Across the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying:

And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?

This is the law Moses gave the Israelites.

Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I’ll also do the same.’

“Here is the law concerning a case of someone who kills a person and flees there to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him:

However, if it does not make peace with you but wages war against you, lay siege to it.

“When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can get food from them. You must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human, to come under siege by you?

If the guilty party deserves to be flogged, the judge will make him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes appropriate for his crime.

“When brothers live on the same property and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the dead man may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to take her as his wife, have sexual relations with her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

But if the man doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she must go to the elders at the city gate and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He isn’t willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.’

then his sister-in-law will go up to him in the sight of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she will declare, ‘This is what is done to a man who will not build up his brother’s house.’

Write all the words of this law on the stones after you cross to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

Write clearly all the words of this law on the plastered stones.”

‘The one who sleeps with his mother-in-law is cursed.’
And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

‘Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’
And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

“If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law, which are written in this scroll, by fearing this glorious and awesome name—Yahweh, your God—

The Lord will also afflict you with every sickness and plague not recorded in the book of this law, until you are destroyed.

and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

when you obey the Lord your God by keeping His commands and statutes that are written in this book of the law and return to Him with all your heart and all your soul.

Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the Lord’s covenant, and to all the elders of Israel.

when all Israel assembles in the presence of the Lord your God at the place He chooses, you are to read this law aloud before all Israel.

Gather the people—men, women, children, and foreigners living within your gates—so that they may listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and be careful to follow all the words of this law.

Then their children who do not know the law will listen and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

When Moses had finished writing down on a scroll every single word of this law,

“Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God so that it may remain there as a witness against you.

he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law.

He said about Joseph:

May his land be blessed by the Lord
with the dew of heaven’s bounty
and the watery depths that lie beneath;