Laws on Morality
13“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, 14and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’ 15then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16The girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; 17and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.
20“But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
22“If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23“If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
25“But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
30“A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he will not uncover his father’s skirt.
The Wiles of the Harlot
1My son, keep my words
And treasure my commandments within you.
2Keep my commandments and live,
And my teaching as the apple of your eye.
3Bind them on your fingers;
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
4Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
And call understanding your intimate friend;
5That they may keep you from an adulteress,
From the foreigner who flatters with her words.
6For at the window of my house
I looked out through my lattice,
7And I saw among the naive,
And discerned among the youths
A young man lacking sense,
8Passing through the street near her corner;
And he takes the way to her house,
9In the twilight, in the evening,
In the middle of the night and in the darkness.
10And behold, a woman comes to meet him,
Dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart.
11She is boisterous and rebellious,
Her feet do not remain at home;
12She is now in the streets, now in the squares,
And lurks by every corner.
13So she seizes him and kisses him
And with a brazen face she says to him:
14“I was due to offer peace offerings;
Today I have paid my vows.
15Therefore I have come out to meet you,
To seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you.
16I have spread my couch with coverings,
With colored linens of Egypt.
17I have sprinkled my bed
With myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
18Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning;
Let us delight ourselves with caresses.
19For my husband is not at home,
He has gone on a long journey;
20He has taken a bag of money with him,
At the full moon he will come home.”
21With her many persuasions she entices him;
With her flattering lips she seduces him.
22Suddenly he follows her
As an ox goes to the slaughter,
Or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool,
23Until an arrow pierces through his liver;
As a bird hastens to the snare,
So he does not know that it will cost him his life.
24Now therefore, my sons, listen to me,
And pay attention to the words of my mouth.
25Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways,
Do not stray into her paths.
26For many are the victims she has cast down,
And numerous are all her slain.
27Her house is the way to Sheol,
Descending to the chambers of death.
Sanctification and Love
1Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. 2For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
9Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, 11and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
1) How do both passages link obedience to יהוה with purity of heart and action?
2) How does Paul define holiness as more than avoidance—an intentional pursuit of pleasing יהוה?
3) What step today could strengthen your walk in holiness and integrity?
PSALM 140
Prayer for Protection against the Wicked.
For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
1Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men;
Preserve me from violent men
2Who devise evil things in their hearts;
They continually stir up wars.
3They sharpen their tongues as a serpent;
Poison of a viper is under their lips. Selah.
4Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
Preserve me from violent men
Who have purposed to trip up my feet.
5The proud have hidden a trap for me, and cords;
They have spread a net by the wayside;
They have set snares for me. Selah.
6I said to the Lord, “You are my God;
Give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplications.
7O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation,
You have covered my head in the day of battle.
8Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked;
Do not promote his evil device, that they not be exalted. Selah.
9“As for the head of those who surround me,
May the mischief of their lips cover them.
10May burning coals fall upon them;
May they be cast into the fire,
Into deep pits from which they cannot rise.
11May a slanderer not be established in the earth;
May evil hunt the violent man speedily.”
12I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted
And justice for the poor.
13Surely the righteous will give thanks to Your name;
The upright will dwell in Your presence.
Wisdom Warns
20Wisdom shouts in the street,
She lifts her voice in the square;
21At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
22“How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
23Turn to my reproof,
Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
24Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
25And you neglected all my counsel
And did not want my reproof;
26I will also laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your dread comes,
27When your dread comes like a storm
And your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
28Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
29Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord.
30They would not accept my counsel,
They spurned all my reproof.
31So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way
And be satiated with their own devices.
32For the waywardness of the naive will kill them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
33But he who listens to me shall live securely
And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”