Turn and resume your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland (the Shephelah), in the Negev (South country) and on the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men [into the land] before us, so that they may explore and search the area for us, and bring back to us word regarding the way we should go, and the cities we should enter.’

They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out.

“Yet you were not willing to go up [to take possession of it], but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

Where can we go up? Our brothers (spies) have made our hearts melt [in fear] and demoralized us by saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large, and fortified [all the way up] to heaven. And besides, we saw the [giant-like] sons of the Anakim there.”’

“Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God has commanded us.’ So you equipped every man with weapons of war, and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country.

But the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you [because of your rebellion]; otherwise you will be [badly] defeated by your enemies.”’

So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country.

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.

‘Now arise and cross the valley of the Zered.’ So we crossed the Zered Valley.

When you come opposite the territory of the sons of Ammon, do not harass them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.’

‘Now arise, continue on, and go through the valley of the Arnon. Look, I have handed over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin! Take possession [of it] and fight with him in battle.

“Then we turned and went up the road toward Bashan, and at Edrei, Og king of Bashan, with all his people came out to meet us in battle.

Go up to the top of [Mount] Pisgah and raise your eyes toward the west and north and south and east, and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross this Jordan.

And beware that you do not raise your eyes toward heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and let yourselves be led astray and worship them and serve them, [mere created bodies] which the Lord your God has allotted to [serve and benefit] all the peoples under the whole heaven.

I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,

You shall teach them diligently to your children [impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths] and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.

then your heart will become lifted up [by self-conceit and arrogance] and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Like the nations which the Lord causes to perish before you, so shall you perish; because you would not listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God.

“Hear, O Israel! You are crossing the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and more powerful than you, great cities fortified to heaven,

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water.

And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, and you did not believe and rely on Him, nor did you obey His voice.

“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark (chest) of wood for yourself.

So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.

and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel.

or [else] the Lord’s anger will be kindled and burn against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the land will not yield its fruit; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

“Therefore, you shall impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul, and tie them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as bands (frontals, frontlets) on your forehead.

You shall teach them [diligently] to your children [impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths], speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.

the blessing, if you listen to and obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today;

and the curse, if you do not listen to and obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following (acknowledging, worshiping) other gods which you have not known.

“Be careful to listen to all these words which I am commanding you, so that it may be well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

You shall walk after the Lord your God and you shall fear [and worship] Him [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and you shall keep His commandments and you shall listen to His voice, and you shall serve Him, and cling to Him.

because you have listened to and obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all His commandments which I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

Among the animals, you may eat any animal that has the divided hoof [that is, a hoof] split into two parts [especially at its distal extremity] and that chews the cud.

then you shall exchange your tithe for money, and take the money in your hand and go to the place [of worship] which the Lord your God chooses.

“At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce for that year, and shall store it up within your [city] gates.

You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to obey these statutes.

You shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates.

so that his heart will not be lifted up above his countrymen [by a false sense of self-importance and self-reliance] and that he will not turn away (deviate) from the commandment, to the right or to the left, so that he and his sons may continue [to reign] for a long time in his kingdom in Israel.

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your countrymen (brothers, brethren). You shall listen to him.

I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

If a malicious witness rises up against a man to [falsely] accuse him of wrongdoing,

“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them,

They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly help him lift it up.

Then the elders of that city shall take the man and reprimand him,

and you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you [prepare to] sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and shall turn and cover up your waste.

Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

“You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you.

But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s [widowed] wife, then she shall go up to the gate [of the city, where court is held] to the elders, and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother’s name in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother.’

then his brother’s widow shall approach him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘So it is done to that man who does not build up his brother’s household.’

So it shall be on the day when you cross the Jordan to [enter] the land which the Lord your God gives you, that you shall set up for yourself large stones and coat them with plaster (lime, whitewash).

Now when you cross the Jordan you shall set up these stones on Mount Ebal, just as I am commanding you today and coat them with plaster.

There you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them.

So you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God, and do His commandments and statutes which I am commanding you today.”

‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved or cast image (idol), a repulsive thing to the Lord, the work of the hands of the artisan, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

“The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way, but flee before you seven ways.

“But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually.

The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.

“So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.

Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number.

Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say,

and you have returned to the Lord your God and have listened to and obeyed His voice with all your heart and with all your soul, in accordance with everything that I am commanding you today, you and your children,

And you shall again listen to and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all His commandments which I command you today.

if you listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul (your entire being).

It is not [a secret hidden] in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’

in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk [that is, to live each and every day] in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments (precepts), so that you will live and multiply, and that the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to possess.

by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding closely to Him; for He is your life [your good life, your abundant life, your fulfillment] and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord promised (swore) to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down [in death] with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the prostitute (commit apostasy) with the foreign gods [of the people] of the land, where they go to be among them. They will abandon (turn away from) Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

“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.

“They sacrificed to demons, not to God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers never feared.

“How could one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
And the Lord had given them up?

‘Is it not laid up in store with Me,
Sealed up in My treasuries?

‘Who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
And drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you,
Let them be your hiding place!

‘Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven,
And say (swear an oath), as I live forever,

“Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession.

Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, from Gilead to Dan,