And the towns which you give the Levites are to be the six safe places to which the taker of life may go in flight; and in addition you are to give them forty-two towns.

Forty-eight towns are to be given to the Levites, all with land round them.

And these towns are to be given out of the heritage of the children of Israel, taking the greater number from those who have much, and a smaller number from those who have little: everyone, in the measure of his heritage, is to give of his property to the Levites.

For the children of Israel and for the man from another country who is living among them, these six towns are to be safe places, where anyone causing the death of another through error may go in flight.

These rules are to be your guide in judging through all your generations wherever you may be living.

So do not make the land where you are living unholy: for blood makes the land unholy: and there is no way of making the land free from the blood which has come on it, but only by the death of him who was the cause of it.

Do not make unclean the land where you are living and in which is my House: for I the Lord am present among the children of Israel.

And at the time of the Jubilee of the children of Israel, their property will be joined to the heritage of the tribe of which they are part and will be taken away from the heritage of the tribe of our fathers.

These are the laws and the orders which the Lord gave to the children of Israel by Moses, in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho.

These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other.

The Lord your God has given you increase, and now you are like the stars of heaven in number.

May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times greater in number than you are, and give you his blessing as he has said!

Take for yourselves men who are wise, far-seeing, and respected among you, from your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.

In judging, do not let a man's position have any weight with you; give hearing equally to small and great; have no fear of any man, for it is God who is judge: and any cause in which you are not able to give a decision, you are to put before me and I will give it a hearing.

And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come.

Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.

Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day.

And the Lord said to me, Say to them, Do not go up to the attack; for I am not among you, and you will be overcome by those who are against you.

And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you; so take care what you do:

They are numbered among the Rephaim, like the Anakim; but are named Emim by the Moabites.

You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab;

As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day:

At that time I gave you orders, saying, The Lord has given you this land for your heritage: all the men of war are to go over armed before your brothers the children of Israel.

Go up to the top of Pisgah, and turning your eyes to the west and the north, to the south and the east, see the land with your eyes: for you are not to go over Jordan.

But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.

I have been teaching you laws and decisions, as I was ordered to do by the Lord my God, so that you might keep them in the land to which you are going to take it for your heritage.

For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer?

And the Lord gave me orders at that time to make clear to you these laws and decisions, so that you might do them in the land to which you are going, and which is to be your heritage.

And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven.

But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.

If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath:

May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end.

But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you.

When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice:

Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story.

These are the rules and the laws and the decisions which Moses gave to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt;

The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.

You are to have no other gods but me.

You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged as a sinner by the Lord.

But as for you, keep your place here by me, and I will give you all the orders and the laws and the decisions which you are to make clear to them, so that they may do them in the land which I am giving them for their heritage.

Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going:

Teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up.

And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting; and you have taken food and are full;

To send out from before you all those who are against you.

When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you;

But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; whose faith and mercy are unchanging, who keeps his word through a thousand generations to those who have love for him and keep his laws;

And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin to you.

If you say in your hearts, These nations are greater in number than we are: how are we to take their land from them?

The great punishments which your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders and the strong hand and the stretched-out arm, by which the Lord your God took you out: so will the Lord your God do to all the peoples who are the cause of your fears.

The Lord your God will send out the nations before you little by little; they are not to be rooted out quickly, for fear that the beasts of the field may be increased overmuch against you.

The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:

Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper.

Then take care that you are not turned away from the Lord your God and from keeping his orders and decisions and laws which I give you this day:

And when you have taken food and are full, and have made fair houses for yourselves and are living in them;

And when your herds and your flocks are increased, and your stores of silver and gold, and you have wealth of every sort;

Take care that your hearts are not lifted up in pride, giving no thought to the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house;

And it is certain that if at any time you are turned away from the Lord your God, and go after other gods, to be their servants and to give them worship, destruction will overtake you.

Give ear, O Israel: today you are to go over Jordan, to take the heritage of nations greater and stronger than yourselves, and towns of great size with walls as high as heaven;

A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, of whom you have knowledge and of whom it has been said, All are forced to give way before the sons of Anak.

Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.

But still they are your people and your heritage, whom you took out by your great power and by your stretched-out arm.

And I will put on the stones the words which were on the first stones which were broken by you, and you are to put them into the ark.

And turning round I came down from the mountain and put the stones in the ark which I had made; and there they are as the Lord gave me orders.

And be certain in your minds this day; for these words are not said to your children, who have had no experience of the training of the Lord your God, and who have not seen his great power or his strong hand and his stretched-out arm,

For the land where you are going is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you put in your seeds, watering them with your foot, like a planted garden:

But the land where you are going is a land of hills and valleys, drinking in the rain of heaven:

A land cared for by the Lord your God: the eyes of the Lord your God are on it at all times from one end of the year to the other.

But take care that your hearts are not turned to false ways so that you become servants and worshippers of other gods;

Teaching them to your children, and talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up:

And the curse if you do not give ear to the orders of the Lord your God, but let yourselves be turned from the way which I have put before you this day, and go after other gods which are not yours.

And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land of your heritage, you are to put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

Are they not on the other side of Jordan, looking west, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, by the holy tree of Moreh?

For you are about to go over Jordan to take the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you, and it will be your resting-place.

And you are to take care to keep all the laws and the decisions which I put before you today.

These are the laws and the decisions which you are to keep with care in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to be your heritage all the days of your life on earth.

You are to give up to the curse all those places where the nations, whom you are driving out, gave worship to their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree:

Their altars and their pillars are to be broken down, and their holy trees burned with fire, and the images of their gods cut down; you are to take away their names out of that place.

And there you are to take your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up to the Lord, and the offerings of your oaths, and those which you give freely from the impulse of your hearts, and the first births among your herds and your flocks;

There you and all your families are to make a feast before the Lord your God, with joy in everything to which you put your hand, because the Lord has given you his blessing.

You are not to do things then in the way in which we now do them here, every man as it seems right to him:

But when you have gone over Jordan and are living in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as your heritage, and when he has given you rest from all those on every side who are fighting against you, and you are living there safely;

In your towns you are not to take as food the tenth part of your grain, or of your wine or your oil, or the first births of your herds or of your flocks, or anything offered under an oath, or freely offered to the Lord, or given as a lifted offering;

See that you do not give up caring for the Levite as long as you are living in your land.

But the holy things which you have, and the offerings of your oaths, you are to take to the place which will be marked out by the Lord:

When the people of the land where you are going have been cut off before you by the Lord your God, and you have taken their land and are living in it;

You are to keep with care all the words I give you, making no addition to them and taking nothing from them.

And the sign or the wonder takes place, and he says to you, Let us go after other gods, which are strange to you, and give them worship;

And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put to death; for his words were said with the purpose of turning you away from the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; and of forcing you out of the way in which the Lord your God has given you orders to go. So you are to put away the evil from among you.

You are the children of the Lord your God: you are not to make cuts on your bodies or take off the hair on your brows in honour of the dead;

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has taken you to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

These are the beasts which you may have for food: the ox, the sheep, and the goat;

But even among these, there are some which may not be used for food: such as the camel, the hare, and the coney, which are unclean to you, because, though their food comes back, the horn of their feet is not parted in two.

But any which have no skin-plates or wings for swimming, you may not take; they are unclean for you.

You may not have as food anything which has come to a natural death; the man from another country who is living with you may take it for food, or you may get a price for it from one of another nation; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

And if the way is so long that you are not able to take these things to the place marked out by the Lord your God for his name, when he has given you his blessing, because it is far away from you;

And the Levite, because he has no part or heritage in the land, and the man from a strange country, and the child who has no father, and the widow, who are living among you, will come and take food and have enough; and so the blessing of the Lord your God will be on you in everything you do.

For there will never be a time when there are no poor in the land; and so I give orders to you, Let your hand be open to your countrymen, to those who are poor and in need in your land.