So Yahweh said to me, 'Say to them, "You shall not go up, and you shall not fight because I am not in your midst; you will be defeated {before} your enemies." '

And {you must observe them diligently}, for that [is] your wisdom and your insight before the eyes of the people, who will hear all [of] these rules, and they will say, 'Surely this great nation [is] a wise and discerning people.'

[You] go near and hear {everything} that Yahweh our God will say; and [then] you tell us all that Yahweh our God tells you, and we will listen, and we will do [it].'

Go! Say to them, "Return to your tents."

Then you shall say to your child, 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand.

"You shall not say {to yourself} {when Yahweh your God is driving them out} {before you}, {saying}, 'Because of my righteousness Yahweh brought me to take possession of this land'; but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh [is] driving them out {before you}.

lest [the people of] the land from which you brought us out from there say, "Because Yahweh was not able to bring them to the land that he {promised} to them and because of his hatred [toward] them, he has brought them out to kill them in the desert."

"When Yahweh your God enlarges your territory [just] as he has {promised} to you, and you say 'I want to eat [some] meat,' {because you want it}, {whenever you desire} you may eat meat.

"If your brother, the son of your mother or your son or your daughter {or your wife whom you embrace} or {your intimate friend} in secrecy {says}, 'Let us go and let us serve other gods!' [gods] that you and your ancestors have not known,

And then [if] it will happen [that] he says to you, '{I do not want to go out} from you,' because he loves you and your family, because it is good for him [to be] with you;

[And so] according to {the instruction of the law} that they teach you and according to the decisions that they say to you, you shall do; you shall not turn from the word that they tell you to the right or [to the] left.

"When you have come to that land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you and you have taken possession of it and you have settled in it, and you say, 'I will set over me a king like all the nations that [are] around me,'

And if you say {to yourself}, 'How can we know the word that Yahweh has not spoken to him?'

And he shall say to them, 'Hear, Israel, you are near {today} to the battle against your enemies; {do not lose heart}; you shall not be afraid, and you shall not panic, and you shall not be terrified {because of them},

And the officials shall continue to speak to the troops, and they shall say, '{What man} is afraid {and disheartened}? Let him go, and let him return to his house, and let him not cause the heart of his brothers to melt like his.'

And they shall declare, and they shall say, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see [what was done].

and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son [is] stubborn and rebellious; {he does not obey us}, [and] he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

and {he accuses her falsely}, and {he defames her}, and he says 'This woman I took and I lay with her and {I discovered that she was not a virgin},'

And [then] the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man as wife, but he [now] {dislikes} her,

But if the man [does] not want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and she shall say, 'My brother-in-law refused {to perpetuate his brother's name} in Israel, [for] he is not willing {to marry me}.'

Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him, and [if] he persists and says, '{I do not desire to} marry her'

[then] his sister-in-law shall go near him before the eyes of the elders, and she shall pull off his sandal from his foot, and she shall spit in his face, and she shall {declare} and she shall say, 'This is how it is done to the man who does not build the house of his brother.'

And you shall go to the priest who is [in office] in those days, and you shall say, 'I declare {today} to Yahweh your God that I have come into the land that Yahweh swore to our ancestors to give to us.'

And {you shall declare} and you shall say {before} your God, 'My ancestor [was] a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt, and there he dwelt as an alien {few in number}, and there he became a great nation, mighty and numerous.

And you shall say {before} Yahweh your God, 'I have removed the sacred portion from the house and, moreover, I have given it to the Levite and to the alien and to the orphan and to the widow according to all your commandment that you commanded me; I have not transgressed any of your commandments, and I have not forgotten [any of them].

And {the Levites shall declare}, and they shall say to each man of Israel [with] a loud voice,

'Cursed be the one who dishonors his father or his mother.' And all of the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who moves the boundary [marker] of his neighbor.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who misleads a blind person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who deprives [the] alien, [the] orphan, and [the] widow of justice.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who lies with the wife of his father, because {he has dishonored his father's bed}.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who lies with any [kind] of animal.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who lies with his mother-in-law.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who strikes down his neighbor in secret.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be the one who takes a bribe {to murder an innocent person}.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be [the one] {who does not keep} the words of this law, to observe them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

In the morning you shall say, '{If only it was evening}!' and in the evening you shall say '{If only it was morning}!' because of the dread of your heart that you shall feel, and because of the sight of your eyes that you shall see.

"And the next generation, [that is], your children who will rise [up] after you, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land, when they will see the plagues of that land and its diseases that Yahweh has inflicted upon it, will say,

And all the nations will say, '{Why} has Yahweh done {such a thing} to this land? What [caused] the fierceness of this great anger?'

And they will say, '[It is] because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, which he {made} with them {when he brought them out} from the land of Egypt.

It is not in the heavens {so that you might say}, 'Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?'

And [it is] {not beyond the sea}, {so that you might say}, 'Who will cross for us to the other side of the sea and take it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?'

And {my anger shall flare up against them} on that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall become as prey, and disasters and troubles shall find them, and they shall say on that day, '[Is it] not because our God is not in our midst [that] these disasters have found us?'

If I had not feared a provocation of [the] enemy, lest their foes might misunderstand, lest they should say, "Our hand is {triumphant}, and Yahweh [did] not do all this." '

And he will say, 'Where [are] their gods, [their] rock in whom they took refuge?