12"Be very careful never to make treaties with the people in the land where you are going. If you do, you soon will be following their evil ways. 13Instead, you must break down their pagan altars, smash the sacred pillars they worship, and cut down their carved images. 14You must worship no other gods, but only the LORD, for he is a God who is passionate about his relationship with you.
15"Do not make treaties of any kind with the people living in the land. They are spiritual prostitutes, committing adultery against me by sacrificing to their gods. If you make peace with them, they will invite you to go with them to worship their gods, and you are likely to do it. 16And you will accept their daughters, who worship other gods, as wives for your sons. Then they will cause your sons to commit adultery against me by worshiping other gods. 17You must make no gods for yourselves at all.
18"Be sure to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days, just as I instructed you, at the appointed time each year in early spring, for that was when you left Egypt.
19"Every firstborn male belongs to me--of both cattle and sheep. 20A firstborn male donkey may be redeemed from the LORD by presenting a lamb in its place. But if you decide not to make the exchange, you must kill the donkey by breaking its neck. However, you must redeem every firstborn son. No one is allowed to appear before me without a gift.
21"Six days are set aside for work, but on the Sabbath day you must rest, even during the seasons of plowing and harvest. 22And you must remember to celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first crop of the wheat harvest, and celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest at the end of the harvest season. 23Three times each year all the men of Israel must appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. 24No one will attack and conquer your land when you go to appear before the LORD your God those three times each year. I will drive out the nations that stand in your way and will enlarge your boundaries.
25"You must not offer bread made with yeast as a sacrifice to me. And none of the meat of the Passover lamb may be kept over until the following morning. 26You must bring the best of the first of each year's crop to the house of the LORD your God.
"You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."
Points of Interest:
· ‘Your responsibility is to obey all the commands I am giving you today’—once again, God clearly stipulates what each party is agreeing to do in this covenant: they are to follow his instructions, and he is to drive their enemies out of the land.
· ‘make no gods for yourselves at all’—in light of what happened with the golden calf, this second time through the covenant, God elaborates extensively on the subject of idols. He makes abundantly clear that they are not to make them. Instead, they are to break them, smash them, and cut them down; they are also to stay far away from anyone who would tempt them into idol worship. ‘Don’t even come close to flirting with other gods,’ is the LORD’s clear message to them.
Avoiding the worship of idols is the major test they will face on their quest to show the world what it is like to be the LORD’s people. They’ve already failed once, and it nearly doomed the whole mission. Now we will see if that first failure has helped them to learn their lesson.
· ‘cause your sons to commit adultery against me by worshiping other gods’—this is, of course, metaphorical. The covenant is like a marriage: once they’ve covenanted together, God doesn’t want the Israelites fooling around with any other gods. It might also be meant literally: prostitution or sex acts may have been part of the worship rituals associated with neighboring fertility goddesses (Illustrated Bible Dictionary 1289).
· ‘Be sure to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread’—the first time they entered into a covenant with one another, God gave the Ten Commandments to the people. This second time through, God’s instructions are based on the Ten Commandments, but they are customized to address more specifically the Israelites’ weak points. So, God elaborates on his prohibition of idols. He also highlights the Festival of Unleavened Bread and the redemption of the firstborn, both of which are ways of remembering the night when they escaped from Egypt. When the Israelites worship the golden calf, they say, ‘These are your gods, who brought you out of Egypt.’ It seems like God is highlighting these celebrations because he wants them to remember how it really happened.
· ‘you must rest’—God has to command his people to rest and to party. It will be tempting for them to worry and overwork, particularly during busy times like spring planting and fall harvest—or at times when they think an enemy might attack them. God wants them to know that the abundance they experience in the land will not be because of their own maximum effort or maximum vigilance, but because of his provision and protection. Their job is to worship God, to remember his goodness, and to avoid worshipping idols. God’s job is to provide them with an abundant harvest and with protection from their enemies.
· ‘You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk’—this instruction seems a bit out of place with the rest. We don’t really know why God says it here. Perhaps he prohibits this mode of cooking because it was used in Canaanite religious rituals, or perhaps he simply considers it inhumane (Bible Background Commentary 103).
Taking it home:
· For you: God warns the Israelites that idolatry is their vulnerable spot, the place their enemies will try to exploit. What’s your weak point? For almost all of us, there’s at least one area of our lives in which we are vulnerable to temptation; perhaps it’s an area in which we’ve repeatedly failed, or an area in which we’ve failed only once, but spectacularly. The devil will try his hardest to exploit that weakness. Often our weak spots are deeply entrenched and may even involve addictive behaviors; so defending them is no easy task, and it may take some persistent hard work to get the upper hand. But in this passage, God offers two strategies that at least help us begin to defend against attacks at our weak points: knowing what they are, and praising him. When we recognize and admit our weak points, we can do better at avoiding them. And praising God by remembering his goodness gives us the strength to say, ‘No!’ to temptation.
· For your six: God makes clear in this passage that he wants to provide people with true rest: stillness combined with a complete sense of safety, security, and well-being. Pray that God would give your six the gift of a moment of such beautiful rest today.
· For our church: The LORD stresses here the importance of holidays as times to remember and celebrate God’s faithfulness. Pray that God would make us good at throwing such holy parties. The Lenten experience has become one of these annual festivals for us. Set aside some time to reflect on ways God has met you during this time. Also pray that our upcoming Easter service will be an especially fun and worshipful celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.
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