Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!

You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.

Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live!

There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,

These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind,

Look! I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in the land you are about to enter and possess.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you -- from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him.

So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord's mouth.

Revere the Lord your God, serve him, be loyal to him and take oaths only in his name.

Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to you.

"Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other.

Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.

Suppose a prophet or one who foretells by dreams should appear among you and show you a sign or wonder,

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.

Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except to revere him, to obey all his commandments, to love him, to serve him with all your mind and being,

If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house.

As for the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He is a reliable God who is never unjust, he is fair and upright.

A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor should a man dress up in women's clothing, for anyone who does this is offensive to the Lord your God.

"If you indeed obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.

You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm and fasten them as symbols on your forehead.

However, it was not until the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year that Moses addressed the Israelites just as the Lord had instructed him to do.

So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, "Indeed, this great nation is a very wise people."

You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, even as he has to this day.

Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates.

and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up.

Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail you or abandon you!"

If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail,

a land where you may eat food in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.

Now these are the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed

Rather it is because of his love for you and his faithfulness to the promise he solemnly vowed to your ancestors that the Lord brought you out with great power, redeeming you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

"But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.

"I am the Lord your God, he who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery.

When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you -- Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you --

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth.

This took place after the defeat of King Sihon of the Amorites, whose capital was in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, whose capital was in Ashtaroth, specifically in Edrei.

I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.

So it was in the Transjordan, in Moab, that Moses began to deliver these words:

Indeed, may the Lord, the God of your ancestors, make you a thousand times more numerous than you are now, blessing you just as he said he would!

Look! I have already given the land to you. Go, occupy the territory that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants."

I also said to you at that time, "I am no longer able to sustain you by myself.

The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, "You have stayed in the area of this mountain long enough.

You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.

Then he said to me, "Get up, set out leading the people so they may go and possess the land I promised to give to their ancestors."

The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger of God, and on them was everything he said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly.

Get up now, resume your journey, heading for the Amorite hill country, to all its areas including the arid country, the highlands, the Shephelah, the Negev, and the coastal plain -- all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates.

In fact, what other great nation has a god so near to them like the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you -- a land with large, fine cities you did not build,

a land the Lord your God looks after. He is constantly attentive to it from the beginning to the end of the year.

Select wise and practical men, those known among your tribes, whom I may appoint as your leaders."

Look, he has placed the land in front of you! Go up, take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, said to do. Do not be afraid or discouraged!"

Make sure you do not offer burnt offerings in any place you wish,

We captured all his cities at that time -- there was not a town we did not take from them -- sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the dominion of Og in Bashan.

"You have circled around this mountain long enough; now turn north.

The Lord your God has increased your population to the point that you are now as numerous as the very stars of the sky.

You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you,

So I chose as your tribal leaders wise and well-known men, placing them over you as administrators of groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and also as other tribal officials.

And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this whole law that I am about to share with you today?

Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today.

But how can I alone bear up under the burden of your hardship and strife?

I furthermore admonished your judges at that time that they should pay attention to issues among your fellow citizens and judge fairly, whether between one citizen and another or a citizen and a resident foreigner.

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

Every one of you must give as you are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

You must not make for yourself an image of anything in heaven above, on earth below, or in the waters beneath.

Now at the end of the forty days and nights the Lord presented me with the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

You replied to me that what I had said to you was good.

Then I said to you, "You have come to the Amorite hill country which the Lord our God is about to give us.

They must not discriminate in judgment, but hear the lowly and the great alike. Nor should they be intimidated by human beings, for judgment belongs to God. If the matter being adjudicated is too difficult for them, they should bring it before me for a hearing.

So I instructed you at that time regarding everything you should do.

Then they took some of the produce of the land and carried it back down to us. They also brought a report to us, saying, "The land that the Lord our God is about to give us is good."

You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject me,

for you may do so only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribal areas -- there you may do everything I am commanding you.

They left and went up to the hill country, coming to the Eshcol Valley, which they scouted out.

the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the falcon after its species,

You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he said to me, "Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children."

you must by all means slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock.

and to keep the Lord's commandments and statutes that I am giving you today for your own good?

be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, that place of slavery.

houses filled with choice things you did not accumulate, hewn out cisterns you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant -- and you eat your fill,

you must bring the two of them to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry out though in the city and the man because he violated his neighbor's fianc?e; in this way you will purge evil from among you.

If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree,

The heavens -- indeed the highest heavens -- belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.

However, if the servant says to you, "I do not want to leave you," because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you,

but who pays back those who hate him as they deserve and destroys them. He will not ignore those who hate him but will repay them as they deserve!

You were not willing to go up, however, but instead rebelled against the Lord your God.

for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God and his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land.

So all of you approached me and said, "Let's send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there."

When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses,

You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it.

And he said to me, "Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image."

When you enter the vineyard of your neighbor you may eat as many grapes as you please, but you must not take away any in a container.

"Is this not stored up with me?" says the Lord, "Is it not sealed up in my storehouses?

I thought this was a good idea, so I sent twelve men from among you, one from each tribe.

and that you may drive out all your enemies just as the Lord said.

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there."

but I show covenant faithfulness to the thousands who choose me and keep my commandments.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin forever -- it must never be rebuilt again.

You must not make use of the name of the Lord your God for worthless purposes, for the Lord will not exonerate anyone who abuses his name that way.

On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you in all your villages. Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex.

Therefore, cleanse your heart and stop being so stubborn!

And he revealed to you the covenant he has commanded you to keep, the ten commandments, writing them on two stone tablets.

So keep the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that I today am commanding you to do.

be sure you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery,

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. On that day you must not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your ox, your donkey, any other animal, or the foreigner who lives with you, so that your male and female slaves, like yourself, may have rest.

All of these cities were fortified by high walls, gates, and locking bars; in addition there were a great many open villages.

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it and yet dark with a thick cloud.

If you obey these ordinances and are careful to do them, the Lord your God will faithfully keep covenant with you as he promised your ancestors.

You must not murder.

and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow from a flint rock and

Instruct these people as follows: 'You are about to cross the border of your relatives the descendants of Esau, who inhabit Seir. They will be afraid of you, so watch yourselves carefully.

fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you and eventually bring good to you.

you must say to them, "We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way.

who justly treats the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing.

then he promises, "I will send rain for your land in its season, the autumn and the spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine, and olive oil.

and in the desert, where you saw him carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place."

when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything,

You complained among yourselves privately and said, "Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us!

The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt

So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

You must not go after other gods, those of the surrounding peoples,

When you look up to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars -- the whole heavenly creation -- you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, for the Lord your God has assigned them to all the people of the world.

The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you.

However, you must not eat blood -- pour it out on the ground like water.

the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl,

It must be with him constantly and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out.

You will not be allowed to eat in your villages your tithe of grain, new wine, olive oil, the firstborn of your herd and flock, any votive offerings you have vowed, or your freewill and personal offerings.

So I responded to you, "Do not be terrified of them!

Make sure you do not turn away to serve and worship other gods!

Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.

Be careful not to say, "My own ability and skill have gotten me this wealth."

So I turned and went down the mountain while it was blazing with fire; the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands.

Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments that I am giving you -- you, your children, and your grandchildren -- all your lives, to prolong your days.

Now if you forget the Lord your God at all and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated.

Then the Lord spoke to you from the middle of the fire; you heard speech but you could not see anything -- only a voice was heard.

However, only to your ancestors did he show his loving favor, and he chose you, their descendants, from all peoples -- as is apparent today.

Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor.

Do not be hostile toward them, because I am not giving you any of their land, not even a footprint, for I have given Mount Seir as an inheritance for Esau.

He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you.

You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors.

You may purchase food to eat and water to drink from them.

Only the holy things and votive offerings that belong to you, you must pick up and take to the place the Lord will choose.

Who is there from the entire human race who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of the fire as we have, and has lived?

Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as he has forbidden you.

Recall that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there by strength and power. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

Thus you must obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am giving you today and doing what is right before him.

Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications.

And he brought signs and great, devastating wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on his whole family before our very eyes.

You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort the words of the righteous.

Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him.

We put all of these under divine judgment just as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon -- every occupied city, including women and children.

I grabbed the two tablets, threw them down, and shattered them before your very eyes.

When your children ask you later on, "What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?"

you shall take an awl and pierce a hole through his ear to the door. Then he will become your servant permanently (this applies to your female servant as well).

Do whatever is proper and good before the Lord so that it may go well with you and that you may enter and occupy the good land that he promised your ancestors,

For I was terrified at the Lord's intense anger that threatened to destroy you. But he listened to me this time as well.

Teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up.

The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him too.

a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey,

The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

Stand aside and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are."

You are to work and do all your tasks in six days,

You must not show pity; the principle will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, and a foot for a foot.

You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness among you or your livestock.

You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! For everything that is abhorrent to him, everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

When you go into the ripe grain fields of your neighbor you may pluck off the kernels with your hand, but you must not use a sickle on your neighbor's ripe grain.

For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills,

I will provide pasture for your livestock and you will eat your fill."

When your ancestors went down to Egypt, they numbered only seventy, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.

Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left, and he and his descendants will enjoy many years ruling over his kingdom in Israel.

But all the livestock and plunder from the cities we kept for ourselves.

Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, the Lord your God disciplines you.

As for your sinful thing that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will close up the sky so that it does not rain. The land will not yield its produce, and you will soon be removed from the good land that the Lord is about to give you.

Be careful not to overlook the Levites as long as you live in the land.

You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today.

Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates

So you must keep his commandments, live according to his standards, and revere him.

Moreover, at that same time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to keep in the land which you are about to enter and possess.

the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the cormorant,

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God.

I lay flat on the ground before the Lord for forty days and nights, for he had said he would destroy you.

Every place you set your foot will be yours; your border will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the River (that is, the Euphrates) as far as the Mediterranean Sea.

You must not desire another man's wife, nor should you crave his house, his field, his male and female servants, his ox, his donkey, or anything else he owns."

So at that time we took the land of the two Amorite kings in the Transjordan from Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon

All along the way I, the Lord your God, have blessed your every effort. I have been attentive to your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have been with you; you have lacked for nothing.'"

When the Lord your God extends your borders as he said he would do and you say, "I want to eat meat just as I please," you may do so as you wish.

Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

Moreover, he said to me, "I have taken note of these people; they are a stubborn lot!

Keep his commandments very carefully, as well as the stipulations and statutes he commanded you to observe.

However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself -- you must not eat the life with the meat!

so that your days and those of your descendants may be extended in the land which the Lord promised to give to your ancestors, like the days of heaven itself.

After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same."

For if you carefully observe all of these commandments I am giving you and love the Lord your God, live according to his standards, and remain loyal to him,

all the cities of the plateau, all of Gilead and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

The Lord commanded us to obey all these statutes and to revere him so that it may always go well for us and he may preserve us, as he has to this day.

These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess.

If the place he chooses to locate his name is too far for you, you may slaughter any of your herd and flock he has given you just as I have stipulated; you may eat them in your villages just as you wish.

You must destroy all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

So we turned away from our relatives the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, from Elat and Ezion Geber, and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

But you must seek only the place he chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, and you must go there.

He will say, "Where are their gods, the rock in whom they sought security,

You must not do anything to the young woman -- she has done nothing deserving of death. This case is the same as when someone attacks another person and murders him,

Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remaining Rephaites. (It is noteworthy that his sarcophagus was made of iron. Does it not, indeed, still remain in Rabbath of the Ammonites? It is thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide according to standard measure.)

(The Emites used to live there, a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites.

However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land.

You must not commit adultery.

Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number -- as the Lord, God of your ancestors, said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.

At that same time the Lord said to me, "Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark.

I say this so you will not corrupt yourselves by making an image in the form of any kind of figure. This includes the likeness of a human male or female,

It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you -- for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples.

You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments at all times.

A man may not marry his father's former wife and in this way dishonor his father.

Pay careful attention to all these things I am commanding you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not harass Moab and provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as your territory. This is because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.

When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land.

You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.

(the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion and the Amorites call it Senir),

We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments before the Lord our God, just as he demands."

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. Then he inscribed the words on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing everything I am commanding you -- your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him.

He is the one you should praise; he is your God, the one who has done these great and awesome things for you that you have seen.

Previously the Horites lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.)

you must not fear them. You must carefully recall what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt,

You must not eat it! You must pour it out on the ground like water.

If you think, "These nations are more numerous than I -- how can I dispossess them?"

Like you eat the gazelle or ibex, so you may eat these; the ritually impure and pure alike may eat them.

Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you.

So I must die here in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going over and will possess that good land.

You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone doing what seems best to him,

Next we set out on the route to Bashan, but King Og of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

then he will drive out all these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you.

Then we turned and set out toward the desert land on the way to the Red Sea just as the Lord told me to do, detouring around Mount Seir for a long time.

the blessing if you take to heart the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today,

You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord's sight.

Furthermore, the Lord your God will release hornets among them until the very last ones who hide from you perish.

and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

For the land where you are headed is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, a land where you planted seed and which you irrigated by hand like a vegetable garden.

Both you and your families must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.

For I raise up my hand to heaven, and say, 'As surely as I live forever,

These people, as well as the Anakites, are also considered Rephaites; the Moabites call them Emites.

You must not tremble in their presence, for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a great and awesome God.

This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites.

and the curse if you pay no attention to his commandments and turn from the way I am setting before you today to pursue other gods you have not known.

any kind of land animal, any bird that flies in the sky,

You must offer your burnt offerings, both meat and blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices you must pour out on his altar while you eat the meat.

Then, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was ablaze, all your tribal leaders and elders approached me.

He delivered us from there so that he could give us the land he had promised our ancestors.

You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.

anything that crawls on the ground, or any fish in the deep waters of the earth.

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will surely and swiftly be removed from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be annihilated.

When you do go across the Jordan River and settle in the land he is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety.

Nobody will be able to resist you; the Lord your God will spread the fear and terror of you over the whole land on which you walk, just as he promised you.

Are they not across the Jordan River, toward the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah opposite Gilgal near the oak of Moreh?

In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, if you return to the Lord your God and obey him

or what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth in the middle of the Israelite camp and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and all the property they brought with them.

You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).

And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God.

"During those days the Israelites traveled from Beeroth Bene-Yaaqan to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar became priest in his place.

Moreover, at that time I pleaded with the Lord,

The Lord will judge his people, and will change his plans concerning his servants; when he sees that their power has disappeared, and that no one is left, whether confined or set free.

Instead, the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy is one of hills and valleys, a land that drinks in water from the rains,

He will hand over their kings to you and you will erase their very names from memory. Nobody will be able to resist you until you destroy them.

Bear in mind today that I am not speaking to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments of the Lord your God, which revealed his greatness, strength, and power.

The Lord your God will give them over to you; he will throw them into a great panic until they are destroyed.

To the Reubenites and Gadites I allocated the territory extending from Gilead as far as Wadi Arnon (the exact middle of the wadi was a boundary) all the way to the Wadi Jabbok, the Ammonite border.

Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the Argob region as far as the border with the Geshurites and Maacathites (namely Bashan) and called it by his name, Havvoth-Jair, which it retains to this very day.)

So it was that after all the military men had been eliminated from the community,

the great judgments you saw, the signs and wonders, the strength and power by which he brought you out -- thus the Lord your God will do to all the people you fear.

Now the length of time it took for us to go from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, time for all the military men of that generation to die, just as the Lord had vowed to them.

He, the God who leads you, will expel the nations little by little. You will not be allowed to destroy them all at once lest the wild animals overrun you.

The rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh. (All the region of Argob, that is, all Bashan, is called the land of Rephaim.

But the Lord became angry with me because of you and vowed that I would never cross the Jordan nor enter the good land that he is about to give you.

Their wine is snakes' poison, the deadly venom of cobras.

You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath along with it. You must absolutely detest and abhor it, for it is an object of divine wrath.

You said, "The Lord our God has shown us his great glory and we have heard him speak from the middle of the fire. It is now clear to us that God can speak to human beings and they can keep on living.

The Arabah and the Jordan River were also a border, from the sea of Chinnereth to the sea of the Arabah (that is, the Salt Sea), beneath the watershed of Pisgah to the east.

You must not offer false testimony against another.

I gave Gilead to Machir.

Now, get up and cross the Wadi Zered." So we did so.

You must not steal.

Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years.

Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

The Lord then wrote on the tablets the same words, the ten commandments, which he had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he gave them to me.

Now pay attention to all the commandments I am giving you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed,

I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark."

But you who remained faithful to the Lord your God are still alive to this very day, every one of you.

You must pursue justice alone so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.

and that you may enjoy long life in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the Lord's covenant, to stand before the Lord to serve him, and to formulate blessings in his name, as they do to this very day.

The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

the Lord said to me,

But if the man came across the engaged woman in the field and overpowered her and raped her, then only the rapist must die.

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their sacred Asherah poles, and burn up their idols.

They did not see the awesome deeds he performed in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh king of Egypt and his whole land,

This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach."

(That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaites. The Rephaites lived there originally; the Ammonites call them Zamzummites.

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh -- the blood of the slaughtered and captured, the chief of the enemy's leaders!'"

or what he did to the army of Egypt, including their horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Red Sea overwhelm them while they were pursuing you and he annihilated them.

I also commanded Joshua at the same time, "You have seen everything the Lord your God did to these two kings; he will do the same to all the kingdoms where you are going.

As for me, I stayed at the mountain as I did the first time, forty days and nights. The Lord listened to me that time as well and decided not to destroy you.

From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a place of flowing streams.

As for the Avvites who lived in settlements as far west as Gaza, Caphtorites who came from Crete destroyed them and settled down in their place.)

I am speaking to you because you are the ones who saw all the great deeds of the Lord!

The Lord spoke face to face with you at the mountain, from the middle of the fire.

(I was standing between the Lord and you at that time to reveal to you the message of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain.) He said:

But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the Lord our God we will die!

Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance among his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance just as the Lord your God told him.

Get up, make your way across Wadi Arnon. Look! I have already delivered over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Go ahead! Take it! Engage him in war!

You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship.

Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made -- they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.

You go near so that you can hear everything the Lord our God is saying and then you can tell us whatever he says to you; then we will pay attention and do it."

When the Lord heard you speaking to me, he said to me, "I have heard what these people have said to you -- they have spoken well.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man's wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband's brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law.

for you have not yet come to the final stop and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.

Then I sent messengers from the Kedemoth Desert to King Sihon of Heshbon with an offer of peace:

They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites in advance of the Ammonites, so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place.

But when you come close to the Ammonites, do not harass or provoke them because I am not giving you any of the Ammonites' land as your possession; I have already given it to Lot's descendants as their possession.

"O, Lord God, you have begun to show me your greatness and strength. (What god in heaven or earth can rival your works and mighty deeds?)

for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you.

There you will worship gods made by human hands -- wood and stone that can neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.

You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how he eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor.

At that time I instructed you as follows: "The Lord your God has given you this land for your possession. You warriors are to cross over before your fellow Israelites equipped for battle.

So I made an ark of acacia wood and carved out two stone tablets just like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.

the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, the bat,

Indeed, it was the very hand of the Lord that eliminated them from within the camp until they were all gone.

When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow:

At this point the Lord said to me,

He did not make this covenant with our ancestors but with us, we who are here today, all of us living now.

So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left.

The Lord, however, said to me, "Don't be afraid of him because I have already given him, his whole army, and his land to you. You will do to him exactly what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon."

Go up to the top of Pisgah and take a good look to the west, north, south, and east, for you will not be allowed to cross the Jordan.

You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.

But as for you, remain here with me so I can declare to you all the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that you are to teach them, so that they can carry them out in the land I am about to give them."

So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

"Today you are going to cross the border of Moab, that is, of Ar.

They did not see what he did to you in the desert before you reached this place,

But your wives, children, and livestock (of which I know you have many) may remain in the cities I have given you.

But the Lord was angry at me because of you and would not listen to me. Instead, he said to me, "Enough of that! Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

Let me please cross over to see the good land on the other side of the Jordan River -- this good hill country and the Lebanon!"

Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God will personally fight for you."

You must fight until the Lord gives your countrymen victory as he did you and they take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of the Jordan River. Then each of you may return to his own territory that I have given you."

If a fellow Israelite from one of your villages in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive to his impoverished condition.

You should not consider it difficult to let him go free, for he will have served you for six years, twice the time of a hired worker; the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

"Not a single person of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!

Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the desert so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

You must set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks.

I will get revenge and pay them back at the time their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and the impending judgment is rushing upon them!"

just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us."

Commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because he will lead these people over and will enable them to inherit the land you will see."

You must be certain to tithe all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year.

But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul.

Sell me food for cash so that I can eat and sell me water to drink. Just allow me to go through on foot,

"Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the roadway. I will not turn aside to the right or the left.

But as for you, turn back and head for the desert by the way to the Red Sea."

Go and tell them, 'Return to your tents!'

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property.

So we settled down in the valley opposite Beth Peor.

This is what Moses said to the assembly of Israel in the Transjordanian wastelands, the arid country opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab

"But if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force:

"See now that I, indeed I, am he!" says the Lord, "and there is no other god besides me. I kill and give life, I smash and I heal, and none can resist my power.

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly.

When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it,

You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Observe the month Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month he brought you out of Egypt by night.

Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, "Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land." It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you.

When you go out to do battle with your enemies and the Lord your God allows you to prevail and you take prisoners,

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe,

And when he sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, "Go up and possess the land I have given you," you rebelled against the Lord your God and would neither believe nor obey him.

Remember -- don't ever forget -- how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him.

However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God,

A single witness may not testify against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established only on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered.

The everlasting God is a refuge, and underneath you are his eternal arms; he has driven out enemies before you, and has said, "Destroy!"

You may eat any clean bird.

I prayed to him: O, Lord God, do not destroy your people, your valued property that you have powerfully redeemed, whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength.

Therefore, you remained at Kadesh for a long time -- indeed, for the full time.

Suppose a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, and then rejects her,

The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me."

It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Again, however, pay very careful attention, lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

Be careful to observe the Sabbath day just as the Lord your God has commanded you.

When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Moreover, you continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-Hattaavah.

At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation of debts.

Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you -- in one of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you -- who sins before the Lord your God and breaks his covenant

In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.

Suppose your own full brother, your son, your daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend should seduce you secretly and encourage you to go and serve other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have previously known,

You and your household must eat them annually before the Lord your God in the place he chooses.

When he sits on his royal throne he must make a copy of this law on a scroll given to him by the Levitical priests.

When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, "I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,"

You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain.

You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.

Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn people!

and any winged thing on the ground are impure to you -- they may not be eaten.

Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he has told you.

You have been rebelling against him from the very first day I knew you!

They include the Anakites, a numerous and tall people whom you know about and of whom it is said, "Who is able to resist the Anakites?"

You must not have any other gods besides me.

Cry out, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge his servants' blood; he will take vengeance against his enemies, and make atonement for his land and people.