Then men will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he took them out of the land of Egypt:

The secret things are the Lord our God's: but the things which have been made clear are ours and our children's for ever, so that we may do all the words of this law.

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,

And your hearts are turned again to the Lord your God, and you give ear to his word which I give you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul:

And you will again give ear to the voice of the Lord, and do all his orders which I have given you today.

If you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his orders and his laws which are recorded in this book of the law, and turning to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

For these orders which I have given you today are not strange and secret, and are not far away.

In loving the Lord your God, hearing his voice and being true to him: for he is your life and by him will your days be long: so that you may go on living in the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

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.

And so that your children, to whom it is new, may give ear and be trained in the fear of the Lord your God, while you are living in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

Then when evils and troubles without number have overtaken them, this song will be a witness to them, for the words of it will be clear in the memories of their children: for I see the thoughts which are moving in their hearts even now, before I have taken them into the land of my oath.

Then he gave orders to Joshua, the son of Nun, saying to him, Be strong and take heart: for you are to go at the head of the children of Israel into the land which I made an oath to give them; and I will be with you.

For I am certain that after my death you will give yourselves up to sin, wandering from the way which I have given you; and evil will overtake you in the end, because you will do evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath by the work of your hands.

The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.

They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,

And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith?

Moses said to them, Let the words which I have said to you today go deep into your hearts, and give orders to your children to do every word of this law.

And this is no small thing for you, but it is your life, and through this you may make your days long in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab opposite Jericho; there you may see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel for their heritage:

So you will see the land before you, but you will not go into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.

Now this is the blessing which Moses, the man of God, gave to the children of Israel before his death.

He is a young ox, glory is his; his horns are the horns of the mountain ox, with which all peoples will be wounded, even to the ends of the earth: they are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.

And Moses went up from the table-lands of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah which is facing Jericho. And the Lord let him see all the land, the land of Gilead as far as Dan;

And the Lord said to him, This is the land about which I made an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your seed: now I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not go in there.

In all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and all his land;

And in all the acts of power and fear which Moses did before the eyes of all Israel.

Moses my servant is dead; so now get up! Go over Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, to the children of Israel.

Every place on which you put your foot I have given to you, as I said to Moses.

Take heart and be strong; for you will give to this people for their heritage the land which I gave by an oath to their fathers.

Only take heart and be very strong; take care to do all the law which Moses my servant gave you, not turning from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may do well in all your undertakings.

Go through the tents and give orders to the people, saying, Get ready a store of food; for in three days you are to go over this river Jordan and take for your heritage the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle will be kept here in the land which Moses gave you on this side of Jordan; but you, the fighting-men, are to go over before your brothers, armed, to give them help;

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.

But she had taken them up to the roof, covering them with the stems of flax which she had put out in order there.

And the men said to her, We will only be responsible for this oath which you have made us take,

If, when we come into the land, you put this cord of bright red thread in the window from which you let us down; and get your father and mother and your brothers and all your family into the house;

And the twelve stones which they took out of Jordan, Joshua put up in Gilgal.

For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is by the side of Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and said to them, Go up and make a search through the land. And the men went up and saw how Ai was placed.

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.

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 over him they put a great mass of stones, which is there to this day; then the heat of the Lord's wrath was turned away. So that place was named, The Valley of Achor, to this day.

And he put the king of Ai to death, hanging him on a tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave them orders to take his body down from the tree, and put it in the public place of the town, covering it with a great mass of stones, which is there to this day.

And all Israel, those who were Israelites by birth, as well as the men from other lands living with them, and their responsible men and their overseers and judges, took their places round the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, whose work it was to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement; half of them were stationed in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, in agreement with the orders for the blessing of the children of Israel which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given.

Reading to all the meeting of Israel, with the women and the children and the men from other lands who were living among them, every word of the orders which Moses had given.

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.

As for the towns made on hills of earth, not one was burned by Israel but Hazor, which was burned by Joshua.

As the Lord had given orders to Moses his servant, so Moses gave orders to Joshua, and so Joshua did; every order which the Lord had given to Moses was done.

From Mount Halak, which goes up to Seir, as far as Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon: and all their kings he overcame and put to death.

Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was living in Heshbon, ruling from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, as far as the river Jabbok, the limits of the children of Ammon;

And these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel overcame on the west side of Jordan, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak, which goes up to Seir; and Joshua gave the land to the tribes of Israel for a heritage, in keeping with their divisions;

The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is near Beth-el, one;

This is the land which is still to be taken: all the country of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites;

From the Shihor, which is before Egypt, to the edge of Ekron to the north, which is taken to be Canaanite property: the five chiefs of the Philistines; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites, as well as the Avvim;

On the south: all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah which is the property of the Zidonians, to Aphek, as far as the limit of the Amorites:

With him the Reubenites and the Gadites have been given their heritage, which Moses gave them, on the east side of Jordan, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave them;

These are the heritages of which Moses made distribution in the lowlands of Moab, on the other side of Jordan in Jericho, to the east.

And these are the heritages which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, gave out to them;

I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to make a search through the land; and the account which I gave him was in keeping with his desire.

Then the line goes up to Debir from the valley of Achor, and so to the north, in the direction of Gilgal, which is opposite the slope up to Adummim, on the south side of the river: and the line goes on to the waters of En-shemesh, ending at En-rogel:

Then the line goes up by the valley of the son of Hinnom to the south side of the Jebusite (which is Jerusalem): then up to the top of the mountain in front of the valley of Hinnom to the west, which is at the farthest point of the valley of Rephaim on the north:

And the limit is marked out from the top of the mountain to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoah, and out to the towns of Mount Ephron, as far as Baalah (which is Kiriath-jearim):

Then turning west, the line goes from Baalah to Mount Seir, and on to the side of Mount Jearim (which is Chesalon) on the north, then down to Beth-shemesh, and on past Timnah:

And to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he gave a part among the children of Judah, as the Lord had given orders to Joshua, that is, Kiriath-arba, named after Arba, the father of Anak which is Hebron.

And Hazor-hadattah, and Kerioth-hezron (which is Hazor);

And Dannah, and Kiriath-sannah (which is Debir);

And Humtah, and Kiriath-arba (which is Hebron), and Zior; nine towns with their unwalled places.

Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), and Rabbah; two towns with their unwalled places.

And ten parts were given to Manasseh, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is on the other side of Jordan;

And the limit of Manasseh's land was from Asher to Michmethath, which is before Shechem; the line goes on to the right hand, to the people of En-tappuah.

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?

And from there the line goes south to Luz, to the side of Luz (which is Beth-el), then down to Ataroth-addar, by the mountain to the south of Beth-horon the lower.

And the limit is marked as coming round to the south on the west side from the mountain which is south of Beth-horon, and ending at Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), a town of the children of Judah: this is the west part.

And the line goes down to the farthest part of the mountain facing the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is on the north of the valley of Rephaim: from there it goes down to the valley of Hinnom, to the side of the Jebusite on the south as far as En-rogel;

And Zela, Eleph and the Jebusite (which is Jerusalem), Gibeath and Kiriath; fourteen towns with their unwalled places. This is the heritage of the children of Benjamin by their families.

And from there it goes on east to Gath-hepher, to Eth-kazin; ending at Rimmon which goes as far as Neah;

By the orders of the Lord they gave him the town for which he made request, Timnath-serah in the hill-country of Ephraim: there, after building the town, he made his living-place.

These are the heritages which Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun, and the heads of families of the tribes of the children of Israel gave out at Shiloh, by the decision of the Lord, at the door of the Tent of meeting. So the distribution of the land was complete.

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.

So they made selection of Kedesh in Galilee in the hill-country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (which is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah.

The children of Gershon by their families were given thirteen towns from the tribes of Issachar and Asher and Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh which was in Bashan.

They gave them Kiriath-arba, the town of Arba, the father of Anak, (which is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah, with its grass-lands.

So the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he gave by oath to their fathers; so it became their heritage and their living-place.

The Lord kept faith with the house of Israel about all the good which he said he would do for them, and all his words came true.

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.

Only take great care to do the orders and the law which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave you; to have love for the Lord your God and to go in all his ways; and to keep his laws and to be true to him and to be his servants with all your heart and with all your soul.

So Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh went back, parting from the children of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, to the land of their heritage which had been given to them by the Lord's order to Moses.

And news came to the children of Israel, See, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have put up an altar opposite the land of Canaan, in the country by Jordan on the side which is Israel's.

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?

Was not the sin of Baal-peor great enough, from which we are not clear even to this day, though punishment came on the people of the Lord,

For we said to ourselves, If they say this to us or to future generations, then we will say, See this copy of the Lord's altar which our fathers made, not for burned offerings or offerings of beasts, but for a witness between us and you.

Never let it be said that we were false to the Lord, turning back this day from him and building an altar for burned offerings and meal offerings and offerings of beasts, in addition to the altar of the Lord our God which is before his House.

Now I have given to you, as the heritage of your tribes, all these nations which are still in the land, together with those cut off by me, from Jordan as far as the Great Sea on the west

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.

And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting.

And Joshua put these words on record, writing them in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and put it up there under the oak-tree which was in the holy place of the Lord.