May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, just as He has promised you!

Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads (leaders) over you.’

especially the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai), when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me and I will let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect] all the days they live on the land, and so that they may teach their children.’

So be on your guard and watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He has made with you, and make for yourselves a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.

‘You shall not make for yourself an idol [as an object to worship], or any likeness (form, manifestation) of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

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.

and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant (treaty) with them nor show mercy and compassion to them.

You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son;

And He will hand over their kings to you, and you will make their name perish from under heaven; no man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

He humbled you and allowed you to be hungry and fed you with manna, [a substance] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand [by personal experience] that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

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.

So know today [with confident assurance] that the Lord your God is crossing [the Jordan] before you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, and you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has promised you.

Let Me alone, so that I may destroy them and wipe out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’

“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.

But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to establish His Name there for His dwelling [place], and there you shall come [to worship Him].

then you shall investigate and search out [witnesses] and ask thorough questions. If it is true and the matter is established that this loathsome thing has been done among you,

“You are the sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead,

You shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] to the Lord your God from the flock or the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence), you shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt.

and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is within your [city] gates, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are among you, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

“You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree or wood beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make.

So you shall come to the Levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time, and you shall consult them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case.

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire [as a sacrifice], one who uses divination and fortune-telling, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,

If that city accepts your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you.

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

Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

“You shall make tassels for yourself on the four corners of your outer garment with which you cover yourself.

“When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for He will most certainly require it of you, and a delay would cause you to sin.

and that He will set you high above all the nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor: and that you shall be a holy people [set apart and consecrated] to the Lord your God, just as He has spoken.”

‘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 give you great prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

The Lord will make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.

The Lord will make the pestilence and plague cling to you until He has consumed and eliminated you from the land which you are entering to possess.

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

These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He made with them at Horeb (Sinai).

so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, and into His oath and agreement which the Lord your God is making with you today,

“It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,

Then the Lord your God shall make you abundantly prosperous in everything that you do, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your land; for the Lord will again delight over you for good, just as He delighted over your fathers,

‘See now that I, I am He,
And there is no god besides Me;
It is I who put to death and I who give life.
I have wounded and it is I who heal,
And there is no one who can deliver from [the power of] My hand.

‘I will make My arrows drunk with blood,
And My sword will devour flesh,
With the blood of the slain and the captives,
From the heads of the leaders of the enemy.’

Of Benjamin he said,

“May the beloved of the Lord dwell in safety by Him;
He shields and covers him all the day long,
And he dwells between His shoulders.”