The Skeptics Annotated Bible (84 page)

(23.17)
“Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the LORD God.”
Three times a year God wants to see all of the males. The females, he never wants to see.

18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

(23.19)
“Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.”
Don’t boil a kid (baby lamb) in its mother’s milk.

20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

24
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods
, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but
thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

(23.24)
“Thou shalt not bow down to their gods … Thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.”
Do not allow others to worship a different god. Conquer them and destroy their religious property.
9 How many gods are there?

25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

27
I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people
to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

(23.27)
“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people.”

28 And
I will send hornets before thee
, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

(23.28)
“I will send hornets before thee.”
God has hornets that bite and kill people.

29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

(23.32-33)
“Thou shalt make no covenant with them nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land.”
Stay away from those that believe differently than you. Do not make treaties with them or allow them to live in your land.
9 How many gods are there?

32
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

33
They shall not dwell in thy land
, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.