“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.

‘You have circled this mountain long enough; turn northward,

do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as little as a footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

But the Lord was angry with me because of you [and your rebellion at Meribah], and would not listen to me; and the Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no longer about this matter.

He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your [olive] oil, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you.

a people great and tall, sons of Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’

For I was afraid of the anger and absolute fury which the Lord held against you, [enough divine fury] to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me that time also.

The Lord was very angry with Aaron, angry [enough] to destroy him, so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time.

“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.

You shall certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

then the young woman’s father and her mother shall get and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate [where court is held].

and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father of the young woman, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.

“But if this charge is true that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,

then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin worthy of death, for this is the same as when a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

“He who has been castrated by having his testicles crushed or his male organ cut off shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.

“The offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your animals, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be blessed.

“The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be cursed.

a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young,

and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

“As an eagle that protects its nest,
That flutters over its young,
He spread out His wings and took them,
He carried them on His pinions.

‘Outside the sword will bereave,
And inside [the chambers] terror—
For both young man and virgin,
For the nursing child and the man of gray hair.

“His majesty is like a firstborn young bull,
And his horns like the horns of the wild ox;
With them he will gore the peoples,
All of them together, to the ends of the earth.
And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim,
And those are the thousands of Manasseh.”