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

“Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the matters between your brothers [your fellow countrymen], and judge righteously and fairly between a man and his brother, or the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is with him.

I commanded you at that time [regarding] all the things that you should do.

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.

Now thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley, until that entire generation of the men of war had died from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.

At the same time we took all his cities and utterly destroyed every city—men, women and children. We left no survivor.

We captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

“So we took the land at that time from the hand of the two kings [Sihon and Og] of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon

“Then I commanded you [Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh] at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess; all you who are brave men shall cross over [the Jordan] armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel.

I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to these two kings [Sihon and Og]; so the Lord shall do the same to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross.

“Then I pleaded with the Lord at that time [for His favor], saying,

The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and judgments, so that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.

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,

“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and statutes and judgments (precepts) which the Lord our God has commanded you?’

For I was afraid of the anger and absolute fury which the Lord held against you, [enough divine fury] to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me that time also.

The Lord was very angry with Aaron, angry [enough] to destroy him, so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time.

“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.

At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to serve Him and to bless in His name until this day.

“And I stayed on the mountain, like the first time, forty days and nights, and the Lord listened to me at that time also; the Lord was not willing to destroy you.

“You shall count seven weeks for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

“Now this is the case of the offender (manslayer) who may escape there and live [protected from vengeance]: when he kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him previously—

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

Then Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, at the time of year when debts are forgiven, at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles),

‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution,
In due time their foot will slip;
For the day of their disaster is at hand,
And their doom hurries to meet them.’