and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried and protected you, just as a man carries his son, all along the way which you traveled until you arrived at this place.’

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; it was He who brought water for you out of the flinty rock.

For the land which you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot like a garden of vegetables.

Are they not across the Jordan, west of the road, toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree.

If the place which the Lord your God chooses to put His Name (Presence) is too far away from you, then you may slaughter [animals] from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your [city] gates whatever you wish.

If the place where the Lord your God chooses to set His Name (Presence) is a great distance from you and you are not able to carry your tithe, because the Lord your God has blessed you [with such an abundance],

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).

“Now if a Levite comes from any of your cities throughout Israel where he resides, and comes whenever he wishes to [the sanctuary] the place which the Lord chooses;

then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

He shall live among you, in the place he chooses in one of your cities where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat or oppress him.

‘The whole land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it; it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and wrath.’

“So it shall be when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you,

then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes [in your return from exile], and have compassion on you, and will gather you together again from all the peoples (nations) where He has scattered you.

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.

“And He will say, ‘Where are their gods,
The rock in which they took refuge?

And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows where his burial place is to this day.