or with enmity he strikes him with his hand and he dies, the one who struck him must surely be put to death, for he is a murderer. The avenger of blood must kill the murderer when he meets him.

"But if he strikes him suddenly, without enmity, or throws anything at him unintentionally,

or with any stone large enough that a man could die, without seeing him, and throws it at him, and he dies, even though he was not his enemy nor sought his harm,

So these things must be a statutory ordinance for you throughout your generations, in all the places where you live.

"You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

Then the heads of the family groups of the Gileadites, the descendant of Machir, the descendant of Manasseh, who were from the Josephite families, approached and spoke before Moses and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families.

They said, "The Lord commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance by lot to the Israelites; and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.

Now if they should be married to one of the men from another Israelite tribe, their inheritance would be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. As a result, it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance.

And when the Jubilee of the Israelites is to take place, their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe."

For the daughters of Zelophehad -- Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah -- were married to the sons of their uncles.

They were married into the families of the Manassehites, the descendants of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's family.

These are the commandments and the decisions that the Lord commanded the Israelites through the authority of Moses, on the plains of Moab by the Jordan River opposite Jericho.

However, it was not until the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year that Moses addressed the Israelites just as the Lord had instructed him to do.

The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, "You have stayed in the area of this mountain long enough.

Get up now, resume your journey, heading for the Amorite hill country, to all its areas including the arid country, the highlands, the Shephelah, the Negev, and the coastal plain -- all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates.

Look! I have already given the land to you. Go, occupy the territory that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants."

The Lord your God has increased your population to the point that you are now as numerous as the very stars of the sky.

Indeed, may the Lord, the God of your ancestors, make you a thousand times more numerous than you are now, blessing you just as he said he would!

But how can I alone bear up under the burden of your hardship and strife?

Select wise and practical men, those known among your tribes, whom I may appoint as your leaders."

So I chose as your tribal leaders wise and well-known men, placing them over you as administrators of groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and also as other tribal officials.

I furthermore admonished your judges at that time that they should pay attention to issues among your fellow citizens and judge fairly, whether between one citizen and another or a citizen and a resident foreigner.

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

Then I said to you, "You have come to the Amorite hill country which the Lord our God is about to give us.

Look, he has placed the land in front of you! Go up, take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, said to do. Do not be afraid or discouraged!"

So all of you approached me and said, "Let's send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there."

Then they took some of the produce of the land and carried it back down to us. They also brought a report to us, saying, "The land that the Lord our God is about to give us is good."

You were not willing to go up, however, but instead rebelled against the Lord your God.

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there."

The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt

and in the desert, where you saw him carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place."

However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God,

"Not a single person of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!

As for me, the Lord was also angry with me on your account. He said, "You also will not be able to go there.

However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land.

Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

Then you responded to me and admitted, "We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do." So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country.

But the Lord told me: "Tell them this: 'Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.'"

The Amorite inhabitants of that area confronted you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah.

Instruct these people as follows: 'You are about to cross the border of your relatives the descendants of Esau, who inhabit Seir. They will be afraid of you, so watch yourselves carefully.

All along the way I, the Lord your God, have blessed your every effort. I have been attentive to your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have been with you; you have lacked for nothing.'"

So we turned away from our relatives the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, from Elat and Ezion Geber, and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not harass Moab and provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as your territory. This is because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.

These people, as well as the Anakites, are also considered Rephaites; the Moabites call them Emites.

Indeed, it was the very hand of the Lord that eliminated them from within the camp until they were all gone.

"Today you are going to cross the border of Moab, that is, of Ar.

But when you come close to the Ammonites, do not harass or provoke them because I am not giving you any of the Ammonites' land as your possession; I have already given it to Lot's descendants as their possession.

They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites in advance of the Ammonites, so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

Get up, make your way across Wadi Arnon. Look! I have already delivered over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Go ahead! Take it! Engage him in war!

This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach."

"Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the roadway. I will not turn aside to the right or the left.

just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us."

But King Sihon of Heshbon was unwilling to allow us to pass near him because the Lord our God had made him obstinate and stubborn so that he might deliver him over to you this very day.

The Lord said to me, "Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession."

the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons and everyone else.

From Aroer, which is at the edge of Wadi Arnon (it is the city in the wadi), all the way to Gilead there was not a town able to resist us -- the Lord our God gave them all to us.

However, you did not approach the land of the Ammonites, the Wadi Jabbok, the cities of the hill country, or any place else forbidden by the Lord our God.

So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left.

All of these cities were fortified by high walls, gates, and locking bars; in addition there were a great many open villages.

This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites.

The Arabah and the Jordan River were also a border, from the sea of Chinnereth to the sea of the Arabah (that is, the Salt Sea), beneath the watershed of Pisgah to the east.

At that time I instructed you as follows: "The Lord your God has given you this land for your possession. You warriors are to cross over before your fellow Israelites equipped for battle.

But your wives, children, and livestock (of which I know you have many) may remain in the cities I have given you.

You must fight until the Lord gives your countrymen victory as he did you and they take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of the Jordan River. Then each of you may return to his own territory that I have given you."

I also commanded Joshua at the same time, "You have seen everything the Lord your God did to these two kings; he will do the same to all the kingdoms where you are going.

Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God will personally fight for you."

"O, Lord God, you have begun to show me your greatness and strength. (What god in heaven or earth can rival your works and mighty deeds?)

Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to you.

You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how he eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor.

But you who remained faithful to the Lord your God are still alive to this very day, every one of you.

Look! I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in the land you are about to enter and possess.

So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, "Indeed, this great nation is a very wise people."

In fact, what other great nation has a god so near to them like the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

Again, however, pay very careful attention, lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he said to me, "Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children."

Moreover, at that same time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to keep in the land which you are about to enter and possess.

I say this so you will not corrupt yourselves by making an image in the form of any kind of figure. This includes the likeness of a human male or female,

anything that crawls on the ground, or any fish in the deep waters of the earth.

When you look up to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars -- the whole heavenly creation -- you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, for the Lord your God has assigned them to all the people of the world.

You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today.

So I must die here in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going over and will possess that good land.

Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as he has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God.

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will surely and swiftly be removed from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be annihilated.

Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul.

In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, if you return to the Lord your God and obey him

(for he is a merciful God), he will not let you down or destroy you, for he cannot forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it.

Or has God ever before tried to deliver a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, signs, wonders, war, strength, power, and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Moreover, because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property.

Keep his statutes and commandments that I am setting forth today so that it may go well with you and your descendants and that you may enjoy longevity in the land that the Lord your God is about to give you as a permanent possession.

These cities are Bezer, in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassehites.

These are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that Moses spoke to the Israelites after he had brought them out of Egypt,

They possessed his land and that of King Og of Bashan -- both of whom were Amorite kings in the Transjordan, to the east.

The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.