous; Balak takes him to another hill.
155. 4.668Balaam’s second oracle: God is not a man that he should lie; he blesses his people, who have no divination, and they rise like a lion that does not lie down until it has devoured its prey.
156. 4.692Balaam’s third oracle praises the tents of Jacob, foretells one born of his seed who will rule all peoples in an eternal kingdom, and blesses those who bless Israel.
157. 4.718Balaam departs; Israel worships Baal of Peor, the guilty are executed, and Phinehas spears Zimri and the Midianite Cozbi, staying the plague, and receives the priesthood.
158. 4.743The new generation is numbered; twelve thousand men under Phinehas destroy Midian and kill its kings and Balaam; only the virgins are spared, the warriors are purified, and the plunder is divided.
159. 4.768A share of the spoil is given to God; Reuben, Gad and half Manasseh ask for Gilead, and Moses grants it on condition that they fight with the other tribes.
160. 5.1The fifth book retells Deuteronomy: at the Jordan, near death, Moses gathers the people and urges them to fear and love God, who freed them from Egypt and guided them by cloud and fire through the sea.
161. 5.27Moses recalls the crossing of the sea, the water from the rock, the manna and quail, the clothes and sandals that did not wear out, and the victories, and calls heaven to witness that they must keep the law.
162. 5.53Moses sums up the law as gentle and just: do not do to others what you would not wish done to you; keep the sabbaths, the Passover and honour to parents; avoid foreign marriages and idols; exempt from war the man with a new house, vineyard or bride, and the fearful; spare the suppliant.
163. 5.78Laws on sparing fruit trees in war, the heifer for an unsolved murder, the captive wife who must be freed if her husband no longer wants her, the rights of the children of an unloved wife, burial of the executed, cross-dressing, the mother bird, parapets, and mixed sowing.
164. 5.103Laws against prostitutes’ wages in the sanctuary, on fugitive slaves, on eating from a neighbour’s field, on the divorced wife who may not return to her first husband, on the new bride, millstones as pledges, individual responsibility, flogging, the threshing ox, and levirate marriage.
165. 5.128The levirate law and the law of the woman who intervenes in a brawl; the blessings of obedience; Moses charges the Levites to read the law and keep the tablets in the ark, installs Joshua, and teaches the people a song.
166. 5.152The Song of Moses begins: heaven and earth are to hear; his teaching falls like rain on parched ground; God’s works are perfect and just, though a crooked generation works its own ruin.
167. 5.176The Song continues: is this how they repay their Father and Creator? Let them ask their fathers and elders; when God divided the nations, he took Jacob as his own portion.
168. 5.200The Song continues: God found Israel in the desert, guarded it like the apple of his eye and as an eagle its young, fed it with honey from the rock, oil, milk, wheat and wine, but Israel grew fat and forsook him.
169. 5.225The Song continues: Israel sacrificed to demons, and God, preferring an unknown nation, sends fire, famine, beasts and the sword, so that one enemy puts a thousand to flight.
170. 5.250The Song continues: the enemies’ gods are a vine of Gomorrah; let them help if they can; God alone kills and makes alive and will whet his flashing sword; heaven is to rejoice.
171. 5.274The Song ends with heaven, angels and nations praising God, who strikes the wicked and spares the humble; Moses sees the land from Nebo and dies at 120, unburied by men, his sight undimmed.
172. 6.1The sixth book retells Joshua: God promises Joshua the land from Lebanon to the Euphrates and the sea, tells him to be strong and keep the book of the law, and Joshua orders the people to prepare to cross in three days.
173. 6.26The eastern tribes are charged to fight with their brothers; Joshua sends spies to Jericho, Rahab hides them from the king and confesses what the Lord has done for Israel.
174. 6.51Rahab says that terror has fallen on Jericho because of the Lord’s deeds and asks for an oath to spare her family; the spies agree on the scarlet cord as a sign and hide three days in the hills.
175. 6.76Joshua moves from Shittim, orders the people to sanctify themselves and follow the ark at a distance; the priests step into the Jordan, twelve stones are taken from the riverbed and twelve set in it, and the eastern tribes cross armed.
176. 6.100The Jordan’s waters stop and the people cross; the Canaanite kings lose heart; Joshua circumcises the generation born in the wilderness; the Passover is kept at Gilgal and the manna ceases.
177. 6.125Joshua meets the commander of the Lord’s army, whom the poet makes God himself, and removes his sandals; the army and priests with the ark and seven trumpets march round Jericho for seven days.
178. 6.150At the shout the walls of Jericho fall and the city is destroyed except Rahab and her family; its treasures are given to the Lord and a curse laid on whoever rebuilds it; Achan leads others into sin.
179. 6.175Three thousand men are routed at Ai; Joshua and the elders mourn, and Joshua asks why God brought Israel over the Jordan only to be destroyed, and what will become of his great name.
180. 6.200God reveals the sin; Joshua takes the tribes by lot and finds Achan, who confesses hiding the spoil in his tent; Joshua rebukes him and Achan and his household are stoned.
181. 6.224Achan’s goods are burned; God restores Israel’s strength and Joshua sets an ambush behind Ai, draws out its men by a feigned flight, and the ambush takes and burns the city.
182. 6.248The men of Ai are caught between the two forces and twelve thousand fall; the king is hanged and the city burned, the cattle spared as spoil; the kings of Canaan gather against Joshua.
183. 6.273Joshua builds an altar of unhewn stones, writes the law, Deuteronomy, and reads its blessings and curses before the ark; the Gibeonites, seeing Israel’s victories, plan to deceive Joshua by pretending to come from far away.
184. 6.298The Gibeonites come with worn sacks, wineskins, clothes and shoes and mouldy bread, win a treaty, and when the deceit is discovered are made water-carriers for the sanctuary; Adoni-zedek and four kings attack Gibeon, which appeals to Joshua.
185. 6.323Joshua marches from Gilgal, assured by God of victory over the five kings; they are routed and more die by hailstones than by the sword, and Joshua prays for the day to be lengthened.
186. 6.347The sun and moon stand still at Joshua’s prayer; the five kings, found in a cave, are trampled, hanged and buried under stones; Libnah, Lachish, Debir and the whole south are destroyed.
187. 6.372Jabin of Hazor gathers the kings of the north with chariots at the waters of Merom; Joshua attacks them suddenly from a hill and destroys them.
188. 6.397Joshua burns the chariots, hamstrings the horses and destroys Hazor; the kings defeated are listed and the land divided, the kingdom of Og of Bashan going to Reuben, Gad and half Manasseh.
189. 6.421The remaining land is allotted; the Levites receive no territory; Balaam is killed; Caleb, recalling his faithful report forty-five years before, asks for and receives Hebron; then Debir, the city of letters, is attacked.
190. 6.446Othniel wins Caleb’s daughter; the Jebusites and Canaanites remain; the land is allotted, cities of refuge and forty Levitical cities are set apart, Joshua receives Timnath, and he sends the eastern tribes home with a charge.
191. 6.470Joshua urges the eastern tribes to love and serve God; they build a great altar by the Jordan, and the other tribes send Phinehas and ten leaders to accuse them of apostasy, recalling Peor.
192. 6.495The envoys offer the eastern tribes land west of the Jordan rather than division and recall Achan; the eastern tribes answer that the altar is a witness, not for sacrifice to other gods.
193. 6.520The eastern tribes satisfy the envoys; the aged Joshua gathers Israel and reminds them that God, not their sword or bow, defeated the nations, sending hornets before them and opening sea and river.
194. 6.546Joshua calls the people to choose whom they will serve; they answer that they will serve the Lord who brought them out of Egypt; Joshua writes the covenant and sets up a stone under the terebinth as witness.
195. 6.571Joshua dies at 110 and is buried in Ephraim with the circumcision knives; Joseph’s bones are buried at Shechem; Eleazar dies; the people turn to idols and are subjected to Eglon.
196. 7.1The seventh book retells Judges: after Joshua’s death Judah and Simeon defeat the Canaanites and Perizzites, maim Adoni-bezek as he had maimed seventy kings, and take Jerusalem, Hebron and Debir.
197. 7.26Caleb gives his daughter Achsah to Othniel for taking Debir, with fields and springs; the Kenites settle near Arad; Judah destroys Zephath but cannot take Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron and Ashdod.
198. 7.50The house of Joseph takes Bethel; the Amorites are made tributary; the angel of the Lord comes from Gilgal to Bochim and rebukes Israel for its idols.
199. 7.102The angel declares that because Israel has served other gods the nations will not be driven out; the people weep and the place is called Weeping; after Joshua’s generation they serve the Baals and are punished.
200. 7.129God raises up judges, but the people intermarry and serve idols and are subjected to Cushan-rishathaim for eight years, until the Spirit of the Lord raises Othniel, who delivers them.
201. 7.154After Othniel the people sin again and serve Eglon of Moab with Ammon and Amalek for eighteen years; the ambidextrous Ehud brings tribute, asks to speak privately, and kills Eglon with a hidden sword.
202. 7.180Ehud escapes while Eglon’s servants wait, rallies Israel, seizes the fords of the Jordan and kills ten thousand Moabites; the land rests eighty years; Shamgar judges; Israel sins again and Jabin of Hazor oppresses them with Sisera and nine hundred chariots.
203. 7.204Israel is oppressed for twenty years; the prophetess Deborah summons Barak with ten thousand men, he will not go without her, and she leads them to the Kishon, where the Lord routs Sisera, who flees on foot.
204. 7.229Jael gives Sisera drink, covers him, and drives a tent peg through his head; the leaders sing to God; the land rests forty years, until Israel turns again to idols.
205. 7.253Israel serves Midian seven years, hiding in caves while its crops and cattle are plundered; a prophet rebukes them; the angel of the Lord calls Gideon as he threshes, and Gideon objects that God has abandoned them and he is weak.
206. 7.277Gideon brings a kid and unleavened bread, which the angel consumes with fire from his staff; Gideon builds an altar called Peace, destroys his father’s altar and grove by night, and Joash defends him: let Baal contend for himself.
207. 7.301The Spirit comes on Gideon; he asks for the signs of the wet and dry fleece; God reduces his army from thirty-two thousand to ten thousand and then to the three hundred who lapped the water, against the innumerable Midianites and their camels.
208. 7.324Gideon and Purah steal down to the Midianite camp and hear a dream of a barley loaf overturning the tent; Gideon divides his three hundred into three companies with trumpets, jars and torches and attacks at night.
209. 7.349The Midianites flee; Israel seizes the fords and kills Oreb and Zeeb; Gideon soothes the angry Ephraimites; the men of Succoth mock him; he finds the remaining enemy at Karkor and destroys them.
210. 7.374Gideon captures Zebah and Zalmunna, punishes Succoth with thorns and Penuel by destroying its tower, and has the kings confess they killed his brothers; then Tola judges twenty-three years and Jair after him.
211. 7.399Jair judges twenty-two years; Israel serves many gods and is oppressed by Ammon eighteen years, then puts away the idols; Jephthah, son of a harlot, driven out by his brothers, lives as an outlaw.
212. 7.423The elders bring Jephthah back to fight Ammon; after vain negotiations he vows to sacrifice whoever first meets him on his return, defeats Ammon, and is met by his only daughter with dancing.
213. 7.448Jephthah laments; his daughter accepts her fate, asks two months to mourn her youth, and is sacrificed; Jephthah defeats the Ephraimites; Ibzan judges, with many sons and brides.
214. 7.473Ibzan dies after seven years; Elon judges ten years and Abdon eight; Israel serves idols and is given to the Philistines forty years; the Lord appears to Manoah’s barren wife and promises a son who is to be a Nazirite.
215. 7.498The angel tells Manoah’s wife that her son will deliver Israel; she tells Manoah, who prays for the angel’s return; the angel appears again, repeats the rules, and tells Manoah to offer his kid to the Lord.
216. 7.524The angel will not tell his name, which is wonderful, and ascends in the flame of the offering; Samson is born and the Spirit moves him; he asks to marry a Philistine woman of Timnah over his parents’ objection, and meets a lion.
217. 7.548Samson tears the lion apart, later finds honey in its carcass, and at his wedding sets thirty companions a riddle; unable to solve it, they threaten his bride.
218. 7.574Samson’s bride wheedles the answer from him and tells the companions; Samson kills thirty Philistines to pay the forfeit; his father-in-law gives his wife to another and offers him her younger sister.
219. 7.601Samson burns the Philistine crops with three hundred foxes; the Philistines burn his wife and her father; he takes vengeance; three thousand men of Judah bind him and hand him over at Lehi.
220. 7.625Samson breaks his bonds and kills a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass; God brings water from the jawbone; he judges twenty years; at Gaza he goes to a harlot and the men of Gaza lie in wait at the gates.
221. 7.649Samson carries off the gates of Gaza; he loves Delilah, whom the Philistine leaders bribe to learn the secret of his strength; he deceives her with the fresh sinews and the new ropes.
222. 7.674Samson tells Delilah to weave his hair into the loom, then finally reveals that his strength is in his uncut hair as a Nazirite; she has him shaved, the Lord departs from him, and the Philistines blind and fetter him.
223. 7.700Samson grinds at the mill in prison and his hair grows again; at the feast of Dagon he is brought to be mocked, and, praying to the Lord, pulls down the two pillars, dying with the Philistines; his family buries him.
224. 7.721Micah returns his mother’s silver, which she has made into an idol and shrine with teraphim; he hires a Levite from Judah as priest; the Danite spies consult him, and six hundred Danites take the ephod, idol and teraphim and the priest with them.
225. 7.745Micah is driven off; the Danites burn Laish and rename it Dan; a Levite’s concubine leaves him and returns to her father, and the Levite goes to bring her back and is detained by his father-in-law. The digital text breaks off here.