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

“I spoke to you at that time, saying, ‘I am not able to bear the burden of you alone.

And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us.

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.’

Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they reported back to us, and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’

You murmured and were ill-tempered (discontented) in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us He has brought us from the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us.

Then I said to you, ‘Do not be shocked, nor fear them.

The Lord was angry with me also because of you, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter Canaan.

Moreover, your little ones whom you said would become prey, and your sons, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter Canaan, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.

“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.”’

And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass [the descendants of] Moab, nor provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons (Moab and Ammon) of Lot as a possession.’

The Lord said to me, ‘Look, I have begun to hand over to you Sihon and his land. Begin! Take possession [of it], so that you may possess his land.’

And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you, him and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’

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.

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.’

Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments (legal decisions) which I am speaking today in your hearing, so that you may learn them and observe them carefully.

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,

and you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he [still] lives.

“The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.

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?’

Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made (cast) a molten image for themselves.’

Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are stiff-necked (stubborn, obstinate) people.

“So I fell down and lay face down before the Lord forty days and nights because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

“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.

Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey ahead of the people, so that they may go in and take possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.’

No man will be able to stand before you; the Lord your God will lay the fear and the dread of you on all the land on which you set foot, just as He has spoken to you.

“If you hear [it said] in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to live in,

Further, he shall not acquire many [war] horses for himself, nor make the people return to Egypt in order to acquire horses [to expand his military power], since the Lord said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’

This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai) on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God again, nor see this great fire anymore, so that I will not die.’

The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well.

Then Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, “Be silent and listen, O Israel! This day you have become a people for the Lord your God.

The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no one to buy you.

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land;

so that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And he said to them, “I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come in and go out [as your spiritual and military leader], and the Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’

It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will go across before you [to lead you], just as the Lord has said.

Then Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all [the people of] Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you will go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you will give it to them as an inheritance.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, the time for you to die is near; call Joshua, and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, so that I may commission him.” So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the Tent of Meeting.

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.

“Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them,
I will see what their end shall be;
For they are a perverse generation,
Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.

‘I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces [scattering them far away],
I will remove the memory of them from men,”

he said to them, “Take to heart all the words of warning which I am speaking to you today; and you shall command your children to observe them carefully—to do all the words of this law.

And the Lord said to Moses that very same day,

He said,

“The Lord came from Sinai,
And dawned on them from Seir;
He shone forth from Mount Paran,
And He came from among ten thousand holy ones;
At His right hand was a flaming fire, a law, for them.

And [Moses said] this of Judah:

“Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah,
And bring him to his people.
With his hands he contended for them,
And may You be a help against his enemies.”

Of Levi he said,

“Your Thummim and Your Urim belong to Your godly man [Aaron],
Whom You tested and proved at Massah,
With whom You contended at the waters of Meribah;

Who said of his father and mother,
‘I did not consider them’;
Nor did he acknowledge his brothers,
Nor did he regard his own sons,
For the priests observed Your word,
And kept Your covenant.

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.”

And of Joseph he said,

“Blessed by the Lord be his land,
With the precious things of heaven, with the dew,
And from the deep water that lies beneath,

Of Zebulun he said,

“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your interests abroad,
And, Issachar, in your tents [at home].

Of Gad he said,

“Blessed is the one who enlarges Gad;
He lurks like a lioness,
And tears the arm and the crown of the head.

Of Dan he said,

“Dan is a lion’s cub,
That leaps forth from Bashan.”

Of Naphtali he said,

“O Naphtali, satisfied with favor,
And full of the blessing of the Lord,
Take possession of the sea [of Galilee] and the south.”

Of Asher he said,

“More blessed than sons is Asher;
May he be favored by his brothers,
And may he dip his foot in oil.

Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.”