Deuteronomy 21:17–19

³¶ Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:

³¹And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

³²And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

³³And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

³⁴Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

¹NOW the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.

²For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s:)

³⁶He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength.

⁵¶ And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.

⁶But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.

¹²¶ Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

³¶ Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.

¹¹I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

¹²Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

⁹Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

¹CHILDREN, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

²Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)

³That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

²Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

⁵¶ Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

¹⁸Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.

²⁰Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.

¹³Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

¹⁴Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

¹⁷Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.

¹⁷The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.

¹⁴I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:

¹⁶Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

⁵Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.

¹⁵¶ And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

¹⁷¶ And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

¹³In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.

¹⁸¶ I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.

³O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

⁹¶ And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

⁸My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

²⁴He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

⁵A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.

¹⁵Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

²⁴Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer.

¹¹There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.

¹⁸¶ Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

²Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain:

⁷And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.

³And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.