DEUTERONOMY
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 -
6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 -
12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 -
18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 -
23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 -
28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 -
33 - 34
TOC
Maps
These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel
beyond the Jordan--in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between Paran
and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. 2 (By the way of Mount Seir it takes
eleven days to reach Kadesh-barnea from Horeb.) 3 In the fortieth year, on the
first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the LORD
had commanded him to speak to them. 4 This was after he had defeated King Sihon
of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who reigned in
Ashtaroth and in Edrei. 5 Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook
to expound this law as follows: 6 The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying,
"You have stayed long enough at this mountain. 7 Resume your journey, and go
into the hill country of the Amorites as well as into the neighboring
regions--the Arabah, the hill country, the Shephelah, the Negeb, and the
seacoast--the land of the Canaanites and the Lebanon, as far as the great river,
the river Euphrates. 8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and take
possession of the land that I swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and
to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them." 9 At that time I
said to you, "I am unable by myself to bear you. 10 The LORD your God has
multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. 11 May
the LORD, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times more and
bless you, as he has promised you! 12 But how can I bear the heavy burden of
your disputes all by myself? 13 Choose for each of your tribes individuals who
are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders." 14 You answered me,
"The plan you have proposed is a good one." 15 So I took the leaders of your
tribes, wise and reputable individuals, and installed them as leaders over you,
commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties,
commanders of tens, and officials, throughout your tribes. 16 I charged your
judges at that time: "Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and
judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.
17 You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike;
you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's. Any case that
is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it." 18 So I charged you at
that time with all the things that you should do. 19 Then, just as the LORD our
God had ordered us, we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and
terrible wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the
Amorites, until we reached Kadesh-barnea. 20 I said to you, "You have reached
the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. 21 See,
the LORD your God has given the land to you; go up, take possession, as the
LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you; do not fear or be dismayed."
22 All of you came to me and said, "Let us send men ahead of us to explore the
land for us and bring back a report to us regarding the route by which we should
go up and the cities we will come to." 23 The plan seemed good to me, and I
selected twelve of you, one from each tribe. 24 They set out and went up into
the hill country, and when they reached the Valley of Eshcol they spied it out
25 and gathered some of the land's produce, which they brought down to us. They
brought back a report to us, and said, "It is a good land that the LORD our God
is giving us." 26 But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the
command of the LORD your God; 27 you grumbled in your tents and said, "It is
because the LORD hates us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to
hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us. 28 Where are we headed? Our kindred
have made our hearts melt by reporting, 'The people are stronger and taller than
we; the cities are large and fortified up to heaven! We actually saw there the
offspring of the Anakim!'" 29 I said to you, "Have no dread or fear of them. 30
The LORD your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just
as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, 31 and in the wilderness,
where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as one carries a child,
all the way that you traveled until you reached this place. 32 But in spite of
this, you have no trust in the LORD your God, 33 who goes before you on the way
to seek out a place for you to camp, in fire by night, and in the cloud by day,
to show you the route you should take." 34 When the LORD heard your words, he
was wrathful and swore: 35 "Not one of these--not one of this evil
generation--shall see the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors, 36
except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his
descendants I will give the land on which he set foot, because of his complete
fidelity to the LORD." 37 Even with me the LORD was angry on your account,
saying, "You also shall not enter there. 38 Joshua son of Nun, your assistant,
shall enter there; encourage him, for he is the one who will secure Israel's
possession of it. 39 And as for your little ones, who you thought would become
booty, your children, who today do not yet know right from wrong, they shall
enter there; to them I will give it, and they shall take possession of it. 40
But as for you, journey back into the wilderness, in the direction of the Red
Sea." 41 You answered me, "We have sinned against the LORD! We are ready to go
up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us." So all of you strapped on
your battle gear, and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. 42 The
LORD said to me, "Say to them, 'Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not in
the midst of you; otherwise you will be defeated by your enemies.'" 43 Although
I told you, you would not listen. You rebelled against the command of the LORD
and presumptuously went up into the hill country. 44 The Amorites who lived in
that hill country then came out against you and chased you as bees do. They beat
you down in Seir as far as Hormah. 45 When you returned and wept before the
LORD, the LORD would neither heed your voice nor pay you any attention. 46 After
you had stayed at Kadesh as many days as you did,
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we journeyed back into the wilderness, in the direction of
the Red Sea, as the LORD had told me and skirted Mount Seir for many days. 2
Then the LORD said to me: 3 "You have been skirting this hill country long
enough. Head north, 4 and charge the people as follows: You are about to pass
through the territory of your kindred, the descendants of Esau, who live in
Seir. They will be afraid of you, so, be very careful 5 not to engage in battle
with them, for I will not give you even so much as a foot's length of their
land, since I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall
purchase food from them for money, so that you may eat; and you shall also buy
water from them for money, so that you may drink. 7 Surely the LORD your God has
blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great
wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have
lacked nothing." 8 So we passed by our kin, the descendants of Esau who live in
Seir, leaving behind the route of the Arabah, and leaving behind Elath and
Ezion-geber. When we had headed out along the route of the wilderness of Moab, 9
the LORD said to me: "Do not harass Moab or engage them in battle, for I will
not give you any of its land as a possession, since I have given Ar as a
possession to the descendants of Lot." 10 (The Emim--a large and numerous
people, as tall as the Anakim--had formerly inhabited it. 11 Like the Anakim,
they are usually reckoned as Rephaim, though the Moabites call them Emim. 12
Moreover, the Horim had formerly inhabited Seir, but the descendants of Esau
dispossessed them, destroying them and settling in their place, as Israel has
done in the land that the LORD gave them as a possession.) 13 "Now then, proceed
to cross over the Wadi Zered." So we crossed over the Wadi Zered. 14 And the
length of time we had traveled from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Wadi
Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation of warriors had
perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn concerning them. 15 Indeed, the
Lord's own hand was against them, to root them out from the camp, until all had
perished. 16 Just as soon as all the warriors had died off from among the
people, 17 the LORD spoke to me, saying, 18 "Today you are going to cross the
boundary of Moab at Ar. 19 When you approach the frontier of the Ammonites, do
not harass them or engage them in battle, for I will not give the land of the
Ammonites to you as a possession, because I have given it to the descendants of
Lot." 20 (It also is usually reckoned as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly
inhabited it, though the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, 21 a strong and numerous
people, as tall as the Anakim. But the LORD destroyed them from before the
Ammonites so that they could dispossess them and settle in their place. 22 He
did the same for the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, by destroying the
Horim before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their place
even to this day. 23 As for the Avvim, who had lived in settlements in the
vicinity of Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and
settled in their place.) 24 "Proceed on your journey and cross the Wadi Arnon.
See, I have handed over to you King Sihon the Amorite of Heshbon, and his land.
Begin to take possession by engaging him in battle. 25 This day I will begin to
put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under heaven; when
they hear report of you, they will tremble and be in anguish because of you." 26
So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon
with the following terms of peace: 27 "If you let me pass through your land, I
will travel only along the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to
the left. 28 You shall sell me food for money, so that I may eat, and supply me
water for money, so that I may drink. Only allow me to pass through on foot-- 29
just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir have done for me and likewise
the Moabites who live in Ar--until I cross the Jordan into the land that the
LORD our God is giving us." 30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was not willing to let
us pass through, for the LORD your God had hardened his spirit and made his
heart defiant in order to hand him over to you, as he has now done. 31 The LORD
said to me, "See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin now
to take possession of his land." 32 So when Sihon came out against us, he and
all his people for battle at Jahaz, 33 the LORD our God gave him over to us; and
we struck him down, along with his offspring and all his people. 34 At that time
we captured all his towns, and in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and
children. We left not a single survivor. 35 Only the livestock we kept as spoil
for ourselves, as well as the plunder of the towns that we had captured. 36 From
Aroer on the edge of the Wadi Arnon (including the town that is in the wadi
itself) as far as Gilead, there was no citadel too high for us. The LORD our God
gave everything to us. 37 You did not encroach, however, on the land of the
Ammonites, avoiding the whole upper region of the Wadi Jabbok as well as the
towns of the hill country, just as the LORD our God had charged. Return to Top
When we headed up the road to Bashan, King Og of Bashan came out against us, he
and all his people, for battle at Edrei. 2 The LORD said to me, "Do not fear
him, for I have handed him over to you, along with his people and his land. Do
to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon." 3 So
the LORD our God also handed over to us King Og of Bashan and all his people. We
struck him down until not a single survivor was left. 4 At that time we captured
all his towns; there was no citadel that we did not take from them--sixty towns,
the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All these were
fortress towns with high walls, double gates, and bars, besides a great many
villages. 6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of
Heshbon, in each city utterly destroying men, women, and children. 7 But all the
livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves. 8 So at
that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land beyond the Jordan,
from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon 9 (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while
the Amorites call it Senir), 10 all the towns of the tableland, the whole of
Gilead, and all of Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og's kingdom in
Bashan. 11 (Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim.
In fact his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By
the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide.) 12 As for the
land that we took possession of at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and
Gadites the territory north of Aroer, that is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, as
well as half the hill country of Gilead with its towns, 13 and I gave to the
half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, Og's kingdom. (The
whole region of Argob: all that portion of Bashan used to be called a land of
Rephaim; 14 Jair the Manassite acquired the whole region of Argob as far as the
border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and he named them--that is,
Bashan--after himself, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.) 15 To Machir I gave
Gilead. 16 And to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from
Gilead as far as the Wadi Arnon, with the middle of the wadi as a boundary, and
up to the Jabbok, the wadi being boundary of the Ammonites; 17 the Arabah also,
with the Jordan and its banks, from Chinnereth down to the sea of the Arabah,
the Dead Sea, with the lower slopes of Pisgah on the east. 18 At that time, I
charged you as follows: "Although the LORD your God has given you this land to
occupy, all your troops shall cross over armed as the vanguard of your Israelite
kin. 19 Only your wives, your children, and your livestock--I know that you have
much livestock--shall stay behind in the towns that I have given to you. 20 When
the LORD gives rest to your kindred, as to you, and they too have occupied the
land that the LORD your God is giving them beyond the Jordan, then each of you
may return to the property that I have given to you." 21 And I charged Joshua as
well at that time, saying: "Your own eyes have seen everything that the LORD
your God has done to these two kings; so the LORD will do to all the kingdoms
into which you are about to cross. 22 Do not fear them, for it is the LORD your
God who fights for you." 23 At that time, too, I entreated the LORD, saying: 24
"O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your
might; what god in heaven or on earth can perform deeds and mighty acts like
yours! 25 Let me cross over to see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good
hill country and the Lebanon." 26 But the LORD was angry with me on your account
and would not heed me. The LORD said to me, "Enough from you! Never speak to me
of this matter again! 27 Go up to the top of Pisgah and look around you to the
west, to the north, to the south, and to the east. Look well, for you shall not
cross over this Jordan. 28 But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him,
because it is he who shall cross over at the head of this people and who shall
secure their possession of the land that you will see." 29 So we remained in the
valley opposite Beth-peor.
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So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that
I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land
that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 You must neither add
anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the
commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you. 3 You have seen
for yourselves what the LORD did with regard to the Baal of Peor--how the LORD
your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, 4
while those of you who held fast to the LORD your God are all alive today. 5
See, just as the LORD my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and
ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and
occupy. 6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and
discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say,
"Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" 7 For what other
great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to
him? 8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this
entire law that I am setting before you today? 9 But take care and watch
yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen
nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known
to your children and your children's children-- 10 how you once stood before the
LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, "Assemble the people for me,
and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as
they live on the earth, and may teach their children so"; 11 you approached and
stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very
heavens, shrouded in dark clouds. 12 Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire.
You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 He
declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten
commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets. 14 And the LORD charged me
at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land
that you are about to cross into and occupy. 15 Since you saw no form when the
LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves
closely, 16 so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves,
in the form of any figure--the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of
any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in
the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of
any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And when you look up to the
heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not
be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God
has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. 20 But the LORD has
taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a
people of his very own possession, as you are now. 21 The LORD was angry with me
because of you, and he vowed that I should not cross the Jordan and that I
should not enter the good land that the LORD your God is giving for your
possession. 22 For I am going to die in this land without crossing over the
Jordan, but you are going to cross over to take possession of that good land. 23
So be careful not to forget the covenant that the LORD your God made with you,
and not to make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything that the LORD
your God has forbidden you. 24 For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a
jealous God. 25 When you have had children and children's children, and become
complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of
anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, and
provoking him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today
that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan
to occupy; you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 The
LORD will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among
the nations where the LORD will lead you. 28 There you will serve other gods
made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor
eat, nor smell. 29 From there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find
him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. 30 In your distress,
when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to
the LORD your God and heed him. 31 Because the LORD your God is a merciful God,
he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant
with your ancestors that he swore to them. 32 For ask now about former ages,
long before your own, ever since the day that God created human beings on the
earth; ask from one end of heaven to the other: has anything so great as this
ever happened or has its like ever been heard of? 33 Has any people ever heard
the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and lived? 34 Or
has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of
another nation, by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as the LORD your God did
for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 35 To you it was shown so that you would
acknowledge that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. 36 From heaven
he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great
fire, while you heard his words coming out of the fire. 37 And because he loved
your ancestors, he chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of
Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, 38 driving out before you
nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, giving you their
land for a possession, as it is still today. 39 So acknowledge today and take to
heart that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no
other. 40 Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding you
today for your own well-being and that of your descendants after you, so that
you may long remain in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all
time. 41 Then Moses set apart on the east side of the Jordan three cities 42 to
which a homicide could flee, someone who unintentionally kills another person,
the two not having been at enmity before; the homicide could flee to one of
these cities and live: 43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland belonging to
the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan
belonging to the Manassites. 44 This is the law that Moses set before the
Israelites. 45 These are the decrees and the statutes and ordinances that Moses
spoke to the Israelites when they had come out of Egypt, 46 beyond the Jordan in
the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of King Sihon of the Amorites, who
reigned at Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites defeated when they came out of
Egypt. 47 They occupied his land and the land of King Og of Bashan, the two
kings of the Amorites on the eastern side of the Jordan: 48 from Aroer, which is
on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon), 49
together with all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of
the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.
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Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel,
the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn
them and observe them diligently. 2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us at
Horeb. 3 Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us,
who are all of us here alive today. 4 The LORD spoke with you face to face at
the mountain, out of the fire. 5 (At that time I was standing between the LORD
and you to declare to you the words of the LORD; for you were afraid because of
the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said: 6 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you
shall have no other gods before me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to
them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing
children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of
those who reject me, 10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation
of those who love me and keep my commandments. 11 You shall not make wrongful
use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who
misuses his name. 12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your
God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 14 But the
seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you,
or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your
donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that
your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 15 Remember that you were a
slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there
with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God
commanded you to keep the sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as
the LORD your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may
go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 17 You shall
not murder. 18 Neither shall you commit adultery. 19 Neither shall you steal. 20
Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 Neither shall you
covet your neighbor's wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, or
field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to
your neighbor. 22 These words the LORD spoke with a loud voice to your whole
assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness,
and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me.
23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning
with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; 24
and you said, "Look, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and
we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak
to someone and the person may still live. 25 So now why should we die? For this
great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer,
we shall die. 26 For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the
living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? 27 Go near, you
yourself, and hear all that the LORD our God will say. Then tell us everything
that the LORD our God tells you, and we will listen and do it." 28 The LORD
heard your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me: "I have heard
the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all
that they have spoken. 29 If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and
to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with
their children forever! 30 Go say to them, 'Return to your tents.' 31 But you,
stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the
ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that
I am giving them to possess." 32 You must therefore be careful to do as the LORD
your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. 33
You must follow exactly the path that the LORD your God has commanded you, so
that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long
in the land that you are to possess.
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Now this is the commandment--the statutes and the
ordinances--that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the
land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 2 so that you and your
children and your children's children may fear the LORD your God all the days of
your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding
you, so that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them
diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply
greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your
ancestors, has promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD
alone. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today
in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are
at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them
as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9 and write them
on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10 When the LORD your God has
brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob, to give you--a land with fine, large cities that you did not
build, 11 houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn
cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not
plant--and when you have eaten your fill, 12 take care that you do not forget
the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
13 The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone
you shall swear. 14 Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who
are all around you, 15 because the LORD your God, who is present with you, is a
jealous God. The anger of the LORD your God would be kindled against you and he
would destroy you from the face of the earth. 16 Do not put the LORD your God to
the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You must diligently keep the
commandments of the LORD your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has
commanded you. 18 Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it
may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that
the LORD swore to your ancestors to give you, 19 thrusting out all your enemies
from before you, as the LORD has promised. 20 When your children ask you in time
to come, "What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances
that the LORD our God has commanded you?" 21 then you shall say to your
children, "We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of
Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 The LORD displayed before our eyes great and
awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household.
23 He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land
that he promised on oath to our ancestors. 24 Then the LORD commanded us to
observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our lasting good, so
as to keep us alive, as is now the case. 25 If we diligently observe this entire
commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the
right."
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When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are
about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you--the
Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you--
2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then
you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no
mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or
taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for that would turn away your children
from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be
kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But this is how you
must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down
their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire. 6 For you are a people holy
to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on
earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 It was not because you were
more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose
you--for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 It was because the LORD loved you
and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the LORD has brought you
out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the
hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God,
the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep
his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and who repays in their own
person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person
those who reject him. 11 Therefore, observe diligently the commandment--the
statutes, and the ordinances--that I am commanding you today. 12 If you heed
these ordinances, by diligently observing them, the LORD your God will maintain
with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; 13 he will love
you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the
fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of
your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your
ancestors to give you. 14 You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither
sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock. 15 The LORD will turn away
from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he
will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. 16 You shall
devour all the peoples that the LORD your God is giving over to you, showing
them no pity; you shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
17 If you say to yourself, "These nations are more numerous than I; how can I
dispossess them?" 18 do not be afraid of them. Just remember what the LORD your
God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, 19 the great trials that your eyes saw, the
signs and wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the LORD
your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples
of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send the pestilence
against them, until even the survivors and the fugitives are destroyed. 21 Have
no dread of them, for the LORD your God, who is present with you, is a great and
awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you
little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise
the wild animals would become too numerous for you. 23 But the LORD your God
will give them over to you, and throw them into great panic, until they are
destroyed. 24 He will hand their kings over to you and you shall blot out their
name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand against you, until you have
destroyed them. 25 The images of their gods you shall burn with fire. Do not
covet the silver or the gold that is on them and take it for yourself, because
you could be ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent to the LORD your God. 26 Do not
bring an abhorrent thing into your house, or you will be set apart for
destruction like it. You must utterly detest and abhor it, for it is set apart
for destruction.
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This entire commandment that I command you today you must
diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the
land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way
that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order
to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you
would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by
feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were
acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 The clothes on
your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know
then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the LORD your God
disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD your God, by
walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you
into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground
waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines
and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where
you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose
stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your
fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land that he has given you. 11
Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his
commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.
12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13
and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is
multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then do not exalt yourself,
forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness,
an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for
you from flint rock, 16 and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your
ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you
good. 17 Do not say to yourself, "My power and the might of my own hand have
gotten me this wealth." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who
gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore
to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19 If you do forget the LORD your God
and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that
you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before
you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your
God.
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Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to
go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities,
fortified to the heavens, 2 a strong and tall people, the offspring of the
Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said of them, "Who can stand up to the
Anakim?" 3 Know then today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over
before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you,
so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has promised
you. 4 When the LORD your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to
yourself, "It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to
occupy this land"; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that
the LORD is dispossessing them before you. 5 It is not because of your
righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy
their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is
dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the LORD
made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6 Know,
then, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because
of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. 7 Remember and do not
forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have
been rebellious against the LORD from the day you came out of the land of Egypt
until you came to this place. 8 Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath,
and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. 9 When I
went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant
that the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty
nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 And the LORD gave me the two
stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that
the LORD had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the
assembly. 11 At the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two
stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the LORD said to me, "Get
up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt
have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded
them; they have cast an image for themselves." 13 Furthermore the LORD said to
me, "I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people. 14 Let me alone
that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will
make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they." 15 So I turned and
went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of
the covenant were in my two hands. 16 Then I saw that you had indeed sinned
against the LORD your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had
been quick to turn from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17 So I took
hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before
your eyes. 18 Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and
forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you
had committed, provoking the LORD by doing what was evil in his sight. 19 For I
was afraid that the anger that the LORD bore against you was so fierce that he
would destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also. 20 The LORD was
so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on
behalf of Aaron at that same time. 21 Then I took the sinful thing you had made,
the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until
it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs
down the mountain. 22 At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah,
you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23 And when the LORD sent you from
Kadesh-barnea, saying, "Go up and occupy the land that I have given you," you
rebelled against the command of the LORD your God, neither trusting him nor
obeying him. 24 You have been rebellious against the LORD as long as he has
known you. 25 Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate
before the LORD when the LORD intended to destroy you, 26 I prayed to the LORD
and said, "Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession,
whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty
hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to
the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, 28 otherwise
the land from which you have brought us might say, 'Because the LORD was not
able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated
them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.' 29 For they
are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great
power and by your outstretched arm."
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At that time the LORD said to me, "Carve out two tablets of
stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark
of wood. 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former
tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark." 3 So I made an
ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up
the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 Then he wrote on the tablets the
same words as before, the ten commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on
the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them
to me. 5 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the
ark that I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me. 6 (The
Israelites journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and
there he was buried; his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. 7 From there they
journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with flowing
streams. 8 At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of
the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to him, and to
bless in his name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance
with his kindred; the LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God promised
him.) 10 I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had done the
first time. And once again the LORD listened to me. The LORD was unwilling to
destroy you. 11 The LORD said to me, "Get up, go on your journey at the head of
the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their
ancestors to give them." 12 So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God
require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love
him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13
and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees that I am
commanding you today, for your own well-being. 14 Although heaven and the heaven
of heavens belong to the LORD your God, the earth with all that is in it, 15 yet
the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their
descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. 16 Circumcise,
then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. 17 For the
LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and
awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice for the
orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and
clothing. 19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the
land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the LORD your God; him alone you shall worship;
to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your
praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that
your own eyes have seen. 22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons;
and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.
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You shall love the LORD your God, therefore, and keep his
charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always. 2 Remember
today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline
of the LORD your God), but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his
mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his deeds that he did in
Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 what he did to the
Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red
Sea flow over them as they pursued you, so that the LORD has destroyed them to
this day; 5 what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place;
6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the
midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with
their households, their tents, and every living being in their company; 7 for it
is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the LORD did. 8 Keep,
then, this entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may
have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy,
9 and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your
ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and
honey. 10 For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the
land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by
foot like a vegetable garden. 11 But the land that you are crossing over to
occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky, 12 a land
that the LORD your God looks after. The eyes of the LORD your God are always on
it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. 13 If you will only
heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today--loving the LORD your
God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul-- 14 then he
will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later
rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; 15 and he will
give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill. 16
Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and
worshiping them, 17 for then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you
and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will
yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is
giving you. 18 You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you
shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your
forehead. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at
home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 20 Write them
on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the
days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your
ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 If you
will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you, loving
the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the
LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess
nations larger and mightier than yourselves. 24 Every place on which you set
foot shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the
Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea. 25 No one
will be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread
of you on all the land on which you set foot, as he promised you. 26 See, I am
setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey
the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today; 28 and the
curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn from
the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not
known. 29 When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that you are
entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on
Mount Ebal. 30 As you know, they are beyond the Jordan, some distance to the
west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal,
beside the oak of Moreh. 31 When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the
land that the LORD your God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in
it, 32 you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am
setting before you today.
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These are the statutes and ordinances that you must
diligently observe in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has
given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You must demolish
completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess
served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy
tree. 3 Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles
with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name
from their places. 4 You shall not worship the LORD your God in such ways. 5 But
you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your
tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, 6 bringing
there your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations,
your votive gifts, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and
flocks. 7 And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and
your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the LORD
your God has blessed you. 8 You shall not act as we are acting here today, all
of us according to our own desires, 9 for you have not yet come into the rest
and the possession that the LORD your God is giving you. 10 When you cross over
the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is allotting to you, and
when he gives you rest from your enemies all around so that you live in safety,
11 then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the LORD
your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and your
sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts
that you vow to the LORD. 12 And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you
together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the
Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance
with you). 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place
you happen to see. 14 But only at the place that the LORD will choose in one of
your tribes--there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do
everything I command you. 15 Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat
meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the LORD your God
has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle
or deer. 16 The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the
ground like water. 17 Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain,
your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of
your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations; 18
these you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God at the place that the
LORD your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your
male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the
presence of the LORD your God in all your undertakings. 19 Take care that you do
not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land. 20 When the LORD your
God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, "I am going to
eat some meat," because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have
the desire. 21 If the place where the LORD your God will choose to put his name
is too far from you, and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd
or flock that the LORD has given you, then you may eat within your towns
whenever you desire. 22 Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat
it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23 Only be sure that you do not
eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with
the meat. 24 Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 25
Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you,
because you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. 26 But the sacred
donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the
place that the LORD will choose. 27 You shall present your burnt offerings, both
the meat and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; the blood of your
other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the LORD your God, but
the meat you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you
today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever,
because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your
God. 29 When the LORD your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are
about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in
their land, 30 take care that you are not snared into imitating them, after they
have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying,
"How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same." 31 You
must not do the same for the LORD your God, because every abhorrent thing that
the LORD hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons
and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 You must diligently observe
everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.
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If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you
and promise you omens or portents, 2 and the omens or the portents declared by
them take place, and they say, "Let us follow other gods" (whom you have not
known) "and let us serve them," 3 you must not heed the words of those prophets
or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know
whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. 4 The
LORD your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you
shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall
hold fast. 5 But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to
death for having spoken treason against the LORD your God--who brought you out
of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery--to turn you
from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall
purge the evil from your midst. 6 If anyone secretly entices you--even if it is
your brother, your father's son or your mother's son, or your own son or
daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend--saying, "Let us
go worship other gods," whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 any of
the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from
you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8 you must not yield to or heed any
such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. 9 But you
shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute
them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 Stone them to death for
trying to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 Then all Israel shall hear and be
afraid, and never again do any such wickedness. 12 If you hear it said about one
of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you to live in, 13 that scoundrels
from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying,
"Let us go and worship other gods," whom you have not known, 14 then you shall
inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that
such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, 15 you shall put the
inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in
it--even putting its livestock to the sword. 16 All of its spoil you shall
gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire,
as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall remain a perpetual
ruin, never to be rebuilt. 17 Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick
to your hand, so that the LORD may turn from his fierce anger and show you
compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to your ancestors,
18 if you obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping all his commandments
that I am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the LORD
your God.
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You are children of the LORD your God. You must not lacerate
yourselves or shave your forelocks for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to
the LORD your God; it is you the LORD has chosen out of all the peoples on earth
to be his people, his treasured possession. 3 You shall not eat any abhorrent
thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the
deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the
mountain-sheep. 6 Any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof cleft in
two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7 Yet of those that chew
the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and
the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are
unclean for you. 8 And the pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew
the cud, is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat, and you shall not
touch their carcasses. 9 Of all that live in water you may eat these: whatever
has fins and scales you may eat. 10 And whatever does not have fins and scales
you shall not eat; it is unclean for you. 11 You may eat any clean birds. 12 But
these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey,
13 the buzzard, the kite, of any kind; 14 every raven of any kind; 15 the
ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk, of any kind; 16 the little owl
and the great owl, the water hen 17 and the desert owl, the carrion vulture and
the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron, of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. 19
And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20 You may
eat any clean winged creature. 21 You shall not eat anything that dies of
itself; you may give it to aliens residing in your towns for them to eat, or you
may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. You
shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. 22 Set apart a tithe of all the yield
of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. 23 In the presence of the
LORD your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you
shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the
firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your
God always. 24 But if, when the LORD your God has blessed you, the distance is
so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the LORD
your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, 25 then you may
turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the LORD
your God will choose; 26 spend the money for whatever you wish--oxen, sheep,
wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the
presence of the LORD your God, you and your household rejoicing together. 27 As
for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have
no allotment or inheritance with you. 28 Every third year you shall bring out
the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; 29
the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as
the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat
their fill so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work that you
undertake.
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Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. 2
And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim
that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a member
of the community, because the Lord's remission has been proclaimed. 3 Of a
foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any member
of your community owes you. 4 There will, however, be no one in need among you,
because the LORD is sure to bless you in the land that the LORD your God is
giving you as a possession to occupy, 5 if only you will obey the LORD your God
by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today. 6 When
the LORD your God has blessed you, as he promised you, you will lend to many
nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will
not rule over you. 7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your
community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving
you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. 8 You
should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need,
whatever it may be. 9 Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought,
thinking, "The seventh year, the year of remission, is near," and therefore view
your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to
the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt. 10 Give liberally and be
ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the LORD your God will bless you
in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 Since there will never cease
to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the
poor and needy neighbor in your land." 12 If a member of your community, whether
a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you six years, in
the seventh year you shall set that person free. 13 And when you send a male
slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. 14
Provide liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press,
thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the LORD your God has blessed
you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your
God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today. 16 But if
he says to you, "I will not go out from you," because he loves you and your
household, since he is well off with you, 17 then you shall take an awl and
thrust it through his earlobe into the door, and he shall be your slave forever.
You shall do the same with regard to your female slave. 18 Do not consider it a
hardship when you send them out from you free persons, because for six years
they have given you services worth the wages of hired laborers; and the LORD
your God will bless you in all that you do. 19 Every firstling male born of your
herd and flock you shall consecrate to the LORD your God; you shall not do work
with your firstling ox nor shear the firstling of your flock. 20 You shall eat
it, you together with your household, in the presence of the LORD your God year
by year at the place that the LORD will choose. 21 But if it has any defect--any
serious defect, such as lameness or blindness--you shall not sacrifice it to the
LORD your God; 22 within your towns you may eat it, the unclean and the clean
alike, as you would a gazelle or deer. 23 Its blood, however, you must not eat;
you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
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Observe the month of Abib by keeping the passover for the
LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of
Egypt by night. 2 You shall offer the passover sacrifice for the LORD your God,
from the flock and the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose as a
dwelling for his name. 3 You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven
days you shall eat unleavened bread with it--the bread of affliction--because
you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your
life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt. 4 No
leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days; and none of
the meat of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall remain
until morning. 5 You are not permitted to offer the passover sacrifice within
any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you. 6 But at the place that
the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name, only there shall you
offer the passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, the time of day when you
departed from Egypt. 7 You shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD
your God will choose; the next morning you may go back to your tents. 8 For six
days you shall continue to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there
shall be a solemn assembly for the LORD your God, when you shall do no work. 9
You shall count seven weeks; begin to count the seven weeks from the time the
sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the festival
of weeks for the LORD your God, contributing a freewill offering in proportion
to the blessing that you have received from the LORD your God. 11 Rejoice before
the LORD your God--you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female
slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the
orphans, and the widows who are among you--at the place that the LORD your God
will choose as a dwelling for his name. 12 Remember that you were a slave in
Egypt, and diligently observe these statutes. 13 You shall keep the festival of
booths for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing
floor and your wine press. 14 Rejoice during your festival, you and your sons
and your daughters, your male and female slaves, as well as the Levites, the
strangers, the orphans, and the widows resident in your towns. 15 Seven days you
shall keep the festival for the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will
choose; for the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your
undertakings, and you shall surely celebrate. 16 Three times a year all your
males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at
the festival of unleavened bread, at the festival of weeks, and at the festival
of booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed; 17 all shall give
as they are able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has
given you. 18 You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in
all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, and they shall render just
decisions for the people. 19 You must not distort justice; you must not show
partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the
wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. 20 Justice, and only
justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the
LORD your God is giving you. 21 You shall not plant any tree as a sacred pole
beside the altar that you make for the LORD your God; 22 nor shall you set up a
stone pillar--things that the LORD your God hates.
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You must not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep
that has a defect, anything seriously wrong; for that is abhorrent to the LORD
your God. 2 If there is found among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your
God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD
your God, and transgresses his covenant 3 by going to serve other gods and
worshiping them--whether the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which
I have forbidden-- 4 and if it is reported to you or you hear of it, and you
make a thorough inquiry, and the charge is proved true that such an abhorrent
thing has occurred in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man
or that woman who has committed this crime and you shall stone the man or woman
to death. 6 On the evidence of two or three witnesses the death sentence shall
be executed; a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one
witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised against the
person to execute the death penalty, and afterward the hands of all the people.
So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 8 If a judicial decision is too
difficult for you to make between one kind of bloodshed and another, one kind of
legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another--any such matters of
dispute in your towns--then you shall immediately go up to the place that the
LORD your God will choose, 9 where you shall consult with the levitical priests
and the judge who is in office in those days; they shall announce to you the
decision in the case. 10 Carry out exactly the decision that they announce to
you from the place that the LORD will choose, diligently observing everything
they instruct you. 11 You must carry out fully the law that they interpret for
you or the ruling that they announce to you; do not turn aside from the decision
that they announce to you, either to the right or to the left. 12 As for anyone
who presumes to disobey the priest appointed to minister there to the LORD your
God, or the judge, that person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from
Israel. 13 All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act
presumptuously again. 14 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God
is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say,
"I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me," 15 you may
indeed set over you a king whom the LORD your God will choose. One of your own
community you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner
over you, who is not of your own community. 16 Even so, he must not acquire many
horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more
horses, since the LORD has said to you, "You must never return that way again."
17 And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn
away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself. 18
When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law
written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. 19 It shall remain
with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn
to fear the LORD his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and
these statutes, 20 neither exalting himself above other members of the community
nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left, so
that he and his descendants may reign long over his kingdom in Israel.
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The levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have
no allotment or inheritance within Israel. They may eat the sacrifices that are
the Lord's portion 2 but they shall have no inheritance among the other members
of the community; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them. 3 This
shall be the priests' due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice,
whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two
jowls, and the stomach. 4 The first fruits of your grain, your wine, and your
oil, as well as the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5 For
the LORD your God has chosen Levi out of all your tribes, to stand and minister
in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for all time. 6 If a Levite leaves any
of your towns, from wherever he has been residing in Israel, and comes to the
place that the LORD will choose (and he may come whenever he wishes), 7 then he
may minister in the name of the LORD his God, like all his fellow-Levites who
stand to minister there before the LORD. 8 They shall have equal portions to
eat, even though they have income from the sale of family possessions. 9 When
you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you must not learn
to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 No one shall be found
among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices
divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts
spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead.
12 For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD; it is because of such
abhorrent practices that the LORD your God is driving them out before you. 13
You must remain completely loyal to the LORD your God. 14 Although these nations
that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as
for you, the LORD your God does not permit you to do so. 15 The LORD your God
will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall
heed such a prophet. 16 This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb
on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the LORD my
God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." 17 Then the LORD
replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. 18 I will raise up for
them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the
mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19
Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I
myself will hold accountable. 20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other
gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the
prophet to speak--that prophet shall die." 21 You may say to yourself, "How can
we recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?" 22 If a prophet speaks in the
name of the LORD but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word
that the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not
be frightened by it.
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When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land
the LORD your God is giving you, and you have dispossessed them and settled in
their towns and in their houses, 2 you shall set apart three cities in the land
that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. 3 You shall calculate the
distances and divide into three regions the land that the LORD your God gives
you as a possession, so that any homicide can flee to one of them. 4 Now this is
the case of a homicide who might flee there and live, that is, someone who has
killed another person unintentionally when the two had not been at enmity
before: 5 Suppose someone goes into the forest with another to cut wood, and
when one of them swings the ax to cut down a tree, the head slips from the
handle and strikes the other person who then dies; the killer may flee to one of
these cities and live. 6 But if the distance is too great, the avenger of blood
in hot anger might pursue and overtake and put the killer to death, although a
death sentence was not deserved, since the two had not been at enmity before. 7
Therefore I command you: You shall set apart three cities. 8 If the LORD your
God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors--and he will give you
all the land that he promised your ancestors to give you, 9 provided you
diligently observe this entire commandment that I command you today, by loving
the LORD your God and walking always in his ways--then you shall add three more
cities to these three, 10 so that the blood of an innocent person may not be
shed in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, thereby
bringing bloodguilt upon you. 11 But if someone at enmity with another lies in
wait and attacks and takes the life of that person, and flees into one of these
cities, 12 then the elders of the killer's city shall send to have the culprit
taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. 13
Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that
it may go well with you. 14 You must not move your neighbor's boundary marker,
set up by former generations, on the property that will be allotted to you in
the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. 15 A single witness
shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection
with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three
witnesses shall a charge be sustained. 16 If a malicious witness comes forward
to accuse someone of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall
appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in
those days, 18 and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a
false witness, having testified falsely against another, 19 then you shall do to
the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. So you
shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 The rest shall hear and be afraid, and
a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. 21 Show no pity:
life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
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When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses
and chariots, an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them; for
the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. 2
Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the
troops, 3 and shall say to them: "Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to
do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be
in dread of them; 4 for it is the LORD your God who goes with you, to fight for
you against your enemies, to give you victory." 5 Then the officials shall
address the troops, saying, "Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it?
He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another
dedicate it. 6 Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit? He
should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another be first
to enjoy its fruit. 7 Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married
her? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another
marry her." 8 The officials shall continue to address the troops, saying, "Is
anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause
the heart of his comrades to melt like his own." 9 When the officials have
finished addressing the troops, then the commanders shall take charge of them.
10 When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. 11
If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in
it shall serve you at forced labor. 12 If it does not submit to you peacefully,
but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; 13 and when the LORD your
God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. 14 You
may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and
everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your
enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. 15 Thus you shall treat all the
towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here. 16
But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an
inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17 You shall
annihilate them--the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the
Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites--just as the LORD your God has
commanded, 18 so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that
they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God. 19 If you
besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you
must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take
food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings
that they should come under siege from you? 20 You may destroy only the trees
that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building
siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.
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If, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to
possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck
the person down, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure
the distances to the towns that are near the body. 3 The elders of the town
nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has
not pulled in the yoke; 4 the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to
a wadi with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the
heifer's neck there in the wadi. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall
come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him and to
pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD, and by their decision all cases of
dispute and assault shall be settled. 6 All the elders of that town nearest the
body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi, 7
and they shall declare: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor were we
witnesses to it. 8 Absolve, O LORD, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do
not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel."
Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt. 9 So you shall purge the guilt of
innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight
of the LORD. 10 When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your
God hands them over to you and you take them captive, 11 suppose you see among
the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, 12 and so you
bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, 13
discard her captive's garb, and shall remain in your house a full month,
mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her
husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you are not satisfied with her,
you shall let her go free and not sell her for money. You must not treat her as
a slave, since you have dishonored her. 15 If a man has two wives, one of them
loved and the other disliked, and if both the loved and the disliked have borne
him sons, the firstborn being the son of the one who is disliked, 16 then on the
day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to treat the
son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who
is the firstborn. 17 He must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the one who is
disliked, giving him a double portion of all that he has; since he is the first
issue of his virility, the right of the firstborn is his. 18 If someone has a
stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does
not heed them when they discipline him, 19 then his father and his mother shall
take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that
place. 20 They shall say to the elders of his town, "This son of ours is
stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard."
21 Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the
evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid. 22 When someone
is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on
a tree, 23 his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury
him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not
defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you for possession.
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You shall not watch your neighbor's ox or sheep straying
away and ignore them; you shall take them back to their owner. 2 If the owner
does not reside near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it
to your own house, and it shall remain with you until the owner claims it; then
you shall return it. 3 You shall do the same with a neighbor's donkey; you shall
do the same with a neighbor's garment; and you shall do the same with anything
else that your neighbor loses and you find. You may not withhold your help. 4
You shall not see your neighbor's donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it;
you shall help to lift it up. 5 A woman shall not wear a man's apparel, nor
shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent
to the LORD your God. 6 If you come on a bird's nest, in any tree or on the
ground, with fledglings or eggs, with the mother sitting on the fledglings or on
the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. 7 Let the mother go,
taking only the young for yourself, in order that it may go well with you and
you may live long. 8 When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for
your roof; otherwise you might have bloodguilt on your house, if anyone should
fall from it. 9 You shall not sow your vineyard with a second kind of seed, or
the whole yield will have to be forfeited, both the crop that you have sown and
the yield of the vineyard itself. 10 You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey
yoked together. 11 You shall not wear clothes made of wool and linen woven
together. 12 You shall make tassels on the four corners of the cloak with which
you cover yourself. 13 Suppose a man marries a woman, but after going in to her,
he dislikes her 14 and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying,
"I married this woman; but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her
virginity." 15 The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit
the evidence of the young woman's virginity to the elders of the city at the
gate. 16 The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: "I gave my
daughter in marriage to this man but he dislikes her; 17 now he has made up
charges against her, saying, 'I did not find evidence of your daughter's
virginity.' But here is the evidence of my daughter's virginity." Then they
shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. 18 The elders of that
town shall take the man and punish him; 19 they shall fine him one hundred
shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman's father) because he
has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be
permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. 20 If, however, this charge is
true, that evidence of the young woman's virginity was not found, 21 then they
shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father's house and the
men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful
act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father's house. So you shall purge
the evil from your midst. 22 If a man is caught lying with the wife of another
man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the
woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. 23 If there is a young woman, a
virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies
with her, 24 you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone
them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and
the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil
from your midst. 25 But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country,
and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her
shall die. 26 You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not
committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of
someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. 27 Since he found her in the open
country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to
rescue her. 28 If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and
lies with her, and they are caught in the act, 29 the man who lay with her shall
give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman's father, and she shall become
his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as
long as he lives. 30 A man shall not marry his father's wife, thereby violating
his father's rights.
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No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off
shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. 2 Those born of an illicit union
shall not be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation,
none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. 3 No
Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. Even to the
tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of
the LORD, 4 because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey
out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor
of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 (Yet the LORD your God refused to heed Balaam;
the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD
your God loved you.) 6 You shall never promote their welfare or their prosperity
as long as you live. 7 You shall not abhor any of the Edomites, for they are
your kin. You shall not abhor any of the Egyptians, because you were an alien
residing in their land. 8 The children of the third generation that are born to
them may be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. 9 When you are encamped
against your enemies you shall guard against any impropriety. 10 If one of you
becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the
camp; he must not come within the camp. 11 When evening comes, he shall wash
himself with water, and when the sun has set, he may come back into the camp. 12
You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. 13 With
your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you
shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. 14 Because the LORD
your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies
to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything
indecent among you and turn away from you. 15 Slaves who have escaped to you
from their owners shall not be given back to them. 16 They shall reside with
you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever
they please; you shall not oppress them. 17 None of the daughters of Israel
shall be a temple prostitute; none of the sons of Israel shall be a temple
prostitute. 18 You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a
male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God in payment for any vow, for
both of these are abhorrent to the LORD your God. 19 You shall not charge
interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on
provisions, interest on anything that is lent. 20 On loans to a foreigner you
may charge interest, but on loans to another Israelite you may not charge
interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings in
the land that you are about to enter and possess. 21 If you make a vow to the
LORD your God, do not postpone fulfilling it; for the LORD your God will surely
require it of you, and you would incur guilt. 22 But if you refrain from vowing,
you will not incur guilt. 23 Whatever your lips utter you must diligently
perform, just as you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth.
24 If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as
many as you wish, but you shall not put any in a container. 25 If you go into
your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you
shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.
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Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she
does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so
he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out
of his house; she then leaves his house 2 and goes off to become another man's
wife. 3 Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce,
puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who
married her dies); 4 her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to
take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be
abhorrent to the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the LORD
your God is giving you as a possession. 5 When a man is newly married, he shall
not go out with the army or be charged with any related duty. He shall be free
at home one year, to be happy with the wife whom he has married. 6 No one shall
take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in
pledge. 7 If someone is caught kidnaping another Israelite, enslaving or selling
the Israelite, then that kidnaper shall die. So you shall purge the evil from
your midst. 8 Guard against an outbreak of a leprous skin disease by being very
careful; you shall carefully observe whatever the levitical priests instruct
you, just as I have commanded them. 9 Remember what the LORD your God did to
Miriam on your journey out of Egypt. 10 When you make your neighbor a loan of
any kind, you shall not go into the house to take the pledge. 11 You shall wait
outside, while the person to whom you are making the loan brings the pledge out
to you. 12 If the person is poor, you shall not sleep in the garment given you
as the pledge. 13 You shall give the pledge back by sunset, so that your
neighbor may sleep in the cloak and bless you; and it will be to your credit
before the LORD your God. 14 You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy
laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of
your towns. 15 You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they
are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the
LORD against you, and you would incur guilt. 16 Parents shall not be put to
death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents;
only for their own crimes may persons be put to death. 17 You shall not deprive
a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment
in pledge. 18 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God
redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. 19 When you reap
your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go
back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so
that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings. 20 When you beat
your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the
orphan, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not
glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. 22
Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding
you to do this.
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Suppose two persons have a dispute and enter into
litigation, and the judges decide between them, declaring one to be in the right
and the other to be in the wrong. 2 If the one in the wrong deserves to be
flogged, the judge shall make that person lie down and be beaten in his presence
with the number of lashes proportionate to the offense. 3 Forty lashes may be
given but not more; if more lashes than these are given, your neighbor will be
degraded in your sight. 4 You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out
the grain. 5 When brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son,
the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.
Her husband's brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing
the duty of a husband's brother to her, 6 and the firstborn whom she bears shall
succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted
out of Israel. 7 But if the man has no desire to marry his brother's widow, then
his brother's widow shall go up to the elders at the gate and say, "My husband's
brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform
the duty of a husband's brother to me." 8 Then the elders of his town shall
summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, "I have no desire to marry
her," 9 then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the
elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and declare, "This is
what is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house." 10
Throughout Israel his family shall be known as "the house of him whose sandal
was pulled off." 11 If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of
one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching
out and seizing his genitals, 12 you shall cut off her hand; show no pity. 13
You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, large and small. 14 You
shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, large and small. 15 You
shall have only a full and honest weight; you shall have only a full and honest
measure, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is
giving you. 16 For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are
abhorrent to the LORD your God. 17 Remember what Amalek did to you on your
journey out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way, when you were faint and
weary, and struck down all who lagged behind you; he did not fear God. 19
Therefore when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies on
every hand, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance
to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do
not forget.
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When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is
giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2
you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you
harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it
in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling
for his name. 3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and
say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land
that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us." 4 When the priest takes the
basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God, 5
you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was
my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number,
and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians
treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7 we cried to
the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our
affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt
with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power,
and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this
land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 So now I bring the first of the
fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down
before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. 11 Then you,
together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate
with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.
12 When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year
(which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the
orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13
then you shall say before the LORD your God: "I have removed the sacred portion
from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the
orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you
commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your
commandments: 14 I have not eaten of it while in mourning; I have not removed
any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead. I
have obeyed the LORD my God, doing just as you commanded me. 15 Look down from
your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground
that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors--a land flowing with milk
and honey." 16 This very day the LORD your God is commanding you to observe
these statutes and ordinances; so observe them diligently with all your heart
and with all your soul. 17 Today you have obtained the Lord's agreement: to be
your God; and for you to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his
commandments, and his ordinances, and to obey him. 18 Today the LORD has
obtained your agreement: to be his treasured people, as he promised you, and to
keep his commandments; 19 for him to set you high above all nations that he has
made, in praise and in fame and in honor; and for you to be a people holy to the
LORD your God, as he promised.
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Then Moses and the elders of Israel charged all the people
as follows: Keep the entire commandment that I am commanding you today. 2 On the
day that you cross over the Jordan into the land that the LORD your God is
giving you, you shall set up large stones and cover them with plaster. 3 You
shall write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over, to
enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk
and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you. 4 So when you
have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, about which I am
commanding you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall cover them with plaster. 5
And you shall build an altar there to the LORD your God, an altar of stones on
which you have not used an iron tool. 6 You must build the altar of the LORD
your God of unhewn stones. Then offer up burnt offerings on it to the LORD your
God, 7 make sacrifices of well-being, and eat them there, rejoicing before the
LORD your God. 8 You shall write on the stones all the words of this law very
clearly. 9 Then Moses and the levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying:
Keep silence and hear, O Israel! This very day you have become the people of the
LORD your God. 10 Therefore obey the LORD your God, observing his commandments
and his statutes that I am commanding you today. 11 The same day Moses charged
the people as follows: 12 When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall
stand on Mount Gerizim for the blessing of the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. 13 And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the
curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. 14 Then the Levites shall
declare in a loud voice to all the Israelites: 15 "Cursed be anyone who makes an
idol or casts an image, anything abhorrent to the LORD, the work of an artisan,
and sets it up in secret." All the people shall respond, saying, "Amen!" 16
"Cursed be anyone who dishonors father or mother." All the people shall say,
"Amen!" 17 "Cursed be anyone who moves a neighbor's boundary marker." All the
people shall say, "Amen!" 18 "Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind person on
the road." All the people shall say, "Amen!" 19 "Cursed be anyone who deprives
the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice." All the people shall say,
"Amen!" 20 "Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife, because he has
violated his father's rights." All the people shall say, "Amen!" 21 "Cursed be
anyone who lies with any animal." All the people shall say, "Amen!" 22 "Cursed
be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the
daughter of his mother." All the people shall say, "Amen!" 23 "Cursed be anyone
who lies with his mother-in-law." All the people shall say, "Amen!" 24 "Cursed
be anyone who strikes down a neighbor in secret." All the people shall say,
"Amen!" 25 "Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood." All the
people shall say, "Amen!" 26 "Cursed be anyone who does not uphold the words of
this law by observing them." All the people shall say, "Amen!"
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If you will only obey the LORD your God, by diligently
observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the LORD your God
will set you high above all the nations of the earth; 2 all these blessings
shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the LORD your God: 3 Blessed
shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall
be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your
livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock. 5
Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when
you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7 The LORD will cause
your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out
against you one way, and flee before you seven ways. 8 The LORD will command the
blessing upon you in your barns, and in all that you undertake; he will bless
you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 9 The LORD will establish
you as his holy people, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of
the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 10 All the peoples of the earth shall
see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of
you. 11 The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb,
in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground in the land that
the LORD swore to your ancestors to give you. 12 The LORD will open for you his
rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to
bless all your undertakings. You will lend to many nations, but you will not
borrow. 13 The LORD will make you the head, and not the tail; you shall be only
at the top, and not at the bottom--if you obey the commandments of the LORD your
God, which I am commanding you today, by diligently observing them, 14 and if
you do not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today,
either to the right or to the left, following other gods to serve them. 15 But
if you will not obey the LORD your God by diligently observing all his
commandments and decrees, which I am commanding you today, then all these curses
shall come upon you and overtake you: 16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and
cursed shall you be in the field. 17 Cursed shall be your basket and your
kneading bowl. 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your
ground, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock. 19 Cursed shall
you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. 20 The LORD
will send upon you disaster, panic, and frustration in everything you attempt to
do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the evil of your
deeds, because you have forsaken me. 21 The LORD will make the pestilence cling
to you until it has consumed you off the land that you are entering to possess.
22 The LORD will afflict you with consumption, fever, inflammation, with fiery
heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; they shall pursue you until you
perish. 23 The sky over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you iron.
24 The LORD will change the rain of your land into powder, and only dust shall
come down upon you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 The LORD will cause
you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out against them one way
and flee before them seven ways. You shall become an object of horror to all the
kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses shall be food for every bird of the air
and animal of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away. 27 The
LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with ulcers, scurvy, and itch, of
which you cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness,
blindness, and confusion of mind; 29 you shall grope about at noon as blind
people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find your way; and you
shall be continually abused and robbed, without anyone to help. 30 You shall
become engaged to a woman, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a
house, but not live in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but not enjoy its fruit.
31 Your ox shall be butchered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.
Your donkey shall be stolen in front of you, and shall not be restored to you.
Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, without anyone to help you. 32 Your
sons and daughters shall be given to another people, while you look on; you will
strain your eyes looking for them all day but be powerless to do anything. 33 A
people whom you do not know shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all
your labors; you shall be continually abused and crushed, 34 and driven mad by
the sight that your eyes shall see. 35 The LORD will strike you on the knees and
on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of
your foot to the crown of your head. 36 The LORD will bring you, and the king
whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have
known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. 37 You shall become
an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the
LORD will lead you. 38 You shall carry much seed into the field but shall gather
little in, for the locust shall consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and
dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the
worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your
territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall
drop off. 41 You shall have sons and daughters, but they shall not remain yours,
for they shall go into captivity. 42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground
the cicada shall take over. 43 Aliens residing among you shall ascend above you
higher and higher, while you shall descend lower and lower. 44 They shall lend
to you but you shall not lend to them; they shall be the head and you shall be
the tail. 45 All these curses shall come upon you, pursuing and overtaking you
until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God, by
observing the commandments and the decrees that he commanded you. 46 They shall
be among you and your descendants as a sign and a portent forever. 47 Because
you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and with gladness of heart for the
abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD
will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lack of
everything. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49
The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, to swoop
down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a
grim-faced nation showing no respect to the old or favor to the young. 51 It
shall consume the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you
are destroyed, leaving you neither grain, wine, and oil, nor the increase of
your cattle and the issue of your flock, until it has made you perish. 52 It
shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, in
which you trusted, come down throughout your land; it shall besiege you in all
your towns throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. 53 In the
desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit
of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the LORD your God
has given you. 54 Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will
begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last
of his remaining children, 55 giving to none of them any of the flesh of his
children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the
desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns. 56
She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she
does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food
to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter, 57
begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs, and the
children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of
anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you
in your towns. 58 If you do not diligently observe all the words of this law
that are written in this book, fearing this glorious and awesome name, the LORD
your God, 59 then the LORD will overwhelm both you and your offspring with
severe and lasting afflictions and grievous and lasting maladies. 60 He will
bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were in dread, and
they shall cling to you. 61 Every other malady and affliction, even though not
recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will inflict on you until you are
destroyed. 62 Although once you were as numerous as the stars in heaven, you
shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 And
just as the LORD took delight in making you prosperous and numerous, so the LORD
will take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction; you shall be plucked
off the land that you are entering to possess. 64 The LORD will scatter you
among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall
serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have
known. 65 Among those nations you shall find no ease, no resting place for the
sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes,
and a languishing spirit. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and
day you shall be in dread, with no assurance of your life. 67 In the morning you
shall say, "If only it were evening!" and at evening you shall say, "If only it
were morning!"--because of the dread that your heart shall feel and the sights
that your eyes shall see. 68 The LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, by
a route that I promised you would never see again; and there you shall offer
yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be
no buyer.
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These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded
Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the
covenant that he had made with them at Horeb. 2 Moses summoned all Israel and
said to them: You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land
of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3 the great
trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But to this day
the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to
hear. 5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back
have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out; 6 you have
not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink--so that you may
know that I am the LORD your God. 7 When you came to this place, King Sihon of
Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us for battle, but we defeated
them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the
Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. 9 Therefore diligently observe the
words of this covenant, in order that you may succeed in everything that you do.
10 You stand assembled today, all of you, before the LORD your God--the leaders
of your tribes, your elders, and your officials, all the men of Israel, 11 your
children, your women, and the aliens who are in your camp, both those who cut
your wood and those who draw your water-- 12 to enter into the covenant of the
LORD your God, sworn by an oath, which the LORD your God is making with you
today; 13 in order that he may establish you today as his people, and that he
may be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors, to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 I am making this covenant, sworn by an oath,
not only with you who stand here with us today before the LORD our God, 15 but
also with those who are not here with us today. 16 You know how we lived in the
land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which
you passed. 17 You have seen their detestable things, the filthy idols of wood
and stone, of silver and gold, that were among them. 18 It may be that there is
among you a man or woman, or a family or tribe, whose heart is already turning
away from the LORD our God to serve the gods of those nations. It may be that
there is among you a root sprouting poisonous and bitter growth. 19 All who hear
the words of this oath and bless themselves, thinking in their hearts, "We are
safe even though we go our own stubborn ways" (thus bringing disaster on moist
and dry alike)-- 20 the LORD will be unwilling to pardon them, for the Lord's
anger and passion will smoke against them. All the curses written in this book
will descend on them, and the LORD will blot out their names from under heaven.
21 The LORD will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in
accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
22 The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the
foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that
land and the afflictions with which the LORD has afflicted it-- 23 all its soil
burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to
support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and
Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his fierce anger-- 24 they and indeed all
the nations will wonder, "Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused
this great display of anger?" 25 They will conclude, "It is because they
abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, which he made
with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 They turned and
served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had
not allotted to them; 27 so the anger of the LORD was kindled against that land,
bringing on it every curse written in this book. 28 The LORD uprooted them from
their land in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as
is now the case." 29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the
revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the
words of this law.
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When all these things have happened to you, the blessings
and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all
the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, 2 and return to the LORD
your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all
your soul, just as I am commanding you today, 3 then the LORD your God will
restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all
the peoples among whom the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 Even if you are
exiled to the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you,
and from there he will bring you back. 5 The LORD your God will bring you into
the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make
you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. 6 Moreover, the LORD your
God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you
will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order
that you may live. 7 The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies
and on the adversaries who took advantage of you. 8 Then you shall again obey
the LORD, observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, 9 and
the LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings,
in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of
your soil. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, just as he
delighted in prospering your ancestors, 10 when you obey the LORD your God by
observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law,
because you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your
soul. 11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard
for you, nor is it too far away. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say,
"Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and
observe it?" 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will
cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear
it and observe it?" 14 No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and
in your heart for you to observe. 15 See, I have set before you today life and
prosperity, death and adversity. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD
your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in
his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you
shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land
that you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not
hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare
to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you
are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to
witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings
and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the
LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you
and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give
to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
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When Moses had finished speaking all these words to all
Israel, 2 he said to them: "I am now one hundred twenty years old. I am no
longer able to get about, and the LORD has told me, 'You shall not cross over
this Jordan.' 3 The LORD your God himself will cross over before you. He will
destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua also
will cross over before you, as the LORD promised. 4 The LORD will do to them as
he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he
destroyed them. 5 The LORD will give them over to you and you shall deal with
them in full accord with the command that I have given to you. 6 Be strong and
bold; have no fear or dread of them, because it is the LORD your God who goes
with you; he will not fail you or forsake you." 7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and
said to him in the sight of all Israel: "Be strong and bold, for you are the one
who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their
ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. 8 It is the
LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake
you. Do not fear or be dismayed." 9 Then Moses wrote down this law, and gave it
to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the
LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. 10 Moses commanded them: "Every seventh
year, in the scheduled year of remission, during the festival of booths, 11 when
all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will
choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12 Assemble
the people--men, women, and children, as well as the aliens residing in your
towns--so that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God and to observe
diligently all the words of this law, 13 and so that their children, who have
not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live
in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess." 14 The LORD said
to Moses, "Your time to die is near; call Joshua and present yourselves in the
tent of meeting, so that I may commission him." So Moses and Joshua went and
presented themselves in the tent of meeting, 15 and the LORD appeared at the
tent in a pillar of cloud; the pillar of cloud stood at the entrance to the
tent. 16 The LORD said to Moses, "Soon you will lie down with your ancestors.
Then this people will begin to prostitute themselves to the foreign gods in
their midst, the gods of the land into which they are going; they will forsake
me, breaking my covenant that I have made with them. 17 My anger will be kindled
against them in that day. I will forsake them and hide my face from them; they
will become easy prey, and many terrible troubles will come upon them. In that
day they will say, 'Have not these troubles come upon us because our God is not
in our midst?' 18 On that day I will surely hide my face on account of all the
evil they have done by turning to other gods. 19 Now therefore write this song,
and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, in order that this song
may be a witness for me against the Israelites. 20 For when I have brought them
into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I promised on oath to their
ancestors, and they have eaten their fill and grown fat, they will turn to other
gods and serve them, despising me and breaking my covenant. 21 And when many
terrible troubles come upon them, this song will confront them as a witness,
because it will not be lost from the mouths of their descendants. For I know
what they are inclined to do even now, before I have brought them into the land
that I promised them on oath." 22 That very day Moses wrote this song and taught
it to the Israelites. 23 Then the LORD commissioned Joshua son of Nun and said,
"Be strong and bold, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I
promised them; I will be with you." 24 When Moses had finished writing down in a
book the words of this law to the very end, 25 Moses commanded the Levites who
carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, 26 "Take this book of the
law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God; let it
remain there as a witness against you. 27 For I know well how rebellious and
stubborn you are. If you already have been so rebellious toward the LORD while I
am still alive among you, how much more after my death! 28 Assemble to me all
the elders of your tribes and your officials, so that I may recite these words
in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them. 29 For I
know that after my death you will surely act corruptly, turning aside from the
way that I have commanded you. In time to come trouble will befall you, because
you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger
through the work of your hands." 30 Then Moses recited the words of this song,
to the very end, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:
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Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the earth hear
the words of my mouth. 2 May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense
like the dew; like gentle rain on grass, like showers on new growth. 3 For I
will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! 4 The Rock,
his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit,
just and upright is he; 5 yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with
him, a perverse and crooked generation. 6 Do you thus repay the LORD, O foolish
and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and
established you? 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask
your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When
the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the
boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; 9 the Lord's own
portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. 10 He sustained him in a
desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of his eye. 11 As an eagle stirs up its nest, and
hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them
aloft on its pinions, 12 the LORD alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.
13 He set him atop the heights of the land, and fed him with produce of the
field; he nursed him with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock; 14
curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs and rams; Bashan
bulls and goats, together with the choicest wheat-- you drank fine wine from the
blood of grapes. 15 Jacob ate his fill; Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You grew
fat, bloated, and gorged! He abandoned God who made him, and scoffed at the Rock
of his salvation. 16 They made him jealous with strange gods, with abhorrent
things they provoked him. 17 They sacrificed to demons, not God, to deities they
had never known, to new ones recently arrived, whom your ancestors had not
feared. 18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who
gave you birth. 19 The LORD saw it, and was jealous he spurned his sons and
daughters. 20 He said: I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end
will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no
faithfulness. 21 They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with
their idols. So I will make them jealous with what is no people, provoke them
with a foolish nation. 22 For a fire is kindled by my anger, and burns to the
depths of Sheol; it devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the
foundations of the mountains. 23 I will heap disasters upon them, spend my
arrows against them: 24 wasting hunger, burning consumption, bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them, with venom of things crawling in
the dust. 25 In the street the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers terror,
for young man and woman alike, nursing child and old gray head. 26 I thought to
scatter them and blot out the memory of them from humankind; 27 but I feared
provocation by the enemy, for their adversaries might misunderstand and say,
"Our hand is triumphant; it was not the LORD who did all this." 28 They are a
nation void of sense; there is no understanding in them. 29 If they were wise,
they would understand this; they would discern what the end would be. 30 How
could one have routed a thousand, and two put a myriad to flight, unless their
Rock had sold them, the LORD had given them up? 31 Indeed their rock is not like
our Rock; our enemies are fools. 32 Their vine comes from the vinestock of
Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, their
clusters are bitter; 33 their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of
asps. 34 Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries? 35
Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand, their doom comes swiftly. 36
Indeed the LORD will vindicate his people, have compassion on his servants, when
he sees that their power is gone, neither bond nor free remaining. 37 Then he
will say: Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, 38 who ate
the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their libations? Let them
rise up and help you, let them be your protection! 39 See now that I, even I, am
he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and
no one can deliver from my hand. 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and swear:
As I live forever, 41 when I whet my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on
judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate
me. 42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh--
with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired enemy. 43
Praise, O heavens, his people, worship him, all you gods! For he will avenge the
blood of his children, and take vengeance on his adversaries; he will repay
those who hate him, and cleanse the land for his people. 44 Moses came and
recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua
son of Nun. 45 When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
46 he said to them: "Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness
against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may
diligently observe all the words of this law. 47 This is no trifling matter for
you, but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that
you are crossing over the Jordan to possess." 48 On that very day the LORD
addressed Moses as follows: 49 "Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo,
which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan,
which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession; 50 you shall die there on
the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother
Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin; 51 because both of you
broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the
wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites. 52
Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it--the land
that I am giving to the Israelites."
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This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God,
blessed the Israelites before his death. 2 He said: The LORD came from Sinai,
and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran. With him were
myriads of holy ones; at his right, a host of his own. 3 Indeed, O favorite
among peoples, all his holy ones were in your charge; they marched at your
heels, accepted direction from you. 4 Moses charged us with the law, as a
possession for the assembly of Jacob. 5 There arose a king in Jeshurun, when the
leaders of the people assembled-- the united tribes of Israel. 6 May Reuben
live, and not die out, even though his numbers are few. 7 And this he said of
Judah: O LORD, give heed to Judah, and bring him to his people; strengthen his
hands for him, and be a help against his adversaries. 8 And of Levi he said:
Give to Levi your Thummim, and your Urim to your loyal one, whom you tested at
Massah, with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah; 9 who said of his
father and mother, "I regard them not"; he ignored his kin, and did not
acknowledge his children. For they observed your word, and kept your covenant.
10 They teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law; they place incense
before you, and whole burnt offerings on your altar. 11 Bless, O LORD, his
substance, and accept the work of his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those that hate him, so that they do not rise again. 12 Of Benjamin he said:
The beloved of the LORD rests in safety-- the High God surrounds him all day
long-- the beloved rests between his shoulders. 13 And of Joseph he said:
Blessed by the LORD be his land, with the choice gifts of heaven above, and of
the deep that lies beneath; 14 with the choice fruits of the sun, and the rich
yield of the months; 15 with the finest produce of the ancient mountains, and
the abundance of the everlasting hills; 16 with the choice gifts of the earth
and its fullness, and the favor of the one who dwells on Sinai. Let these come
on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers. 17 A
firstborn bull--majesty is his! His horns are the horns of a wild ox; with them
he gores the peoples, driving them to the ends of the earth; such are the
myriads of Ephraim, such the thousands of Manasseh. 18 And of Zebulun he said:
Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out; and Issachar, in your tents. 19 They call
peoples to the mountain; there they offer the right sacrifices; for they suck
the affluence of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand. 20 And of Gad he
said: Blessed be the enlargement of Gad! Gad lives like a lion; he tears at arm
and scalp. 21 He chose the best for himself, for there a commander's allotment
was reserved; he came at the head of the people, he executed the justice of the
LORD, and his ordinances for Israel. 22 And of Dan he said: Dan is a lion's
whelp that leaps forth from Bashan. 23 And of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali,
sated with favor, full of the blessing of the LORD, possess the west and the
south. 24 And of Asher he said: Most blessed of sons be Asher; may he be the
favorite of his brothers, and may he dip his foot in oil. 25 Your bars are iron
and bronze; and as your days, so is your strength. 26 There is none like God, O
Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, majestic through the
skies. 27 He subdues the ancient gods, shatters the forces of old; he drove out
the enemy before you, and said, "Destroy!" 28 So Israel lives in safety,
untroubled is Jacob's abode in a land of grain and wine, where the heavens drop
down dew. 29 Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the
LORD, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall
come fawning to you, and you shall tread on their backs.
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Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to
the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the LORD showed him the whole
land: Gilead as far as Dan, 2 all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh,
all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, 3 the Negeb, and the
Plain--that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees--as far as Zoar. 4
The LORD said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants'; I have let you see
it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there." 5 Then Moses, the
servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command. 6 He
was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows
his burial place to this day. 7 Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he
died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. 8 The Israelites
wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning
for Moses was ended. 9 Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom,
because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as
the LORD had commanded Moses. 10 Never since has there arisen a prophet in
Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face. 11 He was unequaled for all
the signs and wonders that the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt,
against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, 12 and for all the
mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in
the sight of all Israel.
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