1 This book records Moses' address to the people of Israel when they were camped in the valley of the Arabah in the wilderness of Moab, east of the Jordan River. (Cities in the area included Suph, Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.)
2 The speech was given on February 15, forty years after the people of Israel left Mount Horeb-–
3 though it takes only eleven days to travel by foot from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir!
4 At the time of this address, King Sihon of the Amorites had already been defeated at Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan had been defeated at Ashtaroth, near Edre-i.
5 Here, then, is Moses' address to Israel, stating all the laws God had commanded him to pass on to them:
6 "It was forty years ago, at Mount Horeb, that Jehovah our God told us, 'You have stayed here long enough.
7 Now go and occupy the hill country of the Amorites, the valley of the Arabah, and the Negeb, and all the land of Canaan and Lebanon--the entire area from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River.
8 I am giving all of it to you! Go in and possess it, for it is the land the Lord promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all of their descendants.'
9 "At that time I told the people, 'I need help! You are a great burden for me to carry all by myself,
10 for the Lord has multiplied you to become as many as the stars!
11 And may he multiply you a thousand times more and bless you as he promised,
12 but what can one man do to settle all your quarrels and problems?
13 So choose some men from each tribe who are wise, experienced, and understanding, and I will appoint them as your leaders.'
14 "They agreed to this;
15 I took the men they selected, some from every tribe, and appointed them as administrative assistants in charge of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens to decide their quarrels and assist them in every way.
16 I instructed them to be perfectly fair at all times, even to foreigners.
17 'When giving your decisions,' I told them, 'never favor a man because he is rich; be fair to great and small alike. Don't fear their displeasure, for you are judging in the place of God. Bring me any cases too difficult for you, and I will handle them.'
18 And I gave them other instructions at that time also.
19 "Then we left Mount Horeb and traveled through the great and terrible desert, finally arriving among the Amorite hills to which the Lord our God had directed us. We were then at Kadesh-barnea on the border of the Promised Land
20 and I said to the people, 'The Lord God has given us this land.
21 Go and possess it as he told us to. Don't be afraid! Don't even doubt!'
22 "But they replied, 'First let's send out spies to discover the best route of entry, and to decide which cities we should capture first.'
23 "This seemed like a good idea, so I chose twelve spies, one from each tribe.
24 They crossed into the hills and came to the Valley of Eshcol,
25 and returned with samples of the local fruit. One look was enough to convince us that it was indeed a good land the Lord our God had given us.
26 But the people refused to go in and rebelled against the Lord's command.
27 "They murmured and complained in their tents and said, 'The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites.
28 What are we getting into? Our brothers who spied out the land have frightened us with their report. They say that the people of the land are tall and powerful, and that the walls of their cities rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there--the descendants of the Anakim!'
29 "But I said to them, 'Don't be afraid!
30 The Lord God is your leader, and he will fight for you with his mighty miracles, just as you saw him do in Egypt.
31 And you know how he has cared for you again and again here in the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child!'
32 But nothing I said did any good. "They refused to believe the Lord our God
33 who had led them all the way, and had selected the best places for them to camp, and had guided them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.
34 "Well, the Lord heard their complaining and was very angry. He vowed that not one person in that entire generation would live to see the good land he had promised their fathers,
35
36 except Caleb (the son of Jephunneh), who, because he had wholly followed the Lord, would receive as his personal inheritance some of the land he had walked over.
37 "And the Lord was even angry with me because of them and said to me, 'You shall not enter the Promised Land!
38 Instead, your assistant, Joshua (the son of Nun), shall lead the people. Encourage him as he prepares to take over the leadership.
39 I will give the land to the children they said would die in the wilderness.
40 But as for you of the older generation, turn around now and go on back across the desert toward the Red Sea.'
41 "Then they confessed, 'We have sinned! We will go into the land and fight for it as the Lord our God has told us to.' So they strapped on their weapons and thought it would be easy to conquer the whole area.
42 "But the Lord said to me, 'Tell them not to do it, for I will not go with them; they will be struck down before their enemies.'
43 "I told them, but they wouldn't listen. Instead, they rebelled again against the Lord's commandment and went on up into the hill country to fight.
44 But the Amorites who lived there came out against them and chased them like bees and killed them from Seir to Hormah.
45 Then they returned and wept before the Lord, but he wouldn't listen.
46 So they stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.
1 "Then we turned back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, for so the Lord had instructed me. For many years we wandered around in the area of Mount Seir.
2 Then at last the Lord said,
3 'You have stayed here long enough. Turn northward.
4 Inform the people that they will be passing through the country belonging to their brothers the Edomites, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir; the Edomites will be nervous, so be careful.
5 Don't start a fight! For I have given them all the Mount Seir hill country as their permanent possession, and I will not give you even a tiny piece of their land.
6 Pay them for whatever food or water you use.
7 The Lord your God has watched over you and blessed you every step of the way for all these forty years as you have wandered around in this great wilderness; and you have lacked nothing in all that time.'
8 "So we passed through Edom where our brothers lived, crossing the Arabah Road that goes south to Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveling northward toward the Moab desert.
9 "Then the Lord warned us, 'Don't attack the Moabites either, for I will not give you any of their land; I have given it to the descendants of Lot.'
10 "(The Emim used to live in that area, a very large tribe, tall as the giants of Anakim;
11 both the Emim and the Anakim are often referred to as the Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.
12 In earlier days the Horites lived in Seir, but they were driven out and displaced by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, just as Israel would displace the peoples of Canaan, whose land had been assigned to Israel by the Lord.)
13 'Now cross Zered Brook,' the Lord said; and we did.
14 "So it took us thirty-eight years to finally get across Zered Brook from Kadesh! For the Lord had decreed that this could not happen until all the men, who thirty-eight years earlier were old enough to bear arms, had died.
15 Yes, the hand of the Lord was against them until finally all were dead.
16 "Then at last the Lord said to me,
17
18 'Today Israel shall cross the borders of Moab at Ar,
19 into the land of the Ammonites. But do not attack them, for I will not give you any of their land. I have given it to the descendants of Lot.'
20 "(That area, too, used to be inhabited by the Rephaim, called 'Zamzummim' by the Ammonites.
21 They were a large and powerful tribe, as tall as the Anakim; but Jehovah destroyed them as the Ammonites came in, and the Ammonites lived there in their place.
22 The Lord had similarly helped the descendants of Esau at Mount Seir, for he destroyed the Horites who were living there before them.
23 Another similar situation occurred when the people of Caphtor invaded and destroyed the tribe of Avvim living in villages scattered across the countryside as far away as Gaza.)
24 "Then the Lord said, 'Cross the Arnon River into the land of King Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon. War against him and begin to take possession of his land.
25 Beginning today I will make people throughout the whole earth tremble with fear because of you, and dread your arrival.'
26 "Then from the wilderness of Kedemoth I sent ambassadors to King Sihon of Heshbon with a proposal of peace.
27 'Let us pass through your land,' we said. 'We will stay on the main road and won't turn off into the fields on either side.
28 We will not steal food as we go, but will purchase every bite we eat and everything we drink; all we want is permission to pass through.
29 The Edomites at Seir allowed us to go through their country, and so did the Moabites, whose capital is at Ar. We are on our way across the Jordan into the land the Lord our God has given us.'
30 "But King Sihon refused because Jehovah your God made him obstinate, so that he could destroy Sihon by the hands of Israel, as has now been done.
31 "Then the Lord said to me, 'I have begun to give you the land of King Sihon; when you possess it, it shall belong to Israel forever.'
32 "King Sihon then declared war on us and mobilized his forces at Jahaz.
33 But the Lord our God crushed him, and we conquered all his cities and utterly destroyed everything, including the women and babies. We left nothing alive
34
35 except the cattle, which we took as our reward, along with the booty gained from ransacking the cities we had taken. We conquered everything
36 from Aroer to Gilead--from the edge of the Arnon River valley, and including all the cities in the valley. Not one city was too strong for us, for the Lord our God gave all of them to us.
37 However, we stayed away from the people of Ammon and from the Jabbok River and the hill country cities, the places Jehovah our God had forbidden us to enter.
1 "Next we turned toward King Og's land of Bashan. He immediately mobilized his army and attacked us at Edre-i.
2 But the Lord told me not to be afraid of him. 'All his people and his land are yours,' the Lord told me. 'You will do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites at Heshbon.'
3 So the Lord helped us fight against King Og and his people, and we killed them all.
4 We conquered all sixty of his cities, the entire Argob region of Bashan.
5 These were well-fortified cities with high walls and barred gates. Of course we also took all of the unwalled towns.
6 We utterly destroyed the kingdom of Bashan just as we had destroyed King Sihon's kingdom at Heshbon, killing the entire population--men, women, and children alike.
7 But we kept the cattle and loot for ourselves.
8 "We now possessed all the land of the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan River--all the land from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon.
9 (The Sidonians called Mount Hermon 'Sirion,' while the Amorites called it 'Senir.')
10 We had now conquered all the cities on the plateau, and all of Gilead and Bashan as far as the cities of Salecah and Edre-i.
11 "Incidentally, King Og of Bashan was the last of the giant Rephaim. His iron bedstead is kept in a museum at Rabbah, one of the cities of the Ammonites, and measures thirteen and a half feet long by six feet wide.
12 "At that time I gave the conquered land to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. To the tribes of Reuben and Gad I gave the area beginning at Aroer on the Arnon River, plus half of Mount Gilead, including its cities.
13 The half-tribe of Manasseh received the remainder of Gilead and all of the former kingdom of King Og, the Argob region. (Bashan is sometimes called 'The Land of the Rephaim.')
14 The clan of Jair, of the tribe of Manasseh, took over the whole Argob region (Bashan) to the borders of the Geshurites and Maacathites. They renamed their country after themselves, calling it Havvoth-jair (meaning 'Jair's Villages') as it is still known today.
15 Then I gave Gilead to the clan of Machir.
16 The tribes of Reuben and Gad received the area extending from the Jabbok River in Gilead (which was the Ammonite frontier) to the middle of the valley of the Arnon River.
17 They also received the Arabah (or wasteland), bounded by the Jordan River on the west, from Chinnereth to Mount Pisgah and the Dead Sea (also called the Sea of the Arabah).
18 "At that time I reminded the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh that, although the Lord had given them the land, they could not begin settling down until their armed men led the other tribes across the Jordan to the land the Lord was giving them.
19 'But your wives and children,' I told them, 'may live here in the cities the Lord has given you, caring for your many cattle
20 until you return after the Lord has given victory to the other tribes too. When they conquer the land the Lord your God has given them across the Jordan River, then you may return here to your own land.'
21 "Then I said to Joshua, 'You have seen what the Lord your God has done to those two kings. You will do the same to all the kingdoms on the other side of the Jordan.
22 Don't be afraid of the nations there, for the Lord your God will fight for you.'
23 "At that time I made this plea to God:
24 'O Lord God, please let me cross over into the Promised Land--the good land beyond the Jordan River with its rolling hills--and Lebanon.
25 I want to see the result of all the greatness and power you have been showing us; for what God in all of heaven or earth can do what you have done for us?'
26 "But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not let me cross over. 'Speak of it no more,' he ordered,
27 'but go to the top of Mount Pisgah where you can look out in every direction, and there you will see the land in the distance. But you shall not cross the Jordan River.
28 Commission Joshua to replace you, and then encourage him, for he shall lead the people across to conquer the land you will see from the mountaintop.'
29 "So we remained in the valley near Beth-peor.
1 "And now, O Israel, listen carefully to these laws I teach you, and obey them if you want to live and enter into and possess the land given you by the Lord God of your ancestors.
2 Do not add other laws or subtract from these; just obey them, for they are from the Lord your God.
3 You have seen what the Lord did to you at Baalpeor, where he destroyed many people for worshiping idols.
4 But all of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.
5 "These are the laws for you to obey when you arrive in the land where you will live. They are from the Lord our God. He has given them to me to pass on to you.
6 If you obey them, they will give you a reputation for wisdom and intelligence. When the surrounding nations hear these laws, they will exclaim, 'What other nation is as wise and prudent as Israel!'
7 For what other nation, great or small, has God among them, as the Lord our God is here among us whenever we call upon him?
8 And what nation, no matter how great, has laws as fair as these I am giving you today?
9 "But watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen God doing for you. May his miracles have a deep and permanent effect upon your lives! Tell your children and your grandchildren about the glorious miracles he did.
10 Tell them especially about the day you stood before the Lord at Mount Horeb, and he told me, 'Summon the people before me and I will instruct them, so that they will learn always to reverence me, and so that they can teach my laws to their children.'
11 You stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; flames shot far into the sky, surrounded by black clouds and deep darkness.
12 And the Lord spoke to you from the fire; you heard his words but didn't see him.
13 He proclaimed the laws you must obey--the Ten Commandments--and wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 Yes, it was at that time that the Lord commanded me to issue the laws you must obey when you arrive in the Promised Land.
15 "But beware! You didn't see the form of God that day as he spoke to you from the fire at Mount Horeb,
16 so do not defile yourselves by trying to make a statue of God--an idol in any form, whether of a man, woman, animal, bird,
17
18 a small animal that runs along the ground, or a fish.
19 And do not look up into the sky to worship the sun, moon, or stars. The Lord may permit other nations to get away with this, but not you.
20 The Lord has rescued you from prison--Egypt--to be his special people, his own inheritance; this is what you are today.
21 But he was angry with me because of you; he vowed that I could not go over the Jordan River into the good land he has given you as your inheritance.
22 I must die here on this side of the river.
23 Beware lest you break the contract the Lord your God has made with you! You will break it if you make any idols, for the Lord your God has utterly forbidden this.
24 He is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25 "In the future, when your children and grandchildren are born and you have been in the land a long time, and you have defiled yourselves by making idols, and the Lord your God is very angry because of your sin,
26 heaven and earth are witnesses that you shall be quickly destroyed from the land. Soon now you will cross the Jordan River and conquer that land. But your days there will be brief; you will then be utterly destroyed.
27 For the Lord will scatter you among the nations, and you will be but few in number.
28 There, far away, you will worship idols made from wood and stone, idols that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.
29 "But you will also begin to search again for Jehovah your God, and you will find him when you search for him with all your heart and soul.
30 When those bitter days have come upon you in the latter times, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he tells you.
31 For the Lord your God is merciful--he will not abandon you nor destroy you nor forget the promises he has made to your ancestors.
32 "In all history, going back to the time when God created man upon the earth, search from one end of the heavens to the other to see if you can find anything like this:
33 An entire nation heard the voice of God speaking to it from fire, as you did, and lived!
34 Where else will you ever find another example of God's removing a nation from its slavery by sending terrible plagues, mighty miracles, war, and terror? Yet that is what the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes.
35 He did these things so you would realize that Jehovah is God, and that there is no one else like him.
36 He let you hear his voice instructing you from heaven, and he let you see his great pillar of fire upon the earth; you even heard his words from the center of the fire.
37 "It was because he loved your ancestors and chose to bless their descendants that he personally brought you out from Egypt with a great display of power.
38 He drove away other nations greater by far than you and gave you their land as an inheritance, as it is today.
39 This is your wonderful thought for the day: Jehovah is God both in heaven and down here upon the earth; and there is no God other than him!
40 You must obey these laws that I will tell you today, so that all will be well with you and your children, and so that you will live forever in the land the Lord your God is giving you."
41 Then Moses instructed the people of Israel to set apart three cities east of the Jordan River,
42 where anyone who accidentally killed someone could flee for safety.
43 These cities were Bezer, on the plateau in the wilderness, for the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth, in Gilead, for the tribe of Gad; and Golan, in Bashan, for the tribe of Manasseh.
44 Listed below are the laws Moses issued to the people of Israel when they left Egypt,
45
46 and as they were camped east of the Jordan River near the city of Beth-peor. (This was the land formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon, whose capital was Heshbon; he and his people were destroyed by Moses and the Israelis.
47 Israel conquered his land and that of King Og of Bashan--they were two Amorite kings east of the Jordan.
48 Israel also conquered all the area from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon River valley to Mount Sirion, or Mount Hermon, as it is sometimes called;
49 and all the Arabah east of the Jordan River over to the Dead Sea, below the slopes of Mount Pisgah.)
1 Moses continued speaking to the people of Israel and said, "Listen carefully now to all these laws God has given you; learn them, and be sure to obey them!
2 "The Lord our God made a contract with you at Mount Horeb--not with your ancestors, but with you who are here alive today.
3
4 He spoke with you face to face from the center of the fire, there at the mountain.
5 I stood as an intermediary between you and Jehovah, for you were afraid of the fire and did not go up to him on the mountain. He spoke to me and I passed on his laws to you. This is what he said:
6 'I am Jehovah your God who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.
7 'Never worship any god but me.
8 'Never make idols; don't worship images, whether of birds, animals, or fish.
9 You shall not bow down to any images nor worship them in any way, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, and I will bring the curse of a father's sins upon even the third and fourth generation of the children of those who hate me;
10 but I will show kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
11 'You must never use my name to make a vow you don't intend to keep. I will not overlook that.
12 'Keep the Sabbath day holy. This is my command.
13 Work the other six days,
14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; no work shall be done that day by you or by any of your household--your sons, daughters, servants, oxen, donkeys, or cattle; even foreigners living among you must obey this law. Everybody must rest as you do.
15 Why should you keep the Sabbath? It is because you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out with a great display of miracles.
16 'Honor your father and mother (remember, this is a commandment of the Lord your God); if you do so, you shall have a long, prosperous life in the land he is giving you.
17 'You must not murder.
18 'You must not commit adultery.
19 'You must not steal.
20 'You must not tell lies.
21 'You must not burn with desire for another man's wife, nor envy him for his home, land, servants, oxen, donkeys, nor anything else he owns.'
22 "The Lord has given these laws to each one of you from the heart of the fire, surrounded by the clouds and thick darkness that engulfed Mount Sinai. Those were the only commandments he gave you at that time, and he wrote them out on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
23 But when you heard the loud voice from the darkness and saw the terrible fire at the top of the mountain, all your tribal leaders came to me
24 and pleaded, 'Today the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness; we have even heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Now we know that a man may speak to God and not die;
25 but we will surely die if he speaks to us again. This awesome fire will consume us.
26 What man can hear, as we have, the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, and live?
27 You go and listen to all that God says, then come and tell us, and we will listen and obey.'
28 "And the Lord agreed to your request and said to me, 'I have heard what the people have said to you, and I agree.
29 Oh, that they would always have such a heart for me, wanting to obey my commandments. Then all would go well with them in the future, and with their children throughout all generations!
30 Go and tell them to return to their tents.
31 Then you come back and stand here beside me, and I will give you all my commandments, and you shall teach them to the people; and they will obey them in the land I am giving to them.' "
32 So Moses told the people, "You must obey all the commandments of the Lord your God, following his directions in every detail, going the whole way he has laid out for you;
33 only then will you live long and prosperous lives in the land you are to enter and possess.
1 "The Lord your God told me to give you all these commandments which you are to obey in the land you will soon be entering, where you will live.
2 The purpose of these laws is to cause you, your sons, and your grandsons to reverence the Lord your God by obeying all of his instructions as long as you live; if you do, you will have long, prosperous years ahead of you.
3 Therefore, O Israel, listen closely to each command and be careful to obey it, so that all will go well with you, and so that you will have many children. If you obey these commands, you will become a great nation in a glorious land 'flowing with milk and honey,' even as the God of your fathers promised you.
4 "O Israel, listen: Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone.
5 You must love him with all your heart, soul, and might.
6 And you must think constantly about these commandments I am giving you today.
7 You must teach them to your children and talk about them when you are at home or out for a walk; at bedtime and the first thing in the morning.
8 Tie them on your finger, wear them on your forehead,
9 and write them on the doorposts of your house!
10 "When the Lord your God has brought you into the land he promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and when he has given you great cities full of good things-–
11 cities you didn't build, wells you didn't dig, and vineyards and olive trees you didn't plant--and when you have eaten until you can hold no more,
12 then beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the land of slavery.
13 When you are full, don't forget to be reverent to him and to serve him and to use his name alone to endorse your promises.
14 "You must not worship the gods of the neighboring nations,
15 for Jehovah your God who lives among you is a jealous God, and his anger may rise quickly against you, and wipe you off the face of the earth.
16 You must not provoke him and try his patience as you did when you complained against him at Massah.
17 You must actively obey him in everything he commands.
18 Only then will you be doing what is right and good in the Lord's eyes. If you obey him, all will go well for you, and you will be able to go in and possess the good land that the Lord promised your ancestors.
19 You will also be able to throw out all the enemies living in your land, as the Lord agreed to help you do.
20 "In the years to come when your son asks you, 'What is the purpose of these laws which the Lord our God has given us?'
21 you must tell him, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with great power
22 and mighty miracles--with terrible blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people. We saw it all with our own eyes.
23 He brought us out of Egypt so that he could give us this land he had promised to our ancestors.
24 And he has commanded us to obey all of these laws and to reverence him so that he can preserve us alive as he has until now.
25 For it always goes well with us when we obey all the laws of the Lord our God.'
1 "When the Lord brings you into the Promised Land, as he soon will, he will destroy the following seven nations, all greater and mightier than you are: The Hittites, the Girgashites, The Amorites, the Canaanites, The Perizzites, the Hivites, The Jebusites.
2 "When the Lord your God delivers them over to you to be destroyed, do a complete job of it--don't make any treaties or show them mercy; utterly wipe them out.
3 Do not intermarry with them, nor let your sons and daughters marry their sons and daughters.
4 That would surely result in your young people's beginning to worship their gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be hot against you, and he would surely destroy you.
5 "You must break down the heathen altars and shatter the obelisks and cut up the shameful images and burn the idols.
6 "For you are a holy people, dedicated to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on the face of the whole earth to be his own chosen ones.
7 He didn't choose you and pour out his love upon you because you were a larger nation than any other, for you were the smallest of all!
8 It was just because he loves you, and because he kept his promise to your ancestors. That is why he brought you out of slavery in Egypt with such amazing power and mighty miracles.
9 "Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is the faithful God who for a thousand generations keeps his promises and constantly loves those who love him and who obey his commands.
10 But those who hate him shall be punished publicly and destroyed. He will deal with them personally.
11 Therefore, obey all these commandments I am giving you today.
12 Because of your obedience, the Lord your God will keep his part of the contract which, in his tender love, he made with your fathers.
13 And he will love you and bless you and make you into a great nation. He will make you fertile and give fertility to your ground and to your animals, so that you will have large crops of grain, grapes, and olives, and great flocks of cattle, sheep, and goats when you arrive in the land he promised your fathers to give you.
14 You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth; not one of you, whether male or female, shall be barren, not even your cattle.
15 And the Lord will take away all your sickness and will not let you suffer any of the diseases of Egypt you remember so well; he will give them all to your enemies!
16 "You must destroy all the nations the Lord your God delivers into your hands. Have no pity, and do not worship their gods; if you do, it will be a sad day for you.
17 Perhaps you will think to yourself, 'How can we ever conquer these nations that are so much more powerful than we are?'
18 But don't be afraid of them! Just remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the land of Egypt.
19 Do you remember the terrors the Lord sent upon them--your parents saw it with their own eyes--and the mighty miracles and wonders, and the power and strength of Almighty God that he used to bring you out of Egypt? Well, the Lord your God will use this same might against the people you fear.
20 Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets to drive out those who hide from you!
21 "No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the Lord your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God.
22 He will cast them out a little at a time; he will not do it all at once, for if he did, the wild animals would multiply too quickly and become dangerous.
23 He will do it gradually, and you will move in against those nations and destroy them.
24 He will deliver their kings into your hands, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you.
25 "Burn their idols and do not touch the silver or gold they are made of. Do not take it or it will be a snare to you, for it is horrible to the Lord your God.
26 Do not bring an idol into your home and worship it, for then your doom is sealed. Utterly detest it, for it is a cursed thing.
1 "You must obey all the commandments I give you today. If you do, you will not only live, you will multiply and will go in and take over the land promised to your fathers by the Lord.
2 Do you remember how the Lord led you through the wilderness for all those forty years, humbling you and testing you to find out how you would respond, and whether or not you would really obey him?
3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to both you and your ancestors. He did it to help you realize that food isn't everything, and that real life comes by obeying every command of God.
4 For all these forty years your clothes haven't grown old, and your feet haven't been blistered or swollen.
5 So you should realize that, as a man punishes his son, the Lord punishes you to help you.
6 "Obey the laws of the Lord your God. Walk in his ways and fear him.
7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of brooks, pools, gushing springs, valleys, and hills;
8 it is a land of wheat and barley, of grape vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey;
9 it is a land where food is plentiful, and nothing is lacking; it is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills.
10 When you have eaten your fill, bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
11 "But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you don't forget the Lord your God and begin to disobey him.
12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large, and your silver and gold have multiplied,
13
14 that is the time to watch out that you don't become proud and forget the Lord your God who brought you out of your slavery in the land of Egypt.
15 Beware that you don't forget the God who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with the dangerous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock!
16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness (it was a kind of bread unknown before) so that you would become humble and so that your trust in him would grow, and he could do you good.
17 He did it so that you would never feel that it was your own power and might that made you wealthy.
18 Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill his promise to your ancestors.
19 "But if you forget about the Lord your God and worship other gods instead, and follow evil ways, you shall certainly perish,
20 just as the Lord has caused other nations in the past to perish. That will be your fate, too, if you don't obey the Lord your God.
1 "O Israel, listen! Today you are to cross the Jordan River and begin to dispossess the nations on the other side. Those nations are much greater and more powerful than you are!
2 They live in high walled cities. Among them are the famed Anak giants, against whom none can stand!
3 But the Lord your God will go before you as a devouring fire to destroy them, so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out.
4 "Then, when the Lord has done this for you, don't say to yourselves, 'The Lord has helped us because we are so good!' No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is doing it.
5 It is not at all because you are such fine, upright people that the Lord will drive them out from before you! I say it again, it is only because of the wickedness of the other nations, and because of his promises to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he will do it.
6 I say it yet again: Jehovah your God is not giving you this good land because you are good, for you are not--you are a wicked, stubborn people.
7 "Don't you remember (oh, never forget it!) how continually angry you made the Lord your God out in the wilderness, from the day you left Egypt until now? For all this time you have constantly rebelled against him.
8 "Don't you remember how angry you made him at Mount Horeb? He was ready to destroy you.
9 I was on the mountain at the time, receiving the contract which Jehovah had made with you--the stone tablets with the laws inscribed upon them. I was there for forty days and forty nights, and all that time I ate nothing. I didn't even take a drink of water.
10 At the end of those forty days and nights the Lord gave me the contract, the tablets on which he had written the commandments he had spoken from the fire-covered mountain while the people had watched below.
11
12 He told me to go down quickly because the people I had led out of Egypt had defiled themselves, quickly turning away from the laws of God, and had made an idol from molten metal.
13 'Let me alone that I may destroy this evil, stubborn people!' the Lord told me, 'and I will blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make a mighty nation of you, mightier and greater than they are.'
14
15 "I came down from the burning mountain, holding in my hands the two tablets inscribed with the laws of God.
16 There below me I could see the calf you had made in your terrible sin against the Lord your God. How quickly you turned away from him!
17 I lifted the tablets high above my head and dashed them to the ground! I smashed them before your eyes!
18 Then, for another forty days and nights I lay before the Lord, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for you had done what the Lord hated most, thus provoking him to great anger.
19 How I feared for you--for the Lord was ready to destroy you. But that time, too, he listened to me.
20 Aaron was in great danger because the Lord was so angry with him; but I prayed, and the Lord spared him.
21 I took your sin--the calf you had made--and burned it and ground it into fine dust, and threw it into the stream that cascaded out of the mountain.
22 "Again at Taberah and once again at Massah you angered the Lord, and yet again at Kibroth-hattaavah.
23 At Kadesh-barnea, when the Lord told you to enter the land he had given you, you rebelled and wouldn't believe that he would help you; you refused to obey him.
24 Yes, you have been rebellious against the Lord from the first day I knew you.
25 That is why I fell down before him for forty days and nights when the Lord was ready to destroy you.
26 "I prayed to him, 'O Lord God, don't destroy your own people. They are your inheritance saved from Egypt by your mighty power and glorious strength.
27 Don't notice the rebellion and stubbornness of these people, but remember instead your promises to your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Oh, please overlook the awful wickedness and sin of these people.
28 For if you destroy them, the Egyptians will say, "It is because the Lord wasn't able to bring them to the land he promised them," or "He destroyed them because he hated them: he brought them into the wilderness to slay them."
29 They are your people and your inheritance that you brought from Egypt by your great power and your mighty arm.'
1 "At that time the Lord told me to cut two more stone tablets like the first ones, and to make a wooden Ark to keep them in, and to return to God on the mountain.
2 He said he would rewrite on the tablets the same commandments that were on the tablets I had smashed, and that I should place them in the Ark.
3 So I made an Ark of acacia wood and hewed out two stone tablets like the first two, and took the tablets up on the mountain to God.
4 He again wrote the Ten Commandments on them and gave them to me. (They were the same commandments he had given you from the heart of the fire on the mountain as you all watched below.)
5 Then I came down and placed the tablets in the Ark I had made, where they are to this day, just as the Lord commanded me.
6 "The people of Israel then journeyed from Be-eroth of Bene-jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried. His son Eleazar became the next priest.
7 "Then they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from there to Jotbathah, a land of brooks and water.
8 It was there that Jehovah set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark containing the Ten Commandments of Jehovah, and to stand before the Lord and to do his work and to bless his name, just as is done today.
9 (That is why the tribe of Levi does not have a portion of land reserved for it in the Promised Land, as their brother tribes do; for as the Lord told them, he himself is their inheritance.)
10 "As I said before, I stayed on the mountain before the Lord for forty days and nights the second time, just as I had the first, and the Lord again yielded to my pleas and didn't destroy you.
11 "But he said to me, 'Arise and lead the people to the land I promised their fathers. It is time to go in and possess it.'
12 "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except to listen carefully to all he says to you,
13 and to obey for your own good the commandments I am giving you today, and to love him, and to worship him with all your hearts and souls?
14 Earth and highest heaven belong to the Lord your God.
15 And yet he rejoiced in your fathers and loved them so much that he chose you, their children, to be above every other nation, as is evident today.
16 Therefore, cleanse your sinful hearts and stop your stubbornness.
17 "Jehovah your God is God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great and mighty God, the God of terror who shows no partiality and takes no bribes.
18 He gives justice to the fatherless and widows. He loves foreigners and gives them food and clothing.
19 (You too must love foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.)
20 You must fear the Lord your God and worship him and cling to him, and take oaths by his name alone.
21 He is your praise and he is your God, the one who has done mighty miracles you yourselves have seen.
22 When your ancestors went down into Egypt there were only seventy of them, but now the Lord your God has made you as many as the stars in the sky!
1 "You must love the Lord your God and obey every one of his commands.
2 Listen! I am not talking now to your children who have never experienced the Lord's punishments or seen his greatness and his awesome power.
3 They weren't there to see the miracles he did in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land.
4 They didn't see what God did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots--how he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you, and how the Lord has kept them powerless against you until this very day!
5 They didn't see how the Lord cared for you time and again through all the years you were wandering in the wilderness, until your arrival here.
6 They weren't there when Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, descendants of Reuben) sinned, and the earth opened up and swallowed them, with their households and tents and all their belongings, as all Israel watched!
7 "But you have seen these mighty miracles!
8 How carefully, then, you should obey these commandments I am going to give you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and possess the land you are about to enter.
9 If you obey the commandments, you will have a long and good life in the land the Lord promised to your ancestors and to you, their descendants--a wonderful land 'flowing with milk and honey'!
10 For the land you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt where you have come from, where irrigation is necessary.
11 It is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain-–
12 a land that the Lord your God personally cares for! His eyes are always upon it, day after day throughout the year!
13 "And if you will carefully obey all of his commandments that I am going to give you today, and if you will love the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls and will worship him,
14 then he will continue to send both the early and late rains that will produce wonderful crops of grain, grapes for your wine, and olive oil.
15 He will give you lush pastureland for your cattle to graze in, and you yourselves shall have plenty to eat and be fully content.
16 "But beware that your hearts do not turn from God to worship other gods.
17 For if you do, the anger of the Lord will be hot against you, and he will shut the heavens--there will be no rain and no harvest, and you will quickly perish from the good land the Lord has given you.
18 So keep these commandments carefully in mind. Tie them to your hand to remind you to obey them, and tie them to your forehead between your eyes!
19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting at home, when you are out walking, at bedtime, and before breakfast!
20 Write them upon the doors of your houses and upon your gates,
21 so that as long as there is sky above the earth, you and your children will enjoy the good life awaiting you in the land the Lord has promised you.
22 "If you carefully obey all the commandments I give you, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and clinging to him,
23 then the Lord will drive out all the nations in your land, no matter how much greater and stronger than you they might be.
24 Wherever you go, the land is yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the southern Negeb to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.
25 No one will be able to stand against you, for the Lord your God will send fear and dread ahead of you wherever you go, just as he has promised.
26 "I am giving you the choice today between God's blessing or God's curse!
27 There will be blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today,
28 and a curse if you refuse them and worship the gods of these other nations.
29 When the Lord your God brings you into the land to possess it, a blessing shall be proclaimed from Mount Gerizim and a curse from Mount Ebal!
30 (Gerizim and Ebal are mountains west of the Jordan River, where the Canaanites live, in the wasteland near Gilgal, where the oaks of Moreh are.)
31 For you are to cross the Jordan and live in the land the Lord is giving you.
32 But you must obey all the laws I am giving you today.
1 "These are the laws you must obey when you arrive in the land that Jehovah, the God of your fathers, has given you forever:
2 "You must destroy all the heathen altars wherever you find them--high in the mountains, up in the hills, or under the trees.
3 Break the altars, smash the obelisks, burn the shameful images, cut down the metal idols, and leave nothing even to remind you of them!
4 "You must not make sacrifices to your God just anywhere, as the heathen sacrifice to their gods.
5 Rather, you must build a sanctuary for him at a place he himself will select as his home.
6 There you shall bring to the Lord your burnt offerings and other sacrifices--your tithes, your offerings presented by the gesture of waving before the altar, your offerings to fulfill your vows, your free-will offerings, and your offerings of the firstborn animals of your flocks and herds.
7 There you and your families shall feast before the Lord your God and shall rejoice in all he has done for you.
8 "You will no longer go your own way as you do now, everyone doing whatever he thinks is right;
9 (for these laws don't go into effect until you arrive in the place of rest the Lord will give to you).
10 But when you cross the Jordan River and live in the Promised Land, and the Lord gives you rest and keeps you safe from all your enemies,
11 then you must bring all your burnt sacrifices and other offerings to his sanctuary, the place he will choose as his home.
12 You shall rejoice there before the Lord with your sons and daughters and servants; and remember to invite the Levites to feast with you, for they have no land of their own.
13 "You are not to sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere;
14 you may only do so in the place the Lord will choose. He will pick a place in the territory allotted to one of the tribes. Only there may you offer your sacrifices and bring your offerings.
15 However, the meat you eat may be butchered anywhere, just as you do now with gazelle and deer. Eat as much of this meat as you wish and as often as you are able to obtain it, because the Lord has prospered you. Those who are ceremonially defiled may eat it too.
16 The only restriction is that you are not to eat the blood--pour it out on the ground, like water.
17 "But none of the offerings may be eaten at home. Neither the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, nor the firstborn of your flocks and herds, nor anything you have vowed to give the Lord, nor your freewill offerings, nor the offerings to be presented to the Lord by waving them before his altar.
18 All these must be brought to the central altar where you, your children, and the Levites shall eat them before the Lord your God. He will tell you where this altar must be located. Rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you do.
19 (By the way, be very careful not to forget about the Levites. Share with them.)
20 "If, when the Lord enlarges your borders,
21 the central altar is too far away from you, then your flocks and herds may be butchered on your own farms,
22 just as you do now with gazelle and deer. And even persons who are ceremonially defiled may eat them.
23 The only restriction is never to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat.
24 Instead, pour the blood out upon the earth. If you do, all will be well with you and your children.
25
26 Only your gifts to the Lord, and the offerings you have promised in your vows, and your burnt offerings need be taken to the central altar.
27 These may only be sacrificed upon the altar of the Lord your God. The blood will be poured out upon the altar, and you will eat the meat.
28 "Be careful to obey all of these commandments. If you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God, all will go well with you and your children forever.
29 When he destroys the nations in the land where you will live,
30 don't follow their example in worshiping their gods. Do not ask, 'How do these nations worship their gods?' and then go and worship as they do!
31 You must not insult the Lord your God like that! These nations have done horrible things that he hates, all in the name of their religion. They have even roasted their sons and daughters in front of their gods.
32 Obey all the commandments I give you. Do not add to or subtract from them.
1 "If there is a prophet among you, or one who claims to foretell the future by dreams,
2 and if his predictions come true but he says, 'Come, let us worship the gods of the other nations,'
3 don't listen to him. For the Lord is testing you to find out whether or not you really love him with all your heart and soul.
4 You must never worship any God but Jehovah; obey only his commands and cling to him.
5 "The prophet who tries to lead you astray must be executed, for he has attempted to foment rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt. By executing him you will clear out the evil from among you.
6 If your nearest relative or closest friend, even a brother, son, daughter, or beloved wife whispers to you to come and worship these foreign gods,
7
8 do not consent or listen, and have no pity: Do not spare that person from the penalty; don't conceal his horrible suggestion.
9 Execute him! Your own hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death, then the hands of all the people.
10 Stone him to death because he has tried to draw you away from the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery.
11 Then all Israel will hear about his evil deed and will fear such wickedness as this among you.
12 "If you ever hear it said about one of the cities of Israel
13 that some worthless rabble have led their fellow citizens astray with the suggestion that they worship foreign gods,
14 first check the facts to see if the rumor is true. If you find that it is, that it is certain that such a horrible thing is happening among you in one of the cities the Lord has given you,
15 you must without fail declare war against that city and utterly destroy all of its inhabitants, and even all of the cattle.
16 Afterwards you must pile all the booty into the middle of the street and burn it, then put the entire city to the torch, as a burnt offering to Jehovah your God. That city shall forever remain a lifeless mound and may never be rebuilt.
17 Keep none of the booty! Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you, and have compassion upon you, and make you a great nation just as he promised your ancestors.
18 "Of course, the Lord your God will be merciful only if you have been obedient to him and to his commandments that I am giving you today, and if you have been doing that which is right in the eyes of the Lord.
1 "Since you are the people of God, never cut yourselves as the heathen do when they worship their idols nor shave the front halves of your heads for funerals.
2 You belong exclusively to the Lord your God, and he has chosen you to be his own possession, more so than any other nation on the face of the earth.
3 "You are not to eat any animal I have declared to be ceremonially defiled.
4 These are the animals you may eat: The ox, the sheep, the goat,
5 The deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, The wild goat, the ibex, The antelope, and the mountain sheep.
6 "Any animal that has cloven hooves and chews the cud may be eaten,
7 but if the animal doesn't have both, it may not be eaten. So you may not eat the camel, the hare, or the coney. They chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves.
8 Pigs may not be eaten because, although they have cloven hooves, they don't chew the cud. You may not even touch the dead bodies of such animals.
9 "Only sea animals with fins and scales may be eaten;
10 all other kinds are ceremonially defiled.
11 "You may eat any bird
12 except the following: The eagle, the vulture,
13 The osprey, the buzzard, The falcon (any variety), The raven (any variety), The ostrich, the nighthawk, The sea gull, the hawk (any variety), The screech owl, the great owl, The horned owl, the pelican, The vulture, the cormorant,
14
15
16
17
18 The stork, the heron (any variety), The hoopoe, the bat.
19 "With certain exceptions, insects are a defilement to you and may not be eaten.
20
21 "Don't eat anything that has died a natural death. However, a foreigner among you may eat it. You may give it or sell it to him, but don't eat it yourself, for you are holy to the Lord your God. "You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
22 "You must tithe all of your crops every year.
23 Bring this tithe to eat before the Lord your God at the place he shall choose as his sanctuary; this applies to your tithes of grain, new wine, olive oil, and the firstborn of your flocks and herds. The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives.
24 If the place the Lord chooses for his sanctuary is so far away that it isn't convenient to carry your tithes to that place,
25 then you may sell the tithe portion of your crops and herds and take the money to the Lord's sanctuary.
26 When you arrive, use the money to buy an ox, a sheep, some wine, or beer, to feast there before the Lord your God, and to rejoice with your household.
27 "Don't forget to share your income with the Levites in your community, for they have no property or crops as you do.
28 "Every third year you are to use your entire tithe for local welfare programs:
29 Give it to the Levites who have no inheritance among you, or to foreigners, or to widows and orphans within your city, so that they can eat and be satisfied; and then Jehovah your God will bless you and your work.
1 "At the end of every seventh year there is to be a canceling of all debts!
2 Every creditor shall write 'Paid in full' on any promissory note he holds against a fellow Israelite, for the Lord has released everyone from his obligation.
3 (This release does not apply to foreigners.)
4 No one will become poor because of this, for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you if you obey this command.
5 The only prerequisite for his blessing is that you carefully heed all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.
6 He will bless you as he has promised. You shall lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow! You shall rule many nations, but they shall not rule over you!
7 "But if, when you arrive in the land the Lord will give you, there are any among you who are poor, you must not shut your heart or hand against them;
8 you must lend them as much as they need.
9 Beware! Don't refuse a loan because the year of debt cancellation is close at hand! If you refuse to make the loan and the needy man cries out to the Lord, it will be counted against you as a sin.
10 You must lend him what he needs, and don't moan about it either! For the Lord will prosper you in everything you do because of this!
11 There will always be some among you who are poor; that is why this commandment is necessary. You must lend to them liberally.
12 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, whether a man or woman, you must free him at the end of the sixth year you have owned him,
13 and don't send him away empty-handed!
14 Give him a large farewell present from your flock, your olive press, and your wine press. Share with him in proportion as the Lord your God has blessed you.
15 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God rescued you! That is why I am giving you this command.
16 "But if your Hebrew slave doesn't want to leave--if he says he loves you and enjoys your pleasant home and gets along well with you-–
17 then take an awl and pierce his ear into the door, and after that he shall be your slave forever. Do the same with your women slaves.
18 But when you free a slave you must not feel bad, for remember that for six years he has cost you less than half the price of a hired hand! And the Lord your God will prosper all you do because you have released him!
19 "You shall set aside for God all the firstborn males from your flocks and herds. Do not use the firstborn of your herds to work your fields, and do not shear the firstborn of your flocks of sheep and goats.
20 Instead, you and your family shall eat these animals before the Lord your God each year at his sanctuary.
21 However, if this firstborn animal has any defect such as being lame or blind, or if anything else is wrong with it, you shall not sacrifice it.
22 Instead, use it for food for your family at home. Anyone, even if ceremonially defiled at the time, may eat it, just as anyone may eat a gazelle or deer.
23 But don't eat the blood; pour it out upon the ground like water.
1 "Always remember to celebrate the Passover during the month of April, for that was when Jehovah your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
2 Your Passover sacrifice shall be either a lamb or an ox, sacrificed to the Lord your God at his sanctuary.
3 Eat the sacrifice with unleavened bread. Eat unleavened bread for seven days as a reminder of the bread you ate as you escaped from Egypt. This is to remind you that you left Egypt in such a hurry that there was no time for the bread to rise. Remember that day all the rest of your lives!
4 For seven days no trace of yeast shall be in your homes, and none of the Passover lamb shall be left until the next morning.
5 "The Passover is not to be eaten in your homes.
6 It must be eaten at the place the Lord shall choose as his sanctuary. Sacrifice it there on the anniversary evening just as the sun goes down.
7 Roast the lamb and eat it, then start back to your homes the next morning.
8 For the following six days you shall eat no bread made with yeast. On the seventh day there shall be a quiet gathering of the people of each city before the Lord your God. Don't do any work that day.
9 "Seven weeks after the harvest begins,
10 there shall be another festival before the Lord your God called the Festival of Weeks. At that time bring to him a free-will offering proportionate in size to his blessing upon you as judged by the amount of your harvest.
11 It is a time to rejoice before the Lord with your family and household. And don't forget to include the local Levites, foreigners, widows, and orphans. Invite them to accompany you to the celebration at the sanctuary.
12 Remember! You were a slave in Egypt, so be sure to carry out this command.
13 "Another celebration, the Festival of Shelters, must be observed for seven days at the end of the harvest season, after the grain is threshed and the grapes have been pressed.
14 This will be a happy time of rejoicing together with your family and servants. And don't forget to include the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows of your town.
15 "This feast will be held at the sanctuary, which will be located at the place the Lord will designate. It is a time of deep thanksgiving to the Lord for blessing you with a good harvest and in so many other ways; it shall be a time of great joy.
16 "Every man in Israel shall appear before the Lord your God three times a year at the sanctuary for these festivals: The Festival of Unleavened Bread, The Festival of Weeks, The Festival of Shelters. "On each of these occasions bring a gift to the Lord.
17 Give as you are able, according as the Lord has blessed you.
18 "Appoint judges and administrative officials for all the cities the Lord your God is giving you. They will administer justice in every part of the land.
19 Never twist justice to benefit a rich man, and never accept bribes. For bribes blind the eyes of the wisest and corrupt their decisions.
20 Justice must prevail. "That is the only way you will be successful in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
21 "Never, under any circumstances, are you to erect shameful images beside the altar of the Lord your God.
22 And never set up stone pillars to worship them, for the Lord hates them!
1 "Never sacrifice a sick or defective ox or sheep to the Lord your God. He doesn't feel honored by such gifts!
2 "If anyone, whether man or woman, in any village throughout your land violates your covenant with God
3 by worshiping other gods, the sun, moon, or stars--which I have strictly forbidden-–
4 first check the rumor very carefully; if there is no doubt it is true,
5 then that man or woman shall be taken outside the city and shall be stoned to death.
6 However, never put a man to death on the testimony of only one witness; there must be at least two or three.
7 The witnesses shall throw the first stones, and then all the people shall join in. In this way you will purge all evil from among you.
8 "If a case arises that is too hard for you to decide--for instance, whether someone is guilty of murder when there is insufficient evidence, or whether someone's rights have been violated--you shall take the case to the sanctuary of the Lord your God,
9 to the priests and Levites, and the chief judge on duty at the time will make the decision.
10 His decision is without appeal and is to be followed to the letter.
11 The sentence he imposes is to be fully executed.
12 If the defendant refuses to accept the decision of the priest or judge appointed by God for this purpose, the penalty is death. Such sinners must be purged from Israel.
13 Then everyone will hear about what happened to the man who refused God's verdict, and they will be afraid to defy a court's judgment.
14 "When you arrive in the land the Lord your God will give you, and have conquered it, and begin to think, 'We ought to have a king like the other nations around us'-–
15 be sure that you select as king the man the Lord your God shall choose. He must be an Israelite, not a foreigner.
16 Be sure that he doesn't build up a large stable of horses for himself, nor send his men to Egypt to raise horses for him there, for the Lord has told you, 'Never return to Egypt again.'
17 He must not have too many wives, lest his heart be turned away from the Lord, neither shall he be excessively rich.
18 "And when he has been crowned and sits upon his throne as king, then he must copy these laws from the book kept by the Levite-priests.
19 That copy of the laws shall be his constant companion. He must read from it every day of his life so that he will learn to respect the Lord his God by obeying all of his commands.
20 This regular reading of God's laws will prevent him from feeling that he is better than his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from God's laws in the slightest respect and will ensure his having a long, good reign. His sons will then follow him upon the throne.
1 "Remember that the priests and all the other members of the Levite tribe will not be given property like the other tribes. So the priests and Levites are to be supported by the sacrifices brought to the altar of the Lord and by the other offerings the people bring to him.
2 They don't need to own property, for the Lord is their property! That is what he promised them!
3 The shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach of every ox or sheep brought for sacrifice must be given to the priests.
4 In addition, the priests shall receive the harvest samples brought in thanksgiving to the Lord--the first of the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, and of the fleece at shearing time.
5 For the Lord your God has chosen the tribe of Levi, of all the tribes, to minister to the Lord from generation to generation.
6 "Any Levite, no matter where he lives in the land of Israel, has the right to come to the sanctuary at any time
7 and minister in the name of the Lord, just like his brother Levites who work there regularly.
8 He shall be given his share of the sacrifices and offerings as his right, not just if he is in need.
9 "When you arrive in the Promised Land you must be very careful lest you be corrupted by the horrible customs of the nations now living there.
10 For example, any Israeli who presents his child to be burned to death as a sacrifice to heathen gods must be killed. No Israeli may practice black magic, or call on the evil spirits for aid, or be a fortune teller,
11 or be a serpent charmer, medium, or wizard, or call forth the spirits of the dead.
12 Anyone doing these things is an object of horror and disgust to the Lord, and it is because the nations do these things that the Lord your God will displace them.
13 You must walk blamelessly before the Lord your God.
14 The nations you replace all do these evil things, but the Lord your God will not permit you to do such things.
15 "Instead, he will raise up for you a Prophet like me, an Israeli, a man to whom you must listen and whom you must obey.
16 For this is what you yourselves begged of God at Mount Horeb. There at the foot of the mountain you begged that you might not have to listen to the terrifying voice of God again, or see the awesome fire on the mountain, lest you die.
17 'All right,' the Lord said to me, 'I will do as they have requested.
18 I will raise up from among them a Prophet, an Israeli like you. I will tell him what to say, and he shall be my spokesman to the people.
19 I will personally deal with anyone who will not listen to him and heed his messages from me.
20 But any prophet who falsely claims that his message is from me, shall die. And any prophet who claims to give a message from other gods must die.'
21 If you wonder, 'How shall we know whether the prophecy is from the Lord or not?'
22 this is the way to know: If the thing he prophesies doesn't happen, it is not the Lord who has given him the message; he has made it up himself. You have nothing to fear from him.
1 "When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations you will displace, and when you are living in their cities and homes,
2 you must set apart three Cities of Refuge so that anyone who accidentally kills someone may flee to safety.
3 Divide the country into three districts, with one of these cities in each district; and keep the roads to these cities in good repair.
4 "Here is an example of the purpose of these cities:
5 If a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to chop wood, and the axe head flies off the handle and kills the man's neighbor, he may flee to one of those cities and be safe.
6 Anyone seeking to avenge the death will not be able to. These cities must be scattered so that one of them will be reasonably close to everyone;
7 otherwise the angry avenger might catch and kill the innocent slayer, even though he should not have died since he had not killed deliberately.
8 "If the Lord enlarges your boundaries as he promised your ancestors, and gives you all the land he promised
9 (whether he does this depends on your obedience to all these commandments I am giving you today--loving the Lord your God and walking his paths), then you must designate three additional Cities of Refuge.
10 In this way you will be able to avoid the death of innocent people, and you will not be held responsible for unjustified bloodshed.
11 "But if anyone hates his neighbor and springs out of hiding and kills him, and then flees into one of the Cities of Refuge,
12 the elders of his hometown shall send for him and shall bring him home and deliver him over to the dead man's avenger, to kill him.
13 Don't pity him! Purge all murderers from Israel! Only then will all go well with you.
14 "When you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, remember that you must never steal a man's land by moving the boundary marker.
15 "Never convict anyone on the testimony of one witness. There must be at least two, and three is even better.
16 If anyone gives false witness, claiming he has seen someone do wrong when he hasn't,
17 both men shall be brought before the priests and judges on duty before the Lord at the time.
18 They must be closely questioned, and if the witness is lying,
19 his penalty shall be the punishment he thought the other man would get. In this way you will purge out evil from among you.
20 Then those who hear about it will be afraid to tell lies on the witness stand.
21 You shall not show pity to a false witness. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot; this is your rule in such cases.
1 "When you go to war and see before you vast numbers of horses and chariots, an army far greater than yours, don't be frightened! The Lord your God is with you--the same God who brought you safely out of Egypt!
2 Before you begin the battle, a priest shall stand before the Israeli army and say,
3 'Listen to me, all you men of Israel! Don't be afraid as you go out to fight today!
4 For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you the victory!'
5 "Then the officers of the army shall address the men in this manner: 'Has anyone just built a new house but not yet dedicated it? If so, go home! For you might be killed in the battle, and someone else would dedicate it!
6 Has anyone just planted a vineyard but not yet eaten any of its fruit? If so, go home! You might die in battle and someone else would eat it!
7 Has anyone just become engaged? Well, go home and get married! For you might die in the battle, and someone else would marry your fiancee.
8 And now, is anyone afraid? If you are, go home before you frighten the rest of us!'
9 When the officers have finished saying this to their men, they will announce the names of the battalion leaders.
10 "As you approach a city to fight against it, first offer it a truce.
11 If it accepts the truce and opens its gates to you, then all its people shall become your servants.
12 But if it refuses and won't make peace with you, you must besiege it.
13 When the Lord your God has given it to you, kill every male in the city;
14 but you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, cattle, and booty.
15 These instructions apply only to distant cities, not to those in the Promised Land itself.
16 "For in the cities within the boundaries of the Promised Land you are to save no one; destroy every living thing.
17 Utterly destroy the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. This is the commandment of the Lord your God.
18 The purpose of this command is to prevent the people of the land from luring you into idol worship and into participation in their loathsome customs, thus sinning deeply against the Lord your God.
19 "When you besiege a city, don't destroy the fruit trees. Eat all the fruit you wish; just don't cut down the trees. They aren't enemies who need to be slaughtered!
20 But you may cut down trees that aren't valuable for food. Use them for the siege to make ladders, portable towers, and battering rams.
1 "If, when you arrive in the Promised Land, a murder victim is found lying in a field and no one has seen the murder,
2 the elders and judges shall measure from the body to the nearest city.
3 Then the elders of that city shall take a heifer that has never been yoked,
4 and lead it to a valley where there is running water--a valley neither plowed nor sowed--and there break its neck.
5 "Then the priests shall come (for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister before him and to pronounce his blessings and decide lawsuits and punishments),
6 and shall wash their hands over the heifer,
7 and say, 'Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
8 O Lord, forgive your people Israel whom you have redeemed, and do not charge them with murdering an innocent man. Forgive us the guilt of this man's blood.'
9 In this way you will put away the guilt from among you by following the Lord's directions.
10 "When you go to war and the Lord your God delivers your enemies to you,
11 and you see among the captives a beautiful girl you want as your wife,
12 take her home with you. She must shave her head and pare her nails
13 and change her clothing, laying aside that which she was wearing when she was captured, then remain in your home in mourning for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may marry her.
14 However, if after marrying her you decide you don't like her, you must let her go free--you may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her.
15 "If a man has two wives but loves one and not the other, and both have borne him children, and the mother of his oldest son is the wife he doesn't love,
16 he may not give a larger inheritance to his younger son, the son of the wife he loves.
17 He must give the customary double portion to his oldest son, who is the beginning of his strength and who owns the rights of a firstborn son, even though he is the son of the wife his father doesn't love.
18 "If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they punish him,
19 then his father and mother shall take him before the elders of the city
20 and declare, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and won't obey; he is a worthless drunkard.'
21 Then the men of the city shall stone him to death. In this way you shall put away this evil from among you, and all the young men of Israel will hear about what happened and will be afraid.
22 "If a man has committed a crime worthy of death, and is executed and then hanged on a tree,
23 his body shall not remain on the tree overnight. You must bury him the same day, for anyone hanging on a tree is cursed of God. Don't defile the land the Lord your God has given you.
1 "If you see someone's ox or sheep wandering away, don't pretend you didn't see it; take it back to its owner.
2 If you don't know who the owner is, take it to your farm and keep it there until the owner comes looking for it, and then give it to him.
3 The same applies to donkeys, clothing, or anything else you find. Keep it for its owner.
4 "If you see someone trying to get an ox or donkey onto its feet when it has slipped beneath its load, don't look the other way. Go and help!
5 "A woman must not wear men's clothing, and a man must not wear women's clothing. This is abhorrent to the Lord your God.
6 "If a bird's nest is lying on the ground, or if you spy one in a tree, and there are young ones or eggs in it with the mother sitting in the nest, don't take the mother with the young.
7 Let her go, and take only the young. The Lord will bless you for it.
8 "Every new house must have a guardrail around the edge of the flat rooftop to prevent anyone from falling off and bring guilt to both the house and its owner.
9 "Do not sow other crops in the rows of your vineyard. If you do, both the crops and the grapes shall be confiscated by the priests.
10 "Don't plow with an ox and a donkey harnessed together.
11 "Don't wear clothing woven from two kinds of thread: for instance, wool and linen.
12 "You must sew tassels on the four corners of your cloaks.
13 "If a man marries a girl, then after sleeping with her accuses her of having had premarital intercourse with another man, saying, 'She was not a virgin when I married her,'
14
15 then the girl's father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city judges.
16 "Her father shall tell them, 'I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, and now he despises her
17 and has accused her of shameful things, claiming that she was not a virgin when she married; yet here is the proof.'
18 And they shall spread before the judges the blood-stained sheet from her marriage bed. The judges shall sentence the man to be whipped,
19 and fine him one hundred dollars to be given to the girl's father, for he has falsely accused a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife and he may never divorce her.
20 But if the man's accusations are true, and she was not a virgin,
21 the judges shall take the girl to the door of her father's home where the men of the city shall stone her to death. She has defiled Israel by flagrant crime, being a prostitute while living at home with her parents; and such evil must be cleansed from among you.
22 "If a man is discovered committing adultery, both he and the other man's wife must be killed; in this way evil will be cleansed from Israel.
23 If a girl who is engaged is seduced within the walls of a city,
24 both she and the man who seduced her shall be taken outside the gates and stoned to death--the girl because she didn't scream for help, and the man because he has violated the virginity of another man's fiancee.
25 In this way you will reduce crime among you. But if this deed takes place out in the country, only the man shall die.
26 The girl is as innocent as a murder victim;
27 for it must be assumed that she screamed, but there was no one to hear and rescue her out in the field.
28 If a man rapes a girl who is not engaged and is caught in the act,
29 he must pay a fine to the girl's father and marry her; he may never divorce her.
30 A man shall not sleep with his father's widow since she belonged to his father.
1 "If a man's testicles are crushed or his penis cut off, he shall not enter the sanctuary.
2 A bastard may not enter the sanctuary, nor any of his descendants for ten generations.
3 "No Ammonite or Moabite may ever enter the sanctuary, even after the tenth generation.
4 The reason for this law is that these nations did not welcome you with food and water when you came out of Egypt; they even tried to hire Balaam, the son of Beor from Pethor, Mesopotamia, to curse you.
5 But the Lord wouldn't listen to Balaam; instead, he turned the intended curse into a blessing for you because the Lord loves you.
6 You must never, as long as you live, try to help the Ammonites or the Moabites in any way.
7 But don't look down on the Edomites and the Egyptians; the Edomites are your brothers and you lived among the Egyptians.
8 The grandchildren of the Egyptians who came with you from Egypt may enter the sanctuary of the Lord.
9 "When you are at war, the men in the camps must stay away from all evil.
10 Any man who becomes ceremonially defiled because of a seminal emission during the night must leave the camp
11 and stay outside until the evening; then he shall bathe himself and return at sunset.
12 The toilet area shall be outside the camp.
13 Each man must have a spade as part of his equipment; after every bowel movement he must dig a hole with the spade and cover the excrement.
14 The camp must be holy, for the Lord walks among you to protect you and to cause your enemies to fall before you; and the Lord does not want to see anything indecent lest he turn away from you.
15 "If a slave escapes from his master, you must not force him to return; let him live among you in whatever town he shall choose, and do not oppress him.
16
17 "No prostitutes are permitted in Israel, either men or women;
18 you must not bring to the Lord any offering from the earnings of a prostitute or a homosexual, for both are detestable to the Lord your God.
19 "Don't demand interest on loans you make to a brother Israelite, whether it is in the form of money, food, or anything else.
20 You may take interest from a foreigner, but not from an Israeli. For if you take interest from a brother, an Israeli, the Lord your God won't bless you when you arrive in the Promised Land.
21 "When you make a vow to the Lord, be prompt in doing whatever it is you promised him, for the Lord demands that you promptly fulfill your vows; it is a sin if you don't.
22 (But it is not a sin if you refrain from vowing!)
23 Once you make the vow, you must be careful to do as you have said, for it was your own choice, and you have vowed to the Lord your God.
24 "You may eat your fill of the grapes from another man's vineyard, but do not take any away in a container.
25 It is the same with someone else's grain--you may eat a few handfuls of it, but don't use a sickle.
1 "If a man doesn't like something about his wife, he may write a letter stating that he has divorced her, give her the letter, and send her away.
2 If she then remarries
3 and the second husband also divorces her or dies,
4 the former husband may not marry her again, for she has been defiled; this would bring guilt upon the land the Lord your God is giving you.
5 "A newly married man is not to be drafted into the army nor given any other special responsibilities; for a year he shall be free to be at home, happy with his wife.
6 "It is illegal to take a millstone as a pledge, for it is a tool by which its owner gains his livelihood.
7 If anyone kidnaps a brother Israelite and treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die, in order to purge the evil from among you.
8 "Be very careful to follow the instructions of the priest in cases of leprosy, for I have given him rules and guidelines you must obey to the letter:
9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam as you were coming from Egypt.
10 "If you lend anything to another man, you must not enter his house to get his security.
11 Stand outside! The owner will bring it out to you.
12 If the man is poor and gives you his cloak as security, you are not to sleep in it.
13 Take it back to him at sundown so that he can use it through the night and bless you; and the Lord your God will count it as righteousness for you.
14 "Never oppress a poor hired man, whether a fellow Israelite or a foreigner living in your town.
15 Pay him his wage each day before sunset, for since he is poor he needs it right away; otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you and it would be counted as a sin against you.
16 "Fathers shall not be put to death for the sins of their sons nor the sons for the sins of their fathers; every man worthy of death shall be executed for his own crime.
17 "Justice must be given to migrants and orphans, and you must never accept a widow's garment in pledge of her debt.
18 Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God rescued you; that is why I have given you this command.
19 If, when reaping your harvest, you forget to bring in a sheaf from the field, don't go back after it. Leave it for the migrants, orphans, and widows; then the Lord your God will bless and prosper all you do.
20 When you beat the olives from your olive trees, don't go over the boughs twice; leave anything remaining for the migrants, orphans, and widows.
21 It is the same for the grapes in your vineyard; don't glean the vines after they are picked, but leave what's left for those in need.
22 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt--that is why I am giving you this command.
1 "If a man is guilty of a crime and the penalty is a beating, the judge shall command him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with up to forty stripes in proportion to the seriousness of the crime;
2
3 but no more than forty stripes may be given lest the punishment seem too severe, and your brother be degraded in your eyes.
4 "Don't muzzle an ox as it treads out the grain.
5 "If a man's brother dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family; instead, her husband's brother must marry her and sleep with her.
6 The first son she bears to him shall be counted as the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten.
7 But if the dead man's brother refuses to do his duty in this matter, refusing to marry the widow, then she shall go to the city elders and say to them, 'My husband's brother refuses to let his brother's name continue--he refuses to marry me.'
8 The elders of the city will then summon him and talk it over with him, and if he still refuses,
9 the widow shall walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot and spit in his face. She shall then say, 'This is what happens to a man who refuses to build his brother's house.'
10 And ever afterwards his house shall be referred to as 'the home of the man who had his sandal pulled off!'
11 "If two men are fighting and the wife of one intervenes to help her husband by grabbing the testicles of the other man,
12 her hand shall be cut off without pity.
13 "In all your transactions you must use accurate scales and honest measurements, so that you will have a long, good life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
14
15
16 All who cheat with unjust weights and measurements are detestable to the Lord your God.
17 "You must never forget what the people of Amalek did to you as you came from Egypt.
18 Remember that they fought with you and struck down those who were faint and weary and lagging behind, with no respect or fear of God.
19 Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies in the Promised Land, you are utterly to destroy the name of Amalek from under heaven. Never forget this.
1 "When you arrive in the land and have conquered it and are living there,
2 you must present to the Lord at his sanctuary the first sample from each annual harvest. Bring it in a basket
3 and hand it to the priest on duty and say to him, 'This gift is my acknowledgment that the Lord my God has brought me to the land he promised our ancestors.'
4 The priest will then take the basket from your hand and set it before the altar.
5 You shall then say before the Lord your God, 'My ancestors were migrant Arameans who went to Egypt for refuge. They were few in number, but in Egypt they became a mighty nation.
6 The Egyptians mistreated us and we cried to the Lord God. He heard us and saw our hardship, toil, and oppression,
7
8 and brought us out of Egypt with mighty miracles and a powerful hand. He did great and awesome miracles before the Egyptians
9 and has brought us to this place and given us this land "flowing with milk and honey!"
10 And now, O Lord, see, I have brought you a token of the first of the crops from the ground you have given me.' Then place the samples before the Lord your God, and worship him.
11 Afterwards, go and feast on all the good things he has given you. Celebrate with your family and with any Levites or migrants living among you.
12 "Every third year is a year of special tithing. That year you are to give all your tithes to the Levites, migrants, orphans, and widows, so that they will be well fed.
13 Then you shall declare before the Lord your God, 'I have given all of my tithes to the Levites, the migrants, the orphans, and the widows, just as you commanded me; I have not violated or forgotten any of your rules.
14 I have not touched the tithe while I was ceremonially defiled (for instance, while I was in mourning), nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God and have done everything you commanded me.
15 Look down from your holy home in heaven and bless your people and the land you have given us, as you promised our ancestors; make it a land "flowing with milk and honey"!'
16 "You must wholeheartedly obey all of these commandments and ordinances that the Lord your God is giving you today.
17 You have declared today that he is your God, and you have promised to obey and keep his laws and ordinances, and to heed all he tells you to do.
18 And the Lord has declared today that you are his very own people, just as he promised, and that you must obey all of his laws.
19 If you do, he will make you greater than any other nation, allowing you to receive praise, honor, and renown; but to attain this honor and renown you must be a holy people to the Lord your God, as he requires."
1 Then Moses and the elders of Israel gave the people these further instructions to obey:
2 "When you cross the Jordan River and go into the Promised Land--a land 'flowing with milk and honey'--take out boulders from the river bottom and immediately pile them into a monument on the other side, at Mount Ebal. Face the stones with a coating of lime and then write the laws of God in the lime.
3
4
5 And build an altar there to the Lord your God. Use uncut boulders, and on the altar offer burnt offerings to the Lord your God.
6
7 Sacrifice peace offerings upon it also, and feast there with great joy before the Lord your God.
8 Write all of these laws plainly upon the monument."
9 Then Moses and the Levite-priests addressed all Israel as follows: "O Israel, listen! Today you have become the people of the Lord your God,
10 so today you must begin to obey all of these commandments I have given you."
11 That same day Moses gave this charge to the people:
12 "When you cross into the Promised Land, the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to proclaim a blessing,
13 and the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali shall stand upon Mount Ebal to proclaim a curse.
14 Then the Levites standing between them shall shout to all Israel,
15 'The curse of God be upon anyone who makes and worships an idol, even in secret, whether carved of wood or made from molten metal--for these handmade gods are hated by the Lord.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
16 'Cursed is anyone who despises his father or mother.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
17 'Cursed is he who moves the boundary marker between his land and his neighbor's.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
18 'Cursed is he who takes advantage of a blind man.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
19 'Cursed is he who is unjust to the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
20 'Cursed is he who commits adultery with one of his father's wives, for she belongs to his father.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
21 'Cursed is he who has sexual intercourse with an animal.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
22 'Cursed is he who has sexual intercourse with his sister, whether she be a full sister or a half-sister.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
23 'Cursed is he who has sexual intercourse with his widowed mother-in-law.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
24 'Cursed is he who secretly slays another.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
25 'Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
26 'Cursed is anyone who does not obey these laws.' And all the people shall reply, 'Amen.'
1 "If you fully obey all of these commandments of the Lord your God, the laws I am declaring to you today, God will transform you into the greatest nation in the world.
2 These are the blessings that will come upon you:
3 Blessings in the city, Blessings in the field;
4 Many children, Ample crops, Large flocks and herds;
5 Blessings of fruit and bread;
6 Blessings when you come in, Blessings when you go out.
7 "The Lord will defeat your enemies before you; they will march out together against you but scatter before you in seven directions!
8 The Lord will bless you with good crops and healthy cattle, and prosper everything you do when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
9 He will change you into a holy people dedicated to himself; this he has promised to do if you will only obey him and walk in his ways.
10 All the nations in the world shall see that you belong to the Lord, and they will stand in awe.
11 "The Lord will give you an abundance of good things in the land, just as he promised: many children, many cattle, and abundant crops.
12 He will open to you his wonderful treasury of rain in the heavens, to give you fine crops every season. He will bless everything you do; and you shall lend to many nations, but shall not borrow from them.
13 If you will only listen and obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, he will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall always have the upper hand.
14 But each of these blessings depends on your not turning aside in any way from the laws I have given you; and you must never worship other gods.
15 "If you won't listen to the Lord your God and won't obey these laws I am giving you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you:
16 Curses in the city, Curses in the fields,
17 Curses on your fruit and bread,
18 The curse of barren wombs, Curses upon your crops, Curses upon the fertility of your cattle and flocks,
19 Curses when you come in, Curses when you go out.
20 "For the Lord himself will send his personal curse upon you. You will be confused and a failure in everything you do, until at last you are destroyed because of the sin of forsaking him.
21 He will send disease among you until you are destroyed from the face of the land you are about to enter and possess.
22 He will send tuberculosis, fever, infections, plague, and war. He will blight your crops, covering them with mildew. All these devastations shall pursue you until you perish.
23 "The heavens above you will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as iron.
24 The land will become as dry as dust for lack of rain, and dust storms shall destroy you.
25 "The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will march out to battle gloriously, but flee before your enemies in utter confusion; and you will be tossed to and fro among all the nations of the earth.
26 Your dead bodies will be food to the birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.
27 "He will send upon you Egyptian boils, tumors, scurvy, and itch, for none of which will there be a remedy.
28 He will send madness, blindness, fear, and panic upon you.
29 You shall grope in the bright sunlight just as the blind man gropes in darkness. You shall not prosper in anything you do; you will be oppressed and robbed continually, and nothing will save you.
30 "Someone else will marry your fiancee; someone else will live in the house you build; someone else will eat the fruit of the vineyard you plant.
31 Your oxen shall be butchered before your eyes, but you won't get a single bite of the meat. Your donkeys will be driven away as you watch and will never return to you again. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. And there will be no one to protect you.
32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break with longing for them, but you will not be able to help them.
33 A foreign nation you have not even heard of will eat the crops you will have worked so hard to grow. You will always be oppressed and crushed.
34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.
35 The Lord will cover you with boils from head to foot.
36 "He will exile you and the king you will choose to a nation to whom neither you nor your ancestors gave a second thought; and while in exile you shall worship gods of wood and stone!
37 You will become an object of horror, a proverb and a byword among all the nations, for the Lord will thrust you away.
38 "You will sow much but reap little, for the locusts will eat your crops.
39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you won't eat the grapes or drink the wine, for worms will destroy the vines.
40 Olive trees will be growing everywhere, but there won't be enough olive oil to anoint yourselves! For the trees will drop their fruit before it is matured.
41 Your sons and daughters will be snatched away from you as slaves.
42 The locusts shall destroy your trees and vines.
43 Foreigners living among you shall become richer and richer while you become poorer and poorer.
44 They shall lend to you, not you to them! They shall be the head and you shall be the tail!
45 "All these curses shall pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed--all because you refuse to listen to the Lord your God.
46 These horrors shall befall you and your descendants as a warning:
47 You will become slaves to your enemies because of your failure to praise God for all that he has given you.
48 The Lord will send your enemies against you, and you will be hungry, thirsty, naked, and in want of everything. A yoke of iron shall be placed around your neck until you are destroyed!
49 "The Lord will bring a distant nation against you, swooping down upon you like an eagle; a nation whose language you don't understand-–
50 a nation of fierce and angry men who will have no mercy upon young or old.
51 They will eat you out of house and home until your cattle and crops are gone. Your grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, and lambs will all disappear.
52 That nation will lay siege to your cities and knock down your highest walls--the walls you will trust to protect you.
53 You will even eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters in the terrible days of siege that lie ahead.
54 The most tenderhearted man among you will be utterly callous toward his own brother and his beloved wife and his children who are still alive.
55 He will refuse to give them a share of the flesh he is devouring--the flesh of his own children--because he is starving in the midst of the siege of your cities.
56 The most tender and delicate woman among you--the one who would not so much as touch her feet to the ground--will refuse to share with her beloved husband, son, and daughter.
57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can eat them: so terrible will be the hunger during the siege and the awful distress caused by your enemies at your gates.
58 "If you refuse to obey all the laws written in this book, thus refusing reverence to the glorious and fearful name of Jehovah your God,
59 then Jehovah will send perpetual plagues upon you and upon your children.
60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and they shall plague the land.
61 And that is not all! The Lord will bring upon you every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this book, until you are destroyed.
62 There will be few of you left, though before you were as numerous as stars. All this if you do not listen to the Lord your God.
63 "Just as the Lord has rejoiced over you and has done such wonderful things for you and has multiplied you, so the Lord at that time will rejoice in destroying you; and you shall disappear from the land.
64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship heathen gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!
65 There among those nations you shall find no rest, but the Lord will give you trembling hearts, darkness, and bodies wasted from sorrow and fear.
66 Your lives will hang in doubt. You will live night and day in fear, and will have no reason to believe that you will see the morning light.
67 In the morning you will say, 'Oh, that night were here!' And in the evening you will say, 'Oh, that morning were here!' You will say this because of the awesome horrors surrounding you.
68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, a journey I promised you would never need to make again; and there you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves--but no one will even want to buy you."
1 It was on the plains of Moab that Moses restated the covenant that the Lord had made with the people of Israel at Mount Horeb.
2 He summoned all Israel before him and told them, "You have seen with your own eyes the great plagues and mighty miracles that the Lord brought upon Pharaoh and his people in the land of Egypt.
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4 But even yet the Lord hasn't given you hearts that understand or eyes that see or ears that hear!
5 For forty years God has led you through the wilderness, yet your clothes haven't become old, and your shoes haven't worn out!
6 The reason he hasn't let you settle down to grow grain for bread or grapes for wine and strong drink is so that you would realize that it is the Lord your God who has been caring for you.
7 "When we came here, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we destroyed them,
8 and took their land and gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to the half-tribe of Manasseh as their inheritance.
9 Therefore, obey the terms of this covenant so that you will prosper in everything you do.
10 All of you--your leaders, the people, your judges, and your administrative officers--are standing today before the Lord your God,
11 along with your little ones and your wives and the foreigners that are among you--those who chop your wood and carry your water.
12 You are standing here to enter into a contract with Jehovah your God, a contract he is making with you today.
13 He wants to confirm you today as his people, and to confirm that he is your God, just as he promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14 This contract is not with you alone as you stand before him today, but with all future generations of Israel as well.
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16 "Surely you remember how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how as we left, we came safely through the territory of enemy nations.
17 And you have seen their heathen idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold.
18 The day that any of you--man or woman, family or tribe of Israel--begins to turn away from the Lord our God and desires to worship these gods of other nations, that day a root will be planted that will grow bitter and poisonous fruit.
19 "Let no one blithely think, when he hears the warnings of this curse, 'I shall prosper even though I walk in my own stubborn way!'
20 For the Lord will not pardon! His anger and jealousy will be hot against that man. And all the curses written in this book shall lie heavily upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.
21 The Lord will separate that man from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out upon him all the curses (which are recorded in this book) that befall those who break this contract.
22 Then your children and the generations to come and the foreigners that pass by from distant lands shall see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord will have sent upon it.
23 They will see that the whole land is alkali and salt, a burned over wasteland, unsown, without crops, without a shred of vegetation--just like Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, destroyed by the Lord in his anger.
24 'Why has the Lord done this to his land?' the nations will ask. 'Why was he so angry?'
25 "And they will be told, 'Because the people of the land broke the contract made with them by Jehovah, the God of their ancestors, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
26 For they worshiped other gods, violating his express command.
27 That is why the anger of the Lord was hot against this land, so that all his curses (which are recorded in this book) broke forth upon them.
28 In great anger the Lord rooted them out of their land and threw them away into another land, where they still live today!'
29 "There are secrets the Lord your God has not revealed to us, but these words that he has revealed are for us and our children to obey forever.
1 "When all these things have happened to you--the blessings and the curses I have listed--you will meditate upon them as you are living among the nations where the Lord your God will have driven you.
2 If at that time you want to return to the Lord your God, and you and your children have begun wholeheartedly to obey all of the commandments I have given you today,
3 then the Lord your God will rescue you from your captivity! He will have mercy upon you and come and gather you out of all the nations where he will have scattered you.
4 Though you are at the ends of the earth, he will go and find you and bring you back again
5 to the land of your ancestors. You shall possess the land again, and he will do you good and bless you even more than he did your ancestors!
6 He will cleanse your hearts and the hearts of your children and of your children's children so that you will love the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls, and Israel shall come alive again!
7 "If you return to the Lord and obey all the commandments that I command you today,
8 the Lord your God will take his curses and turn them against your enemies--against those who hate you and persecute you.
9 The Lord your God will prosper everything you do and give you many children and much cattle and wonderful crops; for the Lord will again rejoice over you as he did over your fathers.
10 He will rejoice if you but obey the commandments written in this book of the law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls.
11 "Obeying these commandments is not something beyond your strength and reach;
12 for these laws are not in the far heavens, so distant that you can't hear and obey them, and with no one to bring them down to you;
13 nor are they beyond the ocean, so far that no one can bring you their message;
14 but they are very close at hand--in your hearts and on your lips--so obey them.
15 "Look, today I have set before you life and death, depending on whether you obey or disobey.
16 I have commanded you today to love the Lord your God and to follow his paths and to keep his laws, so that you will live and become a great nation, and so that the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to possess.
17 But if your hearts turn away and you won't listen--if you are drawn away to worship other gods-–
18 then I declare to you this day that you shall surely perish; you will not have a long, good life in the land you are going in to possess.
19 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you that today I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Oh, that you would choose life; that you and your children might live!
20 Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and to cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. You will then be able to live safely in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
1 After Moses had said all these things to the people of Israel,
2 he told them, "I am now 120 years old! I am no longer able to lead you, for the Lord has told me that I shall not cross the Jordan River.
3 But the Lord himself will lead you and will destroy the nations living there, and you shall overcome them. Joshua is your new commander, as the Lord has instructed.
4 The Lord will destroy the nations living in the land, just as he destroyed Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites.
5 The Lord will deliver over to you the people living there, and you shall destroy them as I have commanded you.
6 Be strong! Be courageous! Do not be afraid of them! For the Lord your God will be with you. He will neither fail you nor forsake you."
7 Then Moses called for Joshua and said to him, as all Israel watched, "Be strong! Be courageous! For you shall lead these people into the land promised by the Lord to their ancestors; see to it that they conquer it.
8 Don't be afraid, for the Lord will go before you and will be with you; he will not fail nor forsake you."
9 Then Moses wrote out the laws he had already delivered to the people and gave them to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Ark containing the Ten Commandments of the Lord. Moses also gave copies of the laws to the elders of Israel.
10 The Lord commanded that these laws be read to all the people at the end of every seventh year--the Year of Release--at the Festival of Tabernacles,
11 when all Israel would assemble before the Lord at the sanctuary.
12 "Call them all together," the Lord instructed, "--men, women, children, and foreigners living among you--to hear the laws of God and to learn his will, so that you will reverence the Lord your God and obey his laws.
13 Do this so that your little children who have not known these laws will hear them and learn how to revere the Lord your God as long as you live in the Promised Land."
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, "The time has come when you must die. Summon Joshua and come into the Tabernacle where I can give him his instructions." So Moses and Joshua came and stood before the Lord.
15 He appeared to them in a great cloud at the Tabernacle entrance,
16 and said to Moses, "You shall die and join your ancestors. After you are gone, these people will begin worshiping foreign gods in the Promised Land. They will forget about me and break the contract I have made with them.
17 Then my anger will flame out against them and I will abandon them, hiding my face from them, and they shall be destroyed. Terrible trouble will come upon them, so that they will say, 'God is no longer among us!'
18 I will turn away from them because of their sins in worshiping other gods.
19 "Now write down the words of this song, and teach it to the people of Israel as my warning to them.
20 When I have brought them into the land I promised their ancestors--a land 'flowing with milk and honey'--and when they have become fat and prosperous, and worship other gods and despise me and break my contract,
21 and great disasters come upon them, then this song will remind them of the reason for their woes. (For this song will live from generation to generation.) I know now, even before they enter the land, what these people are like."
22 So, on that very day, Moses wrote down the words of the song and taught it to the Israelites.
23 Then he charged Joshua (son of Nun) to be strong and courageous and said to him, "You must bring the people of Israel into the land the Lord promised them; for the Lord says, 'I will be with you.' "
24 When Moses had finished writing down all the laws that are recorded in this book,
25 he instructed the Levites who carried the Ark containing the Ten Commandments
26 to put this book of the law beside the Ark, as a solemn warning to the people of Israel.
27 "For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are," Moses told them. "If even today, while I am still here with you, you are defiant rebels against the Lord, how much more rebellious will you be after my death!
28 Now summon all the elders and officers of your tribes so that I can speak to them, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
29 I know that after my death you will utterly defile yourselves and turn away from God and his commands; and in the days to come evil will crush you for you will do what the Lord says is evil, making him very angry."
30 So Moses recited this entire song to the whole assembly of Israel:
1 "Listen, O heavens and earth! Listen to what I say!
2 My words shall fall upon you Like the gentle rain and dew, Like rain upon the tender grass, Like showers on the hillside.
3 I will proclaim the greatness of the Lord. How glorious he is!
4 He is the Rock. His work is perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is faithful, without sin.
5 But Israel has become corrupt, Smeared with sin. They are no longer his; They are a stubborn, twisted generation.
6 Is this the way you treat Jehovah? O foolish people, Is not God your Father? Has he not created you? Has he not established you and made you strong?
7 Remember the days of long ago! (Ask your father and the aged men; They will tell you all about it.)
8 When God divided up the world among the nations, He gave each of them a supervising angel!
9 But he appointed none for Israel; For Israel was God's own personal possession!
10 God protected them in the howling wilderness As though they were the apple of his eye.
11 He spreads his wings over them, Even as an eagle overspreads her young. She carries them upon her wings-- As does the Lord his people!
12 When the Lord alone was leading them, And they lived without foreign gods,
13 God gave them fertile hilltops, Rolling, fertile fields, Honey from the rock, And olive oil from stony ground!
14 He gave them milk and meat-- Choice Bashan rams, and goats-- And the finest of the wheat; They drank the sparkling wine.
15 But Israel was soon overfed; Yes, fat and bloated; Then, in plenty, they forsook their God. They shrugged away the Rock of their salvation.
16 Israel began to follow foreign gods, And Jehovah was very angry; He was jealous of his people.
17 They sacrificed to heathen gods, To new gods never before worshiped.
18 They spurned the Rock who had made them, Forgetting it was God who had given them birth.
19 God saw what they were doing, And detested them! His sons and daughters were insulting him.
20 He said, 'I will abandon them; See what happens to them then! For they are a stubborn, faithless generation.
21 They have made me very jealous of their idols, Which are not gods at all. Now I, in turn, will make them jealous By giving my affections To the foolish Gentile nations of the world.
22 For my anger has kindled a fire That burns to the depths of the underworld, Consuming the earth and all of its crops, And setting its mountains on fire.
23 I will heap evils upon them And shoot them down with my arrows.
24 I will waste them with hunger, Burning fever, and fatal disease. I will devour them! I will set wild beasts upon them, To rip them apart with their teeth; And deadly serpents Crawling in the dust.
25 Outside, the enemies' sword-- Inside, the plague -- Shall terrorize young men and girls alike; The baby nursing at the breast, And aged men.
26 I had decided to scatter them to distant lands, So that even the memory of them Would disappear.
27 But then I thought, "My enemies will boast, 'Israel is destroyed by our own might; It was not the Lord Who did it!' '
28 Israel is a stupid nation; Foolish, without understanding.
29 Oh, that they were wise! Oh, that they could understand! Oh, that they would know what they are getting into!
30 How could one single enemy chase a thousand of them, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had abandoned them, Unless the Lord had destroyed them?
31 But the rock of other nations Is not like our Rock; Prayers to their gods are valueless.
32 They act like men of Sodom and Gomorrah: Their deeds are bitter with poison;
33 They drink the wine of serpent venom.
34 But Israel is my special people, Sealed as jewels within my treasury.
35 Vengeance is mine, And I decree the punishment of all her enemies: Their doom is sealed.
36 The Lord will see his people righted, And will have compassion on them when they slip. He will watch their power ebb away, Both slave and free.
37 Then God will ask, 'Where are their gods-- The rocks they claimed to be their refuge?
38 Where are these gods now, To whom they sacrificed their fat and wine? Let those gods arise, And help them!
39 Don't you see that I alone am God? I kill and make live. I wound and heal-- No one delivers from my power.
40 I raise my hand to heaven And vow by my existence,
41 That I will whet the lightning of my sword! And hurl my punishments upon my enemies!
42 My arrows shall be drunk with blood! My sword devours the flesh and blood Of all the slain and captives. The heads of the enemy Are gory with blood.'
43 Praise his people, O Gentile nations, For he will avenge his people, Taking vengeance on his enemies, Purifying his land And his people."
44 When Moses and Joshua had recited all the words of this song to the people,
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46 Moses made these comments: "Meditate upon all the laws I have given you today, and pass them on to your children.
47 These laws are not mere words--they are your life! Through obeying them you will live long, plentiful lives in the land you are going to possess across the Jordan River."
48 That same day, the Lord said to Moses,
49 "Go to Mount Nebo in the Abarim mountains, in the land of Moab across from Jericho. Climb to its heights and look out across the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the people of Israel.
50 After you see the land, you must die and join your ancestors, just as Aaron, your brother, died in Mount Hor and joined them.
51 For you dishonored me among the people of Israel at the springs of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin.
52 You will see spread out before you the land I am giving the people of Israel, but you will not enter it."
1 This is the blessing Moses, the man of God, gave to the people of Israel before his death:
2 "The Lord came to us at Mount Sinai, And dawned upon us from Mount Seir; He shone from Mount Paran, Surrounded by ten thousands of holy angels, And with flaming fire at his right hand.
3 How he loves his people-- His holy ones are in his hands. They followed in your steps, O Lord. They have received their directions from you.
4 The laws I have given Are your precious possession.
5 The Lord became king in Jerusalem, Elected by a convocation of the leaders of the tribes!
6 Let Reuben live forever And may his tribe increase!"
7 And Moses said of Judah: "O Lord, hear the cry of Judah And unite him with Israel; Fight for him against his enemies."
8 Then Moses said concerning the tribe of Levi: "Give to godly Levi Your Urim and your Thummim. You tested Levi at Massah and at Meribah;
9 He obeyed your instructions and destroyed many sinners, Even his own children, brothers, fathers, and mothers.
10 The Levites shall teach God's laws to Israel And shall work before you at the incense altar And the altar of burnt offering.
11 O Lord, prosper the Levites And accept the work they do for you. Crush those who are their enemies; Don't let them rise again."
12 Concerning the tribe of Benjamin, Moses said: "He is beloved of God And lives in safety beside him. God surrounds him with his loving care, And preserves him from every harm."
13 Concerning the tribe of Joseph, he said: "May his land be blessed by God With the choicest gifts of heaven And of the earth that lies below.
14 May he be blessed With the best of what the sun makes grow; Growing richly month by month,
15 With the finest of mountain crops And of the everlasting hills.
16 May he be blessed with the best gifts Of the earth and its fullness, And with the favor of God who appeared In the burning bush. Let all these blessings come upon Joseph, The prince among his brothers.
17 He is a young bull in strength and splendor, With the strong horns of a wild ox To push against the nations everywhere; This is my blessing on the multitudes of Ephraim And the thousands of Manasseh."
18 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Moses said: "Rejoice, O Zebulun, you outdoorsmen, And Issachar, you lovers of your tents;
19 They shall summon the people To celebrate their sacrifices with them. Lo, they taste the riches of the sea And the treasures of the sand."
20 Concerning the tribe of Gad, Moses said: "A blessing upon those who help Gad. He crouches like a lion, With savage arm and face and head.
21 He chose the best of the land for himself Because it is reserved for a leader. He led the people Because he carried out God's penalties for Israel."
22 Of the tribe of Dan, Moses said: "Dan is like a lion's cub Leaping out from Bashan."
23 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Moses said: "O Naphtali, you are satisfied With all the blessings of the Lord; The Mediterranean coast and the Negeb Are your home."
24 Of the tribe of Asher: "Asher is a favorite son, Esteemed above his brothers; He bathes his feet in oil.
25 May you be protected with strong bolts Of iron and bronze, And may your strength match the length of your days!
26 There is none like the God of Jerusalem-- He descends from the heavens In majestic splendor to help you.
27 The eternal God is your Refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms. He thrusts out your enemies before you; It is he who cries, 'Destroy them!'
28 So Israel dwells safely, Prospering in a land of corn and wine, While the gentle rains descend from heaven.
29 What blessings are yours, O Israel! Who else has been saved by the Lord? He is your shield and your helper! He is your excellent sword! Your enemies shall bow low before you, And you shall trample on their backs!"
1 Then Moses climbed from the plains of Moab to Pisgah Peak in Mount Nebo, across from Jericho. And the Lord pointed out to him the Promised Land, as they gazed out across Gilead as far as Dan:
2 "There is Naphtali; and there is Ephraim and Manasseh; and across there, Judah, extending to the Mediterranean Sea;
3 there is the Negeb; and the Jordan Valley; and Jericho, the city of palm trees; and Zoar," the Lord told him.
4 "It is the Promised Land," the Lord told Moses. "I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that I would give it to their descendants. Now you have seen it, but you will not enter it."
5 So Moses, the disciple of the Lord, died in the land of Moab as the Lord had said.
6 The Lord buried him in a valley near Beth-peor in Moab, but no one knows the exact place.
7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was perfect and he was as strong as a young man.
8 The people of Israel mourned for him for thirty days on the plains of Moab.
9 Joshua (son of Nun) was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the people of Israel obeyed him and followed the commandments the Lord had given to Moses.
10 There has never been another prophet like Moses, for the Lord talked to him face to face.
11 And at God's command he performed amazing miracles that have never been equaled.
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