What the Bible Says: Jewish Definitions in Historical Context

Scripture

¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Genesis 12:1-3

Genesis 17:1-14: ¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
² “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”
³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him,
⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.”
⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.
⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Throughout your generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at eight days old, including those born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.
¹³ He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.
¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Exodus 19:3-6: ³ while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:
⁴ You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
⁵ Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.
⁶ and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

Deuteronomy 7:6-9: ⁶ “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
⁷ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
⁸ but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
⁹ Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.

Deuteronomy 14:2-21: ² for you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
³ You shall not eat any abomination.
⁴ These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
⁵ the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
⁶ And every beast that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat.
⁷ Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you.
⁸ And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.
⁹ “These you may eat of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat.
¹⁰ but anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
¹¹ You may eat all clean birds.
¹² But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
¹³ and the glede, the kite, the falcon, all kinds of hawks,
¹⁴ And every raven according to its kind,
¹⁵ the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.
¹⁶ You shall not eat any abomination.
¹⁷ the little owl, the cormorant, the short-eared owl,
¹⁸ the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.
¹⁹ “Every swarming thing that flies is unclean to you; they shall not be eaten.
²⁰ You shall eat it, the clean bird, according to its kind, the clean animal, according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the ground, according to its kind.
²¹ “You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. “

Joshua 24:1-15: ¹ Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God.
² And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.
³ Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many.
⁴ And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
⁵ And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterward I brought you out.
⁶ And I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. And the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.
⁷ And they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness a long time.
⁸ Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you.
⁹ Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel.
¹⁰ And I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.
¹¹ And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
¹² And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow.
¹³ I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.’”
¹⁴ “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.”
¹⁵ And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

1 Samuel 8:4-22: ⁴ Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah
⁵ and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.
⁷ And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
⁸ According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
⁹ Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
¹⁰ So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him.
¹¹ He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.
¹² He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
¹⁵ He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
¹⁶ He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
¹⁷ He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
¹⁸ And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
¹⁹ But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,
²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
²¹ And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the ears of the Lord.
²² And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

2 Samuel 7:8-16: ⁸ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel.
⁹ And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
¹⁰ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly,
¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
¹² When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.

1 Kings 8:22-53: ²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven,
²³ and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart,
²⁴ who have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day.
²⁵ Now therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’
²⁶ Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father.
²⁷ “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”
²⁸ Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day,
²⁹ that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.
³⁰ And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.
³¹ “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before your altar in this house,”
³² then hear in heaven and act and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
³³ “When your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house,”
³⁴ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them again to the land that you gave to their fathers.
³⁵ “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them,”
³⁶ then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.
³⁷ “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,”
³⁸ whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house,
³⁹ then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),
⁴⁰ that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers.
⁴¹ “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake
⁴² (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house,
⁴³ “hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”
⁴⁴ “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name,”
⁴⁵ then hear in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.
⁴⁶ “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,”
⁴⁷ yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’
⁴⁸ if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name,
⁴⁹ then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause,
⁵⁰ and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them.
⁵¹ (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).
⁵² Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you.
⁵³ for you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your heritage, as you declared through Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.”

2 Kings 17:7-23: ⁷ And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods.
⁸ and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
⁹ And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.
¹⁰ They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
¹¹ and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger,
¹² they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.”
¹³ Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
¹⁴ But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them.
¹⁶ And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
¹⁷ And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
¹⁸ Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.
¹⁹ Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.
²⁰ And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
²¹ When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.
²² For the people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them,
²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

Nehemiah 9:6-38: ⁶ “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”
⁷ You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
⁸ You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
⁹ And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea.
¹⁰ and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day.
¹¹ And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters.
¹² By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.
¹³ You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments.
¹⁴ and made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant.
¹⁵ You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
¹⁶ “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.”
¹⁷ They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.
¹⁸ Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,
¹⁹ you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness.
²⁰ You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst.
²¹ Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
²² “You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan.”
²³ You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess.
²⁴ So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
²⁵ And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
²⁶ “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.”
²⁷ Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies.
²⁸ But after they had rest, they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies.
²⁹ And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey.
³⁰ Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
³¹ Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.
³² Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.
³³ Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.
³⁴ Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them.
³⁵ Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works.
³⁶ Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves.
³⁷ And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.
³⁸ “Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.”

Psalm 105:6-11: ⁶ O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!
⁷ He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
⁸ He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.
⁹ the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac.
¹⁰ And he confirmed it to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant,
¹¹ saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.”

Isaiah 2:1-4: ² It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it,
² It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it,
³ And many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
⁴ He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Isaiah 49:5-6: ⁵ And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—
⁶ he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Jeremiah 31:31-34: ³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.
³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

Ezekiel 37:15-28: ³⁷ The word of the Lord came to me:
¹⁶ “And you, son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.’”
¹⁷ And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.
¹⁸ And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’
¹⁹ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him.
²⁰ The sticks on which you write shall be in your hand before their eyes.
²¹ then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land.
²² And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms.
²³ They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions.
²⁴ “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.”
²⁵ They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.
²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
²⁷ My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
²⁸ Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.

Hosea 1:10-11: ¹⁰ Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
¹¹ And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Amos 9:11-15: ¹¹ “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old,”
¹² that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,”
declares the Lord who does this.
¹³ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.”
¹⁴ I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵ I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

Micah 4:1-5: ¹ It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.
² and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
³ He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
⁴ But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
⁵ For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
forever and ever.

Zechariah 8:20-23: ²⁰ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities.
²¹ The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’
²² Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.
²³ Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

Matthew 1:1-17: ¹ The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
² Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
³ and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram,
⁴ and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon,
⁵ and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse,
⁶ and Jesse the father of David the king.
⁷ and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph,
⁸ and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah,
⁹ and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,
¹⁰ and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah,
¹¹ and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
¹² And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.
¹³ and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor,
¹⁴ and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,
¹⁵ and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob,
¹⁶ and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Matthew 5:17-20: ¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
¹⁹ Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 1:68-79: ⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people.
⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
⁷⁰ as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
⁷² to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
⁷³ the oath that he swore to our father Abraham,
⁷⁴ that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.
⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

John 4:19-26: ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”
²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Acts 2:36-41: ³⁶ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
³⁸ And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
⁴⁰ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
⁴¹ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Romans 9:1-8: ¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.
² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
⁷ and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

Romans 11:1-36: ¹ I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
³ “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.”
⁴ But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
⁵ So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
⁷ What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,
⁸ as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”
¹⁰ Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and bend their backs forever.”
¹⁰ Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and bend their backs forever.”
¹¹ So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! But through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.
¹² Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
¹¹ Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry.
¹¹ in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
²⁸ As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.
¹⁶ If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
¹¹ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
¹⁸ do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
¹⁹ Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
²⁰ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
²² Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
¹¹ And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
²⁴ For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
²⁵ Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
²⁶ And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
²⁷ “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
²⁸ As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.
²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
³⁰ For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,
³¹ so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
³² For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Galatians 3:6-14: ⁶ just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
⁷ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
⁹ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
¹⁰ For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
¹¹ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
³:12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”
¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
¹⁴ so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Ephesians 2:11-22: ¹¹ Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
¹⁷ And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
¹⁸ For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
²¹ in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
²² In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Hebrews 8:6-13: ⁶ But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
⁸ For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
⁹ not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
¹¹ And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
¹² For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
¹³ In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

1 Peter 2:9-10: ⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.