A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are only cruelty.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Hallelujah!

But ask the animals, and they will instruct you; ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you. Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.

and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. All its growth may serve as food.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise Him in the highest places. Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts. Praise Him, O sun and moon; praise Him, all you shining stars. Praise Him, O highest heavens, and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He gave the command and they were created. . . .

David replied, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep, and whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock,

If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.

You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material.

Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Be sure to know the state of your flocks, and pay close attention to your herds;

Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent, laying the beams of His chambers in the waters above, making the clouds His chariot, walking on the wings of the wind. He makes the winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants. He set the earth on its foundations, never to be moved. . . .

You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you. . . .

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates.

Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things. But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it. And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man: . . .

Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise. Without a commander, without an overseer or ruler, it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food at harvest.

You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to the foreigner residing within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things.

Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?

And if any Israelite or foreigner living among them hunts down a wild animal or bird that may be eaten, he must drain its blood and cover it with dirt.

Beloved, this is now my second letter to you. Both of them are reminders to stir you to wholesome thinking by recalling what was foretold by the holy prophets and commanded by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. Most importantly, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. “Where is the promise of His coming?” they will ask. “Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water, . . .

but you must not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.

for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up.

You must not add to or subtract from what I command you, so that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you.

by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace

For the LORD had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I should go with you for a single moment, I would destroy you. Now take off your jewelry, and I will decide what to do with you.’” So the Israelites stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Horeb onward.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. . . .

Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; so it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.”

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made them. Now no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field sprouted; for the LORD God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. . . .

The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied. “Look,” said Isaac, “I am now old, and I do not know the day of my death. Take your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out into the field to hunt some game for me. Then prepare a tasty dish that I love and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.” Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt game and bring it back, . . .

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” . . .

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.

But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it.

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you.” This time Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, in accordance with the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, requiring a three-day journey. On the first day of his journey, Jonah set out into the city and proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!” And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least. . . .

When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

So they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate it in front of them.

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments are like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.

And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare.

You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,

For you must devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you,

If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young.

Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled—both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard.

No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD. No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation. No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. . . .

If there is a dispute between men, they are to go to court to be judged, so that the innocent may be acquitted and the guilty condemned. If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall have him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime warrants. He may receive no more than forty lashes, lest your brother be beaten any more than that and be degraded in your sight. Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her. . . .

“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. . . .

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced upon the Israelites before his death. He said: “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned upon us from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran and came with myriads of holy ones, with flaming fire at His right hand. Surely You love the people; all the holy ones are in Your hand, and they sit down at Your feet; each receives Your words— the law that Moses gave us, the possession of the assembly of Jacob. So the LORD became King in Jeshurun when the leaders of the people gathered, when the tribes of Israel came together. . . .

His majesty is like a firstborn bull, and his horns are like those of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations, even to the ends of the earth. Such are the myriads of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh.”

They are to eat the meat that night, roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer.

One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished. He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am famished.” (That is why he was also called Edom.) “First sell me your birthright,” Jacob replied. “Look,” said Esau, “I am about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?” “Swear to me first,” Jacob said. So Esau swore to Jacob and sold him the birthright. . . .

And at a ripe old age he breathed his last and died, old and contented, and was gathered to his people.

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.”

Then Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather around so that I can tell you what will happen to you in the days to come: Come together and listen, O sons of Jacob; listen to your father Israel. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power. Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it. Simeon and Levi are brothers; their swords are weapons of violence. . . .

When Jacob had finished instructing his sons, he pulled his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and he was gathered to his people.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.

Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD. And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear, but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist. . . .

This is the message that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD. . . .

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” . . .

“Those who consecrate and purify themselves to enter the groves—to follow one in the center of those who eat the flesh of swine and vermin and rats—will perish together,” declares the LORD.

You have forsaken Me, declares the LORD. You have turned your back. So I will stretch out My hand against you and I will destroy you; I am weary of showing compassion.

Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

The LORD spoke again to Moses and Aaron, telling them, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Of all the beasts of the earth, these ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. But of those that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, you are not to eat the following: The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. The rock badger, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. . . .

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Therefore I say to the Israelites, ‘None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner living among you eat blood.’

You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.

Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent out two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt beside her. Untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone questions you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your King comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” . . .

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.

The LORD is good to all; His compassion rests on all He has made.

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. Without speech or language, without a sound to be heard, their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun. Like a bridegroom emerging from his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course, . . .

A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.

for every beast of the forest is Mine—the cattle on a thousand hills.

The nations were enraged, and Your wrath has come. The time has come to judge the dead and to reward Your servants the prophets, as well as the saints and those who fear Your name, both small and great—and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.