For forty years I have been your guide through the waste land: your clothing has not become old on your backs, or your shoes on your feet.

And so that he may make you his people today, and be your God, as he has said to you, and as he made an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And future generations, your children coming after you, and travellers from far countries, will say, when they see the punishments of that land and the diseases which the Lord has sent on it;

Truly all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land? what is the reason for this great and burning wrath?

Now when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have put before you, if the thought of them comes back to your minds, when you are living among the nations where the Lord your God has sent you,

Then he said to them, I am now a hundred and twenty years old; I am no longer able to go out and come in: and the Lord has said to me, You are not to go over Jordan.

The Lord your God, he will go over before you; he will send destruction on all those nations, and you will take their land as your heritage: and Joshua will go over at your head as the Lord has said.

Then Moses sent for Joshua, and before the eyes of all Israel said to him, Be strong and take heart: for you are to go with this people into the land which the Lord, by his oath to their fathers, has given them; by your help they will take it for their heritage.

When all Israel has come before the Lord your God in the place named by him, let a reading be given of this law in the hearing of all Israel.

Is this your answer to the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not your father who has given you life? He has made you and given you your place.

But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this.

See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

And the Lord put him to rest in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor: but no man has knowledge of his resting-place to this day.

There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord had knowledge of face to face;

Till the Lord has given your brothers rest, as he has given it to you, and they have taken their heritage in the land which the Lord your God is giving them: then you will go back to the land of your heritage which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the east side of Jordan.

And said to them, It is clear to me that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has come on us;

And the men said to her, Our life for yours if you keep our business secret; and when the Lord has given us the land, we will keep faith and be kind to you.

And they said to Joshua, Truly, the Lord has given all the land into our hands; and all the people of the land have become like water because of us.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Today the shame of Egypt has been rolled away from you. So that place was named Gilgal, to this day.

And he said, No; but I have come as captain of the armies of the Lord. Then Joshua, falling down with his face to the earth in worship, said, What has my lord to say to his servant?

And the seventh time, at the sound of the priests' horns, Joshua said to the people, Now give a loud cry; for the Lord has given you the town.

Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods.

Up! make the people holy; say to them, Make yourselves holy before tomorrow, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has said, There is a cursed thing among you, O Israel, and you will give way before your attackers in the fight till the cursed thing has been taken away from among you.

Then the man who is taken with the cursed thing is to be burned, with everything which is his; because he has gone against the agreement of the Lord and has done an act of shame in Israel.

And when you have taken the town, put fire to it, as the Lord has said: see, I have given you your orders.

And they said to him, Your servants have come from a very far country, because of the name of the Lord your God: for the story of his great name, and of all he did in Egypt has come to our ears,

This bread which we have with us for our food, we took warm and new from our houses when starting on our journey to you; but now see, it has become dry and broken up.

But do you, without waiting, go after their army, attacking them from the back; do not let them get into their towns, for the Lord your God has given them into your hands.

And now, as you see, the Lord has kept me safe these forty-five years, from the time when the Lord said this to Moses, while Israel was wandering in the waste land: and now I am eighty-five years old.

Then Joshua said to the children of Israel, Why are you so slow to go in and take up your heritage in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?

So that any man who in error and without design has taken the life of another, may go in flight to them: and they will be safe places for you from him who has the right of punishment for blood.

And if the one who has the right of punishment comes after him, they are not to give the taker of life up to him; because he was the cause of his neighbour's death without designing it and not in hate.

And he is to go on living in that town till he has to come before the meeting of the people to be judged; (till the death of him who is high priest at that time:) then the taker of life may come back to his town and to his house, to the town from which he had gone in flight.

These were the towns marked out for all the children of Israel and for the man from a strange country living among them, so that anyone causing the death of another in error, might go in flight there, and not be put to death by him who has the right of punishment for blood till he had come before the meeting of the people.

And now the Lord your God has given your brothers rest, as he said: so now you may go back to your tents, to the land of your heritage, which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave to you on the other side of Jordan.

This is what all the meeting of the people of the Lord has said, What is this wrong which you have done against the God of Israel, turning back this day from the Lord and building an altar for yourselves, and being false to the Lord?

For the Lord has made Jordan a line of division between us and you, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad; you have no part in the Lord: so your children will make our children give up fearing the Lord.

You have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you; for it is the Lord your God who has been fighting for you.

For the Lord has sent out from before you nations great and strong: and they have all given way before you till this day.

One man of you is able to put to flight a thousand; for it is the Lord your God who is fighting for you, as he has said to you.

Then you may be certain that the Lord your God will not go on driving these nations out from before you; but they will become a danger and a cause of sin to you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, till you are cut off from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

Now I am about to go the way of all the earth: and you have seen and are certain, all of you, in your hearts and souls, that in all the good things which the Lord said about you, he has kept faith with you; everything has come true for you

And you will see that, as all the good things which the Lord your God undertook to do for you, have come to you, so the Lord will send down on you all the evil things till he has made your destruction complete, and you are cut off from the good land which the Lord your God has given you.

If the agreement of the Lord your God, which was given to you by his orders, is broken, and you become the servants of other gods and give them worship, then the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and you will quickly be cut off from the good land which he has given you.

For it is the Lord our God who has taken us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house, and who did all those great signs before our eyes, and kept us safe on all our journeys, and among all the peoples through whom we went:

If you are turned away from the Lord and become the servants of strange gods, then turning against you he will do you evil, cutting you off, after he has done you good.

And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.

And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has not been true to my agreement which I made with their fathers, and has not given ear to my voice;

And he said to them, Come after me; for the Lord has given the Moabites, your haters, into your hands. So they went down after him and took the crossing-places of Jordan against Moab, and let no one go across.

And she sent for Barak, the son of Abinoam, from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, given orders saying, Go and get your force into line in Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

Then Deborah said to Barak, Up! for today the Lord has given Sisera into your hands: has not the Lord gone out before you? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor and ten thousand men after him.

The Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, The Lord the God of Israel, has said, I took you up from Egypt, out of the prison-house;

Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with us why has all this come on us? And where are all his works of power, of which our fathers have given us word, saying, Did not the Lord take us out of Egypt? But now he has given us up, handing us over to the power of Midian.

Make an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock, in the ordered way and take the ox and make a burned offering with the wood of the holy tree which has been cut down.

And they said to one another, Who has done this thing? And after searching with care, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing.

So that day he gave him the name of Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal take up his cause against him because his altar has been broken down.

And his friend in answer said, This is certainly the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the men of Israel: into their hands God has given up all the army of Midian.

Then Gideon, hearing the story of the dream and the sense in which they took it, gave worship; then he went back to the tents of Israel, and said, Up! for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hands.

God has given into your hands the chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; what have I been able to do in comparison with you? And when he said this, their feeling about him became kinder.

Then Gideon said, Because of this, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hands, I will have you stretched on a bed of thorns of the waste land and on sharp stems, and have you crushed as grain is crushed on a grain-floor.

Then Gideon said to them, I have a request to make to you; let every man give me the ear-rings he has taken. (For they had gold ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it?

And she said to him, My father, you have made an oath to the Lord; do then to me whatever you have said; for the Lord has sent a full reward on your haters, on the children of Ammon.

Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his friend. So the Philistines came up and had her and her father's house burned.

And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they said, We have come up to take Samson, and to do to him as he has done to us.

And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came out, meeting him with loud cries; then the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and the cords on his arms became like grass which has been burned with fire, and the bands came falling off his hands.

And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My head has never been touched by a blade, for I have been separate to God from the day of my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my strength will go from me and I will become feeble, and will be like any other man.

And when Delilah saw that he had let her see into his heart, she sent word to the chiefs of the Philistines saying, Come up this time, for he has let out all his heart to me. Then the chiefs of the Philistines came to her, with the money in their hands.

And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to make a great offering to Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they said, Our god has given into our hands Samson our hater.

And when the people saw him, they gave praise to their god; for they said, Our god has given into our hands the one who was fighting against us, who made our country waste, and who put great numbers of us to death.

Then Micah said, Now I am certain that the Lord will do me good, seeing that the Levite has become my priest.

When you come there you will come to a people living without thought of danger; and the land is wide, and God has given it into your hands: a place where there is everything on earth for man's needs.

So the man, the master of the house, went out to them, and said, No, my brothers, do not this evil thing; this man has come into my house, and you are not to do him this wrong.

And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying, This is what you are to say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an act like this been done from the day when the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day? Give thought to it, turning it over in your minds, and give your opinion of it.

And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin saying, What is this evil which has been done among you?

And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this fate come on Israel, that today one tribe has been cut off from Israel?

And the children of Israel were moved with pity for Benjamin their brother, saying, Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel.

And this is what you are to do: every male, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man, you are to put to the curse, but you are to keep safe the virgins. And they did so.

And Naomi said, See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods: go back after your sister-in-law.

And she said to them, Do not let my name be Naomi, but Mara, for the Ruler of all has given me a bitter fate.

I went out full, and the Lord has sent me back again with nothing; why do you give me the name Naomi, seeing that the Lord has given witness against me, and the Ruler of all has sent sorrow on me?

And she said to me, Let me come into the grain-field and take up the grain after the cutters. So she came, and has been here from morning till now, without resting even for a minute.

And let some heads of grain be pulled out of what has been corded up, and dropped for her to take, and let no sharp word be said to her.

And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, May the blessing of the Lord, who has at all times been kind to the living and to the dead, be on him. And Naomi said to her, The man is of our family, one of our near relations.

So take a bath, and, after rubbing your body with sweet oil, put on your best robe, and go down to the grain-floor; but do not let him see you till he has come to the end of his meal.

Then she said, Do nothing now, my daughter, till you see what will come of this; for the man will take no rest till he has put this thing through.

Then he said to the near relation, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is offering for a price that bit of land which was our brother Elimelech's:

And it was in my mind to give you the chance of taking it, with the approval of those seated here and of the responsible men of my people. If you are ready to do what it is right for a relation to do, then do it: but if you will not do it, say so to me now; for there is no one who has the right to do it but you, and after you myself. And he said, I will do it.

And the women said to Naomi, A blessing on the Lord, who has not let you be this day without a near relation, and may his name be great in Israel.

He will be a giver of new life to you, and your comforter when you are old, for your daughter-in-law, who, in her love for you, is better than seven sons, has given birth to him.

And the women who were her neighbours gave it a name, saying, Naomi has a child; and they gave him the name of Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

But Hannah did not go, for she said to her husband, I will not go till the child has been taken from the breast, and then I will take him with me and put him before the Lord, where he may be for ever.

And her husband Elkanah said to her, Do whatever seems right to you, but not till you have taken him from the breast; only may the Lord do as he has said. So the woman, waiting there, gave her son milk till he was old enough to be taken from the breast.

My prayer was for this child; and the Lord has given him to me in answer to my request:

Those who were full are offering themselves as servants for bread; those who were in need are at rest; truly, she who had no children has become the mother of seven; and she who had a family is wasted with sorrow.

Lifting the poor out of the dust, and him who is in need out of the lowest place, to give them their place among rulers, and for their heritage the seat of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he has made them the base of the world.

Those who make war against the Lord will be broken; against them he will send his thunder from heaven: the Lord will be judge of the ends of the earth, he will give strength to his king, lifting up the horn of him on whom the holy oil has been put.

And more than this, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was making the offering, Give me some of the flesh to be cooked for the priest; he has no taste for meat cooked in water, but would have you give it uncooked.

For this reason the Lord God of Israel has said, Truly I did say that your family and your father's people would have their place before me for ever: but now the Lord says, Let it not be so; I will give honour to those by whom I am honoured, and those who have no respect for me will be of small value in my eyes.

Then it will be that the rest of your family, anyone who has not been cut off, will go down on his knees to him for a bit of silver or a bit of bread, and say, Be pleased to put me into one of the priest's places so that I may have a little food.