585 verses about selfishness

They said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth.”

There was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land at that time.

Abram said to Lot, “Please, let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are relatives.

Isn’t the whole land before you? Please separate yourself from me. If you go to the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you go to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

So Lot chose the Plain of the Jordan for himself. Lot traveled east, and they separated themselves the one from the other.

Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived in the cities of the plain, and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people, and take the goods for yourself.”

that I will not take a thread nor a sandal strap nor anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’

Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong is your fault. I gave my servant into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. Yahweh judge between me and you.”

But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your hand. Do to her whatever is good in your eyes.” Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her face.

It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.”

Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this servant and her son! For the son of this servant will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”

Now Isaac loved Esau, because he ate his venison. Rebekah loved Jacob.

Jacob boiled stew. Esau came in from the field, and he was famished.

Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom.

Jacob said, “First, sell me your birthright.”

Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”

Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” He swore to him. He sold his birthright to Jacob.

Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils. He ate and drank, rose up, and went his way. So Esau despised his birthright.

He said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright. See, now he has taken away my blessing.” He said, “Haven’t you reserved a blessing for me?”

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

She said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes, also?” Rachel said, “Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”

but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.

He heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.”

Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife.”

For their substance was too great for them to dwell together, and the land of their travels couldn’t bear them because of their livestock.

His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.

Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more.

His brothers said to him, “Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words.

They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.

They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes.

Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”

When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colors that was on him;

Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to him.

Onan knew that the offspring wouldn’t be his; and when he went in to his brother’s wife, he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother.

Yet the chief cup bearer didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him.

The enemy said, ‘I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the plunder. My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

“‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God; that your brother may live among you.

He said to him, “I will not go; but I will depart to my own land, and to my relatives.”

The children of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway; and if we drink your water, I and my livestock, then I will give its price. Only let me, without doing anything else, pass through on my feet.”

They came to Balaam, and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me,

The men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.

They said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Don’t bring us over the Jordan.”

Moses said to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war, and shall you sit here?

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses, and lived in them;

If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother;

Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand”; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you.

You shall not lend on interest to your brother; interest of money, interest of food, interest of anything that is lent on interest.

You may lend on interest to a foreigner; but to your brother you shall not lend on interest, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land where you go in to possess it.

When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat of grapes your fill at your own pleasure; but you shall not put any in your container.

The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining;

and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry.”

They returned to Joshua, and said to him, “Don’t let all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and strike Ai. Don’t make all the people to toil there, for there are only a few of them.”

The men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you treated us this way, that you didn’t call us when you went to fight with Midian?” They rebuked him sharply.

The princes of Succoth said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?”

He came to the men of Succoth, and said, “See Zebah and Zalmunna, concerning whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your men who are weary?’”

Gideon said to them, “I do have a request, that you would each give me the earrings of his plunder.” (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

neither did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.

“Please speak in the ears of all the men of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.”

His mother’s brothers spoke of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words. Their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, “He is our brother.”

“Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘Come and reign over us.’

I wish that this people were under my hand! Then I would remove Abimelech.” He said to Abimelech, “Increase your army, and come out!”

The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, “Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didn’t call us to go with you? We will burn your house around you with fire!”

Then his father and his mother said to him, “Isn’t there a woman among your brothers’ daughters, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?” Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.”

On the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Isn’t that so?”

Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don’t love me. You’ve told a riddle to the children of my people, and haven’t told it to me.” He said to her, “Behold, I haven’t told my father or my mother, so why should I tell you?”

Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead.”

He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’”

and he stabbed it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot. The priest took all that the fork brought up for himself. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

If the man said to him, “Let the fat be burned first, and then take as much as your soul desires”; then he would say, “No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force.”

Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?’

He said, “This will be the way of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them as his servants, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and they will run before his chariots.

He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even their best, and give them to his servants.

He will take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and assign them to his own work.

The men of Israel were distressed that day; for Saul had adjured the people, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening, and I am avenged of my enemies.” So none of the people tasted food.

But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, of the cattle, and of the fat calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab’s anger burned against David, and he said, “Why have you come down? With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride, and the naughtiness of your heart; for you have come down that you might see the battle.”

Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. What can he have more but the kingdom?”

Saul said to his servants who stood around him, “Hear now, you Benjamites! Will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds,

Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don’t know where they come from?”

But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to Greet our master; and he insulted them.

Please don’t let my lord pay attention to this worthless fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, your servant, didn’t see my lord’s young men, whom you sent.

Then all the wicked men and worthless fellows, of those who went with David, answered and said, “Because they didn’t go with us, we will not give them anything of the plunder that we have recovered, except to every man his wife and his children, that he may lead them away, and depart.”

David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?”

A traveler came to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

So Amnon lay down and faked being sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.”

She took the pan, and poured them out before him; but he refused to eat. Amnon said, “Have all men leave me.” Then every man went out from him.

Then Amnon hated her with exceedingly great hatred; for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Arise, be gone!”

She said to him, “Not so, because this great wrong in sending me away is worse than the other that you did to me!” But he would not listen to her.

Then he called his servant who ministered to him, and said, “Now put this woman out from me, and bolt the door after her.”

The king said to Absalom, “No, my son, let us not all go, lest we be burdensome to you.” He pressed him; however he would not go, but blessed him.

Therefore he said to his servants, “Behold, Joab’s field is near mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.

After this, Absalom prepared a chariot and horses for himself, and fifty men to run before him.

Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate. When any man had a suit which should come to the king for judgment, then Absalom called to him, and said, “What city are you from?” He said, “Your servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.”