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

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!

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."

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."

The Amorite inhabitants of that area confronted you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

These cities are Bezer, in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassehites.

These are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that Moses spoke to the Israelites after he had brought them out of Egypt,

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

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

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."

Walk just as he has commanded you so that you may live, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land you are going to possess.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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."

They are your people, your valued property, whom you brought out with great strength and power.

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.

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

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,

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.

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,

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.

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?

For you are about to cross the Jordan to possess the land the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess and inhabit it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

You are children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead.

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.

These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,

However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you).

These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,

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

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.

There will never cease to be some poor people in the land; therefore, I am commanding you to make sure you open your hand to your fellow Israelites who are needy and poor in your land.

You may eat it in your villages, whether you are ritually impure or clean, just as you would eat a gazelle or an ibex.

You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day.

Then you are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks before the Lord your God with the voluntary offering that you will bring, in proportion to how he has blessed you.

You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages.

You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he chooses, for he will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; so you will indeed rejoice!

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

The witnesses must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught.

You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments I am giving you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities to these three.

"Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them,

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.

In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier's heart as fearful as his own."

If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it.

This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer's neck.

If you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go where she pleases. You cannot in any case sell her; you must not take advantage of her, since you have already humiliated her.

If you happen to notice a bird's nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on them, you must not take the mother from the young.

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

You are to have a place outside the camp to serve as a latrine.

You must never bring the pay of a female prostitute or the wage of a male prostitute into the temple of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to the Lord your God.

You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess.

You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security.

You must not oppress a lowly and poor servant, whether one from among your fellow Israelites or from the resident foreigners who are living in your land and villages.

"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.

"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:

"The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you in everything you undertake until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.

The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess.

The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given you.

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.

This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.

These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God -- the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officials, every Israelite man,

Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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.

Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commandments and statutes that are written in this scroll of the law. But you must turn to him with your whole mind and being.

What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess.

However, if you turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods,