Now it is ordinarily an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by way of Mount Seir.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

Then you responded to me and admitted, "We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do." So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country.

Then you came back and wept before the Lord, but he paid no attention to you whatsoever.

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

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

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.

The Lord said to me, "Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession."

At that time we seized all his cities and put every one of them under divine judgment, including even the women and children; we left no survivors.

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

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.

Be very careful, then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.

You have been taught that the Lord alone is God -- there is no other besides him.

Today realize and carefully consider that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below -- there is no other!

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?"

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

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

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,

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,

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.

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,

Now, if you pay close attention to my commandments that I am giving you today and love the Lord your God and serve him with all your mind and being,

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 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.

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).

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.

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

Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid; no longer will they continue to do evil like this among you.

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.

As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you.

Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.

The person who pays no attention to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the verdict -- that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel.

The Levitical priests -- indeed, the entire tribe of Levi -- will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance.

They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.

You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.

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

Now if you say to yourselves, 'How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?' --

Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, if he has accidentally killed another without hating him at the time of the accident.

Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you has built a new house and not dedicated it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate it.

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him,

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

They must declare to the elders of his city, "Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no attention to what we say -- he is a glutton and drunkard."

If the owner does not live near you or you do not know who the owner is, then you must corral the animal at your house and let it stay with you until the owner looks for it; then you must return it to him.

If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail around your roof to avoid being culpable in the event someone should fall from it.

for the man met her in the field and the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her.

A person of illegitimate birth may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so.

The judge may sentence him to forty blows, but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite with contempt.

So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground's produce that you, Lord, have given me." Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him.

Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off.

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.

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.

As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.

a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young.

They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, or lambs of your flocks until they have destroyed you.

Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair.

Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next.

Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you."

You have eaten no bread and drunk no wine or beer -- all so that you might know that I am the Lord your God!

"(For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations as we traveled.

Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit.

They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship.

He said to them, "Today I am a hundred and twenty years old. I am no longer able to get about, and the Lord has said to me, 'You will not cross the Jordan.'

Now write down for yourselves the following song and teach it to the Israelites. Put it into their very mouths so that this song may serve as my witness against the Israelites!

Then when many disasters and distresses overcome them this song will testify against them, for their descendants will not forget it. I know the intentions they have in mind today, even before I bring them to the land I have promised."

for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death!

For I know that after I die you will totally corrupt yourselves and turn away from the path I have commanded you to walk. Disaster will confront you in the days to come because you will act wickedly before the Lord, inciting him to anger because of your actions."

My teaching will drop like the rain, my sayings will drip like the dew, as rain drops upon the grass, and showers upon new growth.

The Lord alone was guiding him, no foreign god was with him.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.

He said, "I will reject them, I will see what will happen to them; for they are a perverse generation, children who show no loyalty.

They are a nation devoid of wisdom, and there is no understanding among them.

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.

"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.

For this is no idle word for you -- it is your life! By this word you will live a long time in the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess."

He said to his father and mother, "I have not seen him," and he did not acknowledge his own brothers or know his own children, for they kept your word, and guarded your covenant.

There is no one like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the sky to help you, on the clouds in majesty.

Israel lives in safety, the fountain of Jacob is quite secure, in a land of grain and new wine; indeed, its heavens rain down dew.

He buried him in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knows his exact burial place to this very day.

Now Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had placed his hands on him; and the Israelites listened to him and did just what the Lord had commanded Moses.

No prophet ever again arose in Israel like Moses, who knew the Lord face to face.