\NormalFont\ShortTitle{Deuteronomy}

{\MT Deuteronomy


\par }\ChapOne{1}{\PP \VerseOne{1}These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain of the Jordan River valley over against Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

\VS{2}It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.

\VS{3}It happened in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the people of Israel, telling them all that Yahweh commanded him concerning them.

\VS{4}This was after Yahweh had attacked Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth at Edrei.

\VS{5}Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to announce these instructions, saying,

\VS{6}“Yahweh our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, 'You have lived long enough in this hill country.

\VS{7}Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all the places near there in the plain of the Jordan River valley, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the Negev, and by the seashore—the land of the Canaanites, and in Lebanon as far as the great river, the Euphrates.

\VS{8}Look, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob—to give to them and to their descendants after them.'


\par }{\PP \VS{9}I spoke to you at that time, saying, 'I am not able to carry you myself alone.

\VS{10}Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and, look, you are today as the multitude of the stars of heaven.

\VS{11}May Yahweh, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are, and bless you, as he has promised you!

\VS{12}But how can I myself alone carry your loads, your burdens, and your disputes?

\VS{13}Take wise men, understanding men, and men of good repute from each tribe, and I will make them heads over you.'

\VS{14}You answered me and said, 'The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.'

\VS{15}So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and men of good repute, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, captains of tens, and officers, tribe by tribe.

\VS{16}I commanded your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is with him.

\VS{17}You will not show partiality to anyone in a dispute; you will hear the small and the great alike. You will not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's. The dispute that is too hard for you, you will bring to me, and I will hear it.'

\VS{18}I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}We journeyed away from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw, on our way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

\VS{20}I said to you, 'You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which Yahweh our God is giving to us.

\VS{21}Look, Yahweh your God has set the land before you; go up, take possession, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you; do not be afraid, neither be discouraged.'

\VS{22}Every one of you came to me and said, 'Let us send men ahead of us, so that they may search out the land for us, and bring us word about the way by which we should attack, and about the cities to which we will come.'

\VS{23}The advice pleased me well; I took twelve men of you, one man for every tribe.

\VS{24}They turned and went up into the hill country, came to the Valley of Eshkol, and scouted it.

\VS{25}They took some of the produce of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. They also brought us word and said, 'It is a good land that Yahweh our God is giving to us.'


\par }{\PP \VS{26}Yet you refused to attack, but rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God.

\VS{27}You complained in your tents and said, “It is because Yahweh hated us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.

\VS{28}Where can we go now? Our brothers have made our heart to melt, saying, 'Those people are bigger and taller than we are; their cities are large and are fortified up to the heavens; moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.'”

\VS{29}Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified, neither be afraid of them.

\VS{30}Yahweh your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you, like everything that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

\VS{31}and also in the wilderness, where you have seen how Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, everywhere you went until you came to this place.'

\VS{32}Yet in spite of this word you did not believe Yahweh your God,

\VS{33}who went before you on the way to find a place for you to make camp, in fire by night and in a cloud by day.


\par }{\PP \VS{34}Yahweh heard the sound of your words and was angry; he swore and said,

\VS{35}'Surely not one of these men of this evil generation will see the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors,

\VS{36}save Caleb son of Jephunneh; he will see it. To him I will give the land that he has stepped on, and to his children, because he has wholly followed Yahweh.'

\VS{37}Also Yahweh was angry with me because of you, saying, 'You also will not go in there;

\VS{38}Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, he will go in there; encourage him, for he will lead Israel to inherit it.

\VS{39}Moreover, your little children, the ones you said would be victims, who today have no knowledge of good or evil—they will go in there. To them I will give it, and they will possess it.

\VS{40}But as for you, turn and take your journey into the wilderness along the way to the Sea of Reeds.'


\par }{\PP \VS{41}Then you answered and said to me, 'We have sinned against Yahweh; we will go up and fight, and we will follow all that Yahweh our God has commanded us to do.' Every man among you put on his weapons of war, and you were ready to attack the hill country.

\VS{42}Yahweh said to me, 'Say to them, “Do not attack and do not fight, for I will not be with you, and you will be defeated by your enemies.'

\VS{43}I spoke to you in this way, but you did not listen. You rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh; you were arrogant and attacked the hill country.

\VS{44}But the Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you like bees, and struck you down in Seir, as far as Hormah.

\VS{45}You returned and wept before Yahweh; but Yahweh did not listen to your voice, nor did he pay attention to you.

\VS{46}So you stayed in Kadesh many days, all the days that you stayed there.



\par }\Chap{2}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by the way to the Sea of Reeds, as Yahweh had spoken to me; we went around Mount Seir for many days.

\VS{2}Yahweh spoke to me, saying,

\VS{3}'You have gone around this mountain long enough; turn northward.

\VS{4}Command the people, saying, “You are to pass through the border of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; they will be afraid of you. Therefore be careful

\VS{5}not to fight with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not even enough for the sole of a foot to step on; for I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

\VS{6}You will purchase food from them for money, so that you may eat; you will also buy water from them for money, so that you may drink.

\VS{7}For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand; he has known your walking through this great wilderness. For these forty years Yahweh your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.”'

\VS{8}So we passed by our brothers, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road, from Elath and from Ezion Geber. Then we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.

\VS{9}Yahweh said to me, 'Do not trouble Moab, and do not fight with them in battle. For I will not give you his land for your own possession, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot, for their possession.'

\VS{10}(The Emites lived there previously, a people as great, as many, and as tall as the Anakim;

\VS{11}these also are considered to be the Rephaim, like the Anakim; but the Moabites call them the Emim.

\VS{12}The Horites also lived in Seir previously, but the descendants of Esau succeeded them. They destroyed them from before them and lived in their place, like Israel did to the land of his possession that Yahweh gave to them.)

\VS{13}“'Now rise up and go over the brook Zered.' So we went over the brook Zered.

\VS{14}Now the days from when we came from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the brook Zered, were thirty-eight years. It was by that time that all that generation of the men fit for fighting were gone from the people, as Yahweh had sworn to them.

\VS{15}Moreover, the hand of Yahweh was against that generation in order to destroy them from the people until they were gone.


\par }{\PP \VS{16}So it happened, when all the men fit for fighting were dead and gone from among the people,

\VS{17}that Yahweh spoke to me, saying,

\VS{18}'You are today to pass over Ar, the border of Moab.

\VS{19}When you come near opposite the people of Ammon, do not trouble them or fight them; for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession; because I have given it to the descendants of Lot as a possession.'”

\VS{20}(That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim lived there previously—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim—

\VS{21}a people as great, as many, and as tall as the Anakim. But Yahweh destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they succeeded them and lived in their place.

\VS{22}This Yahweh also did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them, and the descendants of Esau succeeded them and have lived in their place even until today.

\VS{23}As for the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.)

\VS{24}“'Now rise up, go on your journey, and pass over the Valley of the Arnon; look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it, and fight with him in battle.

\VS{25}Today I will begin to put the fear and terror of you on the peoples that are under the whole sky; they will hear news about you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.'


\par }{\PP \VS{26}I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,

\VS{27}'Let me pass through your land; I will go along the highway; I will turn neither to the right hand nor to the left.

\VS{28}You will sell me food for money, so that I may eat; give me water for money, so that I may drink; only let me pass through on my feet;

\VS{29}as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, and as the Moabites who live in Ar, did for me; until I pass over the Jordan into the land that Yahweh our God is giving us.'

\VS{30}But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us pass by him; for Yahweh your God had hardened his mind and made his heart obstinate, that he might defeat him by your might, which he has now done today.

\VS{31}Yahweh said to me, 'Look, I have begun to deliver up Sihon and his land before you; begin to possess it, in order that you may inherit his land.'

\VS{32}Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.

\VS{33}Yahweh our God gave him over to us and we defeated him and his sons and all his people.

\VS{34}We took all his cities at that time and completely destroyed every city—men and the women and the little ones; we left no survivor.

\VS{35}Only the cattle we took as spoils for ourselves, along with the spoil of the cities that we had taken.

\VS{36}From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, all the way to Gilead, there was not a city too high for us. Yahweh our God gave them into our hands.

\VS{37}It was only to the land of the descendants of Ammon that you did not go, as well as all the side of the Jabbok River, and the cities of the hill country—wherever Yahweh our God had forbidden us to go.



\par }\Chap{3}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan. Og, the king of Bashan, came and attacked us, he and all his people, to fight at Edrei.

\VS{2}Yahweh said to me, 'Do not fear him; for I have given you victory over him and have put all his people and his land under your control. You will do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.'

\VS{3}So Yahweh our God also gave us victory over Og the king of Bashan, and all his people were put under our control. We struck them down until not one of his people remained.

\VS{4}We took all his cities at that time. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

\VS{5}These were all cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; this was besides very many unwalled villages.

\VS{6}We completely destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, completely destroying every city—men and the women and the little ones.

\VS{7}But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities, we took as spoils for ourselves.

\VS{8}At that time we took the land out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan, from the Valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon

\VS{9}(Mount Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir)

\VS{10}and all the cities of the plain, all Gilead, and all Bashan, all the way to Salekah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.”

\VS{11}(For of the remnant of the Rephaim, only Og king of Bashan had remained. Look! His bed was a bed of iron. Was it not in Rabbah, where the descendants of Ammon live? It was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, the way people measure.)


\par }{\PP \VS{12}“This land that we took in possession at that time—from Aroer, that is by the Valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead, and its cities—I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites.

\VS{13}The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh. (All the region of Argob, and all Bashan. The same territory is called the land of Rephaim.

\VS{14}Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took all the region of Argob to the border of the Geshurites and the Maakathites. He called the region, even Bashan, by his own name, Havvoth Jair, to this day.)

\VS{15}I gave Gilead to Machir.

\VS{16}To the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave territory from Gilead to the Valley of the Arnon—the middle of the valley is the territory's border—and to the Jabbok River, which is the border with the descendants of Ammon.

\VS{17}Another of its borders is also the plain of the Jordan River valley, from Kinnereth to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Salt Sea) to the slopes of Mount Pisgah eastward.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}I commanded you at that time, saying, 'Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it; you, all the men of war, will pass over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel.

\VS{19}But your wives, your little ones, and your cattle (I know that you have much cattle), will stay in your cities that I have given you,

\VS{20}until Yahweh gives rest to your brothers, as he has to you, until they also possess the land that Yahweh your God is giving them beyond the Jordan; then will you return, every man of you, to your own property that I have given you.'

\VS{21}I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, 'Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings; Yahweh will do the same to all the kingdoms where you go over.

\VS{22}You will not fear them, for Yahweh your God is the one who will fight for you.'


\par }{\PP \VS{23}I implored Yahweh at that time, saying,

\VS{24}'O Lord Yahweh, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand; for what god is there in heaven or in earth that can do the same works as you have done, and the same mighty acts?

\VS{25}Let me go over, I beg you, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country, and also Lebanon.'

\VS{26}But Yahweh was angry with me because of you; he did not listen to me. Yahweh said to me, 'Let this be enough for you—speak no more to me about this matter:

\VS{27}go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward, northward, southward, and eastward; look with your eyes, for you will not go over the Jordan.

\VS{28}Instead, instruct Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will go over before this people, and he will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.'

\VS{29}So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth Peor.



\par }\Chap{4}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Now, Israel, listen to the laws and the decrees that I am about to teach you, to do them; so that you may live and go in and possess the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

\VS{2}You will not add to the words that I command you, neither will you diminish them, so that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am about to command you.

\VS{3}Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for all the men who followed the Baal of Peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you.

\VS{4}But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you.

\VS{5}Look, I have taught you laws and decrees, as Yahweh my God had commanded me, that you should do so in the midst of the land which you are going into in order to possess it.

\VS{6}Therefore keep them and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear about all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'

\VS{7}For what other great nation is there that has a god so near to them, as Yahweh our God is whenever we call upon him?

\VS{8}What other great nation is there that has laws and decrees so righteous as all this law that I am setting before you today?


\par }{\PP \VS{9}Only pay attention and carefully guard yourself, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen, so that they do not leave your heart for all the days of your life. Instead, make them known to your children and your children's children.

\VS{10}On the day that you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, 'Assemble me the people, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.'

\VS{11}You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.

\VS{12}Yahweh spoke to you out of the middle of the fire; you heard the voice with its words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice.

\VS{13}He declared to you his covenant that he commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments. He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

\VS{14}Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, so that you might do them in the land that you are crossing over to take possession of.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}So take great heed to yourselves—for you saw no kind of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb out of the middle of the fire—

\VS{16}that you do not corrupt yourselves and by making a carved image in the form of any figure, in the likeness of male or female,

\VS{17}the likeness of any animal on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the heavens,

\VS{18}the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

\VS{19}You shall not lift your eyes up to the heavens and look at the sun, the moon, or the stars—all the host of the heavens—and be drawn away to worship them and adore them—those things of which Yahweh your God has given a share all the peoples under the whole sky.

\VS{20}But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of his own inheritance, as you are today.

\VS{21}Yahweh was angry with me because of you; he swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go into that good land, the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance.

\VS{22}Instead, I must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan; but you will go over and possess that good land.

\VS{23}Pay attention to yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything that Yahweh your God has forbidden you to make.

\VS{24}For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.


\par }{\PP \VS{25}When you beget children and children's children, and when you will have been in the land for a long time, and if you corrupt yourselves and make a carved figure in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, to provoke him to anger—

\VS{26}I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from off the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but you will be completely destroyed.

\VS{27}Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away.

\VS{28}There you will serve other gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.

\VS{29}But from there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

\VS{30}When you are in distress, and when all these things will have come on you, in those later days you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice.

\VS{31}For Yahweh your God is a merciful God; he will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers that he swore to them.


\par }{\PP \VS{32}Ask now about the days that are past, which were before your time, since the day that God created man on the earth, ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has been anything so great as this, or has anything like it ever been heard?

\VS{33}Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?

\VS{34}Or has God ever attempted to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as everything that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

\VS{35}To you these things were shown, so that you might know that Yahweh is God, and that there is no one else besides him.

\VS{36}Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, so that he might instruct you; on earth he made you see his great fire; you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.

\VS{37}Because he loved your fathers, he chose their descendants after them, and brought you out of Egypt with his presence, with his great power;

\VS{38}in order to drive out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as today.

\VS{39}Know therefore today, and lay it on your heart, that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no one else.

\VS{40}You will keep his statutes and his commandments that I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you forever.”


\par }{\PP \VS{41}Then Moses selected three cities on the east side of the Jordan,

\VS{42}so that anyone might flee to one of them if he killed another person accidentally, without being his enemy previously. By fleeing to one of these cities, he might survive.

\VS{43}They were: Bezer in the wilderness, the plain country, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.


\par }{\PP \VS{44}This is the law that Moses placed before the people of Israel;

\VS{45}these are the covenant decrees, laws, and other decrees that he spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt,

\VS{46}when they were east of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the people of Israel had defeated when they came out of Egypt.

\VS{47}They took his land as a possession, and the land of Og king of Bashan—these, the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan toward the east.

\VS{48}This territory went from Aroer, on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, to Mount Sion (or Mount Hermon),

\VS{49}and included all of the plain of the Jordan River valley, eastward beyond the Jordan, to the Sea of the Arabah, to the slopes of Mount Pisgah.



\par }\Chap{5}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Moses called to all Israel and said to them, “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and the decrees that I will speak in your ears today, that you may learn them and keep them.

\VS{2}Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

\VS{3}Yahweh did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with us, all of us alive here today.

\VS{4}Yahweh spoke with you face to face on the mount out of the middle of the fire

\VS{5}(I stood between Yahweh and you at that time, to reveal to you his word; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain). Yahweh said,


\par }{\PP \VS{6}'I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}You will have no other gods before me.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}You will not make for yourself a carved figure nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water below.

\VS{9}You will not bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God. I punish the ancestors' wickedness by bringing punishment on the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

\VS{10}and showing covenant faithfulness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.


\par }{\PP \VS{11}You will not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you.

\VS{13}For six days you will labor and do all your work;

\VS{14}but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you will not do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor any foreigner who is within your gates. This is so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

\VS{15}You will call to mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.


\par }{\PP \VS{16}Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God has commanded you to do, that you may live a long time in the land that Yahweh your God gives you, and so that it may go well with you.


\par }{\PP \VS{17}You will not murder.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}You will not commit adultery.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}You will not steal.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}You will not give false witness against your neighbor.


\par }{\PP \VS{21}You will not covet your neighbor's wife, you will not covet your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.'


\par }{\PP \VS{22}These words Yahweh spoke in a loud voice to all your assembly on the mountain out of the middle of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness; he did not add any more words. He wrote them down on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

\VS{23}It came about, when you heard the voice out of the middle of the darkness, while the mountain was burning, that you came near to me—all your elders and the heads of your tribes.

\VS{24}You said, 'Look, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the middle of the fire; we have seen today that when God speaks with people, they can live.

\VS{25}But why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, we will die.

\VS{26}For who besides us is there among all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speak out of the middle of the fire and lived, as we have done?

\VS{27}As for you, you should go and listen to everything that Yahweh our God says; repeat to us everything that Yahweh our God says to you; we will listen to it and obey it.'


\par }{\PP \VS{28}Yahweh heard your words when you spoke to me. He said to me, 'I have heard the words of this people, what they said to you. What they said was good.

\VS{29}Oh, that there were such a heart in them, that they would honor me and always keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their children forever!

\VS{30}Go say to them, “Return to your tents.”

\VS{31}But as for you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes, and the decrees that you will teach them, so that they may keep them in the land that I will give them to possess.'

\VS{32}You will keep, therefore, what Yahweh your God has commanded you; you will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

\VS{33}You will walk in all the ways that Yahweh your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and so that it may go well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that you will possess.



\par }\Chap{6}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Now these are the commandments, statutes, and decrees that Yahweh your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you might keep them in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess;

\VS{2}so that you might honor Yahweh your God, so as to keep all his statutes and commandments that I am commanding you—you, your sons, and your sons' sons, all the days of your lives, so that your days may be prolonged.

\VS{3}Therefore listen to them, Israel, and keep them, so that it may go well with you, so that you may greatly multiply, in a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised you would do.


\par }{\PP \VS{4}Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is one.

\VS{5}You will love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

\VS{6}The words that I am commanding you today will be in your heart;

\VS{7}and you will diligently teach them to your children; you will talk about them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

\VS{8}You will tie them as a sign upon your hand, and they will serve as frontlets between your eyes.

\VS{9}You will write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.


\par }{\PP \VS{10}When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you, with large and very good cities that you did not build,

\VS{11}and houses full of all kinds of good things that you did not make, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, you will eat and be satisfied—

\VS{12}then be careful so that you do not forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

\VS{13}You will honor Yahweh your God; him you will worship, and you will swear by his name.

\VS{14}You will not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you—

\VS{15}for Yahweh your God in the midst of you is a jealous God—if you do, the anger of Yahweh your God will be kindled against you and he will destroy you from the surface of the earth.


\par }{\PP \VS{16}You will not test Yahweh your God as you tested him at Massah.

\VS{17}You will diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, his solemn commands, and his statutes, that he has commanded you.

\VS{18}You will do what is right and good in the sight of Yahweh, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land that Yahweh swore to your fathers,

\VS{19}to drive out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has said.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What are the covenant decrees, the statutes, and the other decrees that Yahweh our God commanded you?'

\VS{21}then you will say to your son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt; Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand,

\VS{22}and he displayed signs and wonders, great and severe, on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;

\VS{23}and he brought us out from there, so that he might bring us in, to give us the land that he swore to our fathers.

\VS{24}Yahweh commanded us to always keep all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God for our good, so that he might keep us alive, as we are today.

\VS{25}If we keep all these commands before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us, this will be our righteousness.'



\par }\Chap{7}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you go to possess, he will drive out many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—seven nations greater and mightier than you.

\VS{2}It is Yahweh your God who gives them over to you when you defeat them, and then you must completely destroy them. You will make no covenant with them, and show them no mercy.

\VS{3}Neither will you arrange any marriages with them. You will not give your daughters to their sons, and you will not take their daughters for your sons.

\VS{4}For they will turn away your sons from following me, so that they may worship other gods. So the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and he will destroy you quickly.

\VS{5}This is how you will deal with them: You will break down their altars, dash their stone pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their cast idols.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}For you are a nation that is set apart to Yahweh your God. He has chosen you to be a people for him to possess, more than all the other peoples that are on the face of the earth.

\VS{7}Yahweh did not set his love upon you or choose you because you were more in number than any people—for you were the fewest of all peoples—

\VS{8}but because he loves you, and he wished to keep the oath that he had sworn to your fathers. This is why Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

\VS{9}Therefore know that Yahweh your God—he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenants and faithfulness for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments,

\VS{10}but repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them; he will not be lenient on whoever hates him; he will repay him to his face.

\VS{11}You will therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the decrees that I command you today, so that you will do them.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}If you listen to these decrees, and keep and do them, it will happen that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the faithfulness that he swore to your fathers.

\VS{13}He will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the multiplication of your cattle and the young of your flocks, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.

\VS{14}You will be blessed more than all other peoples; there will not be a childless male or a barren female among you or among your cattle.

\VS{15}Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; none of the evil diseases of Egypt that you have known will he put on you, but he will put them on all those who hate you.

\VS{16}You will consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give over to you, and your eye will not pity them. You will not worship their gods, for that will be a trap for you.


\par }{\PP \VS{17}If you say in your heart, 'These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?'—

\VS{18}do not be afraid of them; you will call to mind what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt;

\VS{19}the great sufferings that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm by which Yahweh your God brought you out. Yahweh your God will do the same to all the peoples whom you fear.

\VS{20}Moreover, Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left and who hide themselves from you perish from your presence.

\VS{21}You will not be frightened at them, for Yahweh your God is among you, a great and fearsome God.

\VS{22}Yahweh your God will drive out those nations before you little by little. You will not defeat them all at once, or the wild animals would become very many around you.

\VS{23}But Yahweh your God will give you victory over them when you meet them in battle; he will greatly confuse them until they are destroyed.

\VS{24}He will put their kings under your power, and you will make their name perish from under heaven. No one will be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.

\VS{25}You will burn the carved figures of their gods—do not covet the silver or the gold that covers them and take it for yourself, because if you do, you will become trapped by it—for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

\VS{26}You will not bring any abomination into your house and start to worship it. You will utterly detest and abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.



\par }\Chap{8}{\PP \VerseOne{1}You must keep all the commands that I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers.

\VS{2}You will call to mind all the ways that Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order that he might humble you, that he might test you to know what was in your heart, as to whether you would keep his commandments or not.

\VS{3}He humbled you, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had not known and which your fathers had not known. He did that to make you know that it is not by bread alone that people live; rather, it is by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh that people live.

\VS{4}Your clothing did not wear out and fall off you, and your feet did not swell up during those forty years.

\VS{5}You will think about in your heart, how, as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.

\VS{6}You will keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, so that you might walk in his ways and honor him.

\VS{7}For Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out into valleys and among hills;

\VS{8}a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey.

\VS{9}It is a land in which you will eat bread without lack, and where you will not go without anything; a land whose stones are made of iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.

\VS{10}You will eat and be full, and you will bless Yahweh your God for the good land that he has given you.


\par }{\PP \VS{11}Be careful that you do not forget Yahweh your God, and that you do not neglect his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes that I am commanding you today,

\VS{12}otherwise, when you eat and are full, and when you build good houses and live in them, your heart will be lifted up.

\VS{13}Be careful when your herds and flocks multiply and when your silver and gold increase, and all that you have is multiplied,

\VS{14}then your heart becomes lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

\VS{15}Do not forget him who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the rock of flint.

\VS{16}He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors had never known, so that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end,

\VS{17}but you may say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand acquired all this wealth.'

\VS{18}But you will call to mind Yahweh your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth; that he may establish his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is today.

\VS{19}It will happen that, if you will forget Yahweh your God and walk after other gods, worship them, and reverence them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish.

\VS{20}Like the nations that Yahweh is making to perish before you, so will you perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.



\par }\Chap{9}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Hear, Israel; you are about to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, and cities that are great and fortified up to heaven,

\VS{2}a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard people say, 'Who can stand before the sons of Anak?'

\VS{3}Know therefore today that Yahweh your God is he who goes over before you like a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you; so will you drive them out and make them to perish quickly, as Yahweh has said to you.

\VS{4}Do not say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, 'It was because of my righteousness that Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land,' for it was because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is driving them out from before you.

\VS{5}It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that your God is driving them out from before you, and so that he may make come true the word that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}Know therefore, that Yahweh your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

\VS{7}Remember and do not forget how you provoked Yahweh your God to anger in the wilderness; from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.

\VS{8}Also at Horeb you provoked Yahweh to anger, and Yahweh was angry enough with you to destroy you.

\VS{9}When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh made with you, I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

\VS{10}Yahweh gave to me the two tablets of stone written with his finger; on them was written everything just like all the words that Yahweh announced to you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire on the day of the assembly.

\VS{11}It happened at the end of those forty days and forty nights that Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

\VS{12}Yahweh said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside out of the path that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast figure.'

\VS{13}Furthermore, Yahweh spoke to me and said, 'I have seen this people; they are a stubborn people.

\VS{14}Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.'

\VS{15}So I turned around and came down the mountain, and the mountain was burning. The two tablets of the covenant were in my hands.

\VS{16}I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had molded for yourselves a calf. You had quickly turned aside out of the path that Yahweh had commanded you.

\VS{17}I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands. I broke them before your eyes.

\VS{18}Again I lay facedown before Yahweh for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin that you had committed, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, so as to provoke him to anger.

\VS{19}For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yahweh was angry enough against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also.

\VS{20}Yahweh was very angry with Aaron so as to destroy him; I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

\VS{21}I took your sin, the calf that you had made, and burned it, beat it, and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the stream that came down from the mountain.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you provoked Yahweh to wrath.

\VS{23}When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea and said, 'Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,' then you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you did not believe or listen to his voice.

\VS{24}You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you.


\par }{\PP \VS{25}So I lay facedown before Yahweh those forty days and forty nights, because he had said that he would destroy you.

\VS{26}I prayed to Yahweh and said, 'O Lord Yahweh, do not destroy your people or your inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness, which you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

\VS{27}Call to mind your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin,

\VS{28}so that the land from where you brought us should say, “Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land that he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.”

\VS{29}Yet they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great strength and by the display of your power.'



\par }\Chap{10}{\PP \VerseOne{1}At that time Yahweh said to me, 'Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.

\VS{2}I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you will put them in the ark.'

\VS{3}So I made an ark of acacia wood, and I carved two tablets of stone like the first, and I went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand.

\VS{4}He wrote on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Commandments which Yahweh had spoken to you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire on the day of the assembly; then Yahweh gave them to me.

\VS{5}I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; there they are, as Yahweh commanded me.”

\VS{6}(The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; Eleazar, his son, served in the priest's office in his place.

\VS{7}From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.

\VS{8}At that time Yahweh chose the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, to stand before Yahweh to serve him, and to bless people in his name, as today.

\VS{9}Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance of land with his brothers; Yahweh is his inheritance, as Yahweh your God spoke to him.)

\VS{10}“I stayed on the mountain as at the first time, forty days and forty nights. Yahweh listened to me that time also; Yahweh did not wish to destroy you.

\VS{11}Yahweh said to me, 'Arise, go before the people to lead them on their journey; they will go in and possess the land that I swore to their ancestors to give to them.'


\par }{\PP \VS{12}Now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, except to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to worship Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

\VS{13}to keep the commandments of Yahweh, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today for your own good?

\VS{14}Behold, to Yahweh your God belongs heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that is in them.

\VS{15}Only Yahweh took pleasure in your fathers so as to love them, and he chose you, their descendants, after them, more than any of the other peoples, as he does today.

\VS{16}Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stubborn no longer.

\VS{17}For Yahweh your God, he is God of gods and Lord of masters, the great God, the mighty one and the fearsome one, who favors no one and takes no bribes.

\VS{18}He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and he shows love for the foreigner by giving him food and clothing.

\VS{19}Therefore love the foreigner; for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

\VS{20}You will fear Yahweh your God; him will you worship. To him you must cling, and by his name will you swear.

\VS{21}He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and fearsome things, which your eyes have seen.

\VS{22}Your fathers went down into Egypt as seventy persons; now Yahweh your God has made you as many as the stars of the heavens.



\par }\Chap{11}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Therefore you will love Yahweh your God and always keep his instructions, his statutes, his decrees, and his commandments.

\VS{2}Notice that I am not speaking to your children, who have not known nor have they seen the punishment of Yahweh your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, or his outstretched arm,

\VS{3}the signs and deeds that he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to all his land.

\VS{4}Neither did they see what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, or to their chariots, how he made the water of the Sea of Reeds overwhelm them as they pursued after you, and how Yahweh has destroyed them until today,

\VS{5}or what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place.

\VS{6}They had not seen what Yahweh had done to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the middle of all Israel.

\VS{7}But your eyes have seen all the great works of Yahweh that he did.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}Therefore keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land where you are going over to possess it,

\VS{9}and that you may prolong your days in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

\VS{10}For the land, where you go in to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt, from where you came, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot, like a garden of herbs;

\VS{11}but the land, where you go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of the heavens,

\VS{12}a land that Yahweh your God cares for; the eyes of Yahweh your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.


\par }{\PP \VS{13}It will happen, if you will listen diligently to my commandments that I command you today, to love Yahweh your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

\VS{14}that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.

\VS{15}I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be full.

\VS{16}Pay attention to yourselves so that your heart is not deceived, and you turn aside and worship other gods and bow down to them;

\VS{17}so that the anger of Yahweh is not kindled against you; and so that he does not shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain, and the land will not yield its fruit, and so that you perish quickly from off the good land that Yahweh is giving you.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}Therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and soul, bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be as frontlets between your eyes.

\VS{19}You will teach them to your children and talk about them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

\VS{20}You will write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates,

\VS{21}that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors to give them for as long as the heavens are above the earth.

\VS{22}For if you diligently keep all these commandments that I am commanding you, so as to do them, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him,

\VS{23}then Yahweh will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves.

\VS{24}Every place where the sole of your foot will tread will be yours; from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, to the western sea will be your border.

\VS{25}No man will be able to stand before you. Yahweh your God will lay the fear of you and the terror of you upon all the land that you tread on, as he has said to you.


\par }{\PP \VS{26}Look, I set before you today a blessing and a curse:

\VS{27}the blessing, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you today,

\VS{28}and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, but turn aside from the way that I command you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

\VS{29}It will happen, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, that you will set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal.

\VS{30}Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the western road, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?

\VS{31}For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to possess the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, and you will possess it and live in it.

\VS{32}You will keep all the statutes and the decrees that I set before you today.



\par }\Chap{12}{\PP \VerseOne{1}These are the statutes and the decrees that you will keep in the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth.

\VS{2}You will surely destroy all the places where the nations that you will dispossess worshiped their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.

\VS{3}You must break down their altars, dash in pieces their stone pillars, and burn their Asherah poles. You must cut down the carved figures of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.

\VS{4}You will not worship Yahweh your God like that.

\VS{5}But to the place that Yahweh your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name, that will be the place where he lives, and it is there that you will go.

\VS{6}It is there that you will bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, and the offerings presented by your hand, your offerings for vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

\VS{7}It is there that you will eat before Yahweh your God and rejoice about everything that you have put your hand to, you and your households, where Yahweh your God has blessed you.

\VS{8}You will not do all the things that we are doing here today; now everyone is doing whatever is right in his own eyes;

\VS{9}for you have not yet come to the rest, to the inheritance that Yahweh your God is giving you.

\VS{10}But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that Yahweh your God is causing you to inherit, and he will give you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live in safety.

\VS{11}Then to the place where Yahweh your God will choose to cause his name to live there—there you will bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, and the offerings presented by your hand, and all your choice offerings for vows that you will vow to Yahweh.

\VS{12}You will rejoice before Yahweh your God—you, your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your female servants, and the Levites who are within your gate, because he has no portion or inheritance among you.

\VS{13}Pay attention to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see;

\VS{14}but it is at the place that Yahweh will choose among one of your tribes that you will offer your burnt offerings, and there you will do everything that I command you.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}However, you may kill and eat animals within all your gates, as you wish, receiving the blessing of Yahweh your God for all that he has given you; the unclean and the clean persons both may eat of it, animals such as the gazelle and the deer.

\VS{16}But you will not eat the blood; you will pour it out on the earth like water.

\VS{17}You may not eat within your gates from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or flock; and you may not eat any of the meat you sacrifice along with any of your vows that you make, nor that of your freewill offerings, nor that of the offering you present with your hand.

\VS{18}Instead, you will eat them before Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh your God will choose—you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; you will rejoice before Yahweh your God about everything to which you put your hand.

\VS{19}Pay attention to yourself so that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live on your land.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}When Yahweh your God enlarges your borders, as he has promised you, and you say, 'I will eat flesh,' because of your desire to eat meat, you may eat meat, as your soul desires.

\VS{21}If the place that Yahweh your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, then you will kill some of your herd and your flock that Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you; you may eat within your gates, as your soul desires.

\VS{22}Like the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you will eat of it; the unclean and the clean persons may eat of it alike.

\VS{23}Only be sure that you do not consume the blood, for the blood is the life; you will not eat the life with the meat.

\VS{24}You will not eat it; you will pour it out on the earth like water.

\VS{25}You will not eat it, so that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, when you will do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.

\VS{26}But the things that belong to Yahweh that you have and the offerings for your vows—you will take these and go to the place that Yahweh chooses.

\VS{27}There you will offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of Yahweh your God; the blood of your sacrifices will be poured out on the altar of Yahweh your God, and you will eat the flesh.

\VS{28}Observe and listen to all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the eyes of Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{29}When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from before you, when you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them, and live in their land,

\VS{30}pay attention to yourself that you are not trapped into following them, after they are destroyed from before you—trapped into investigating their gods, into asking, 'How do these nations worship their gods? I will do the same.'

\VS{31}You must not worship Yahweh your God in that way, for everything that is an abomination to Yahweh, things that he hates—they have done these with their gods; they even burn their sons and their daughters in fire for their gods.


\par }{\PP \VS{32}Whatever I command you, observe it. Do not add to it or take away from it.



\par }\Chap{13}{\PP \VerseOne{1}If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and if he gives you a sign or a wonder,

\VS{2}and if the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you and said, 'Let us go after other gods, that you have not known, and let us worship them,'

\VS{3}do not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

\VS{4}You will walk after Yahweh your God, honor him, keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and you will worship him and cling to him.

\VS{5}That prophet or that dreamer of dreams will be put to death, because he has spoken rebellion against Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and who redeemed you out of the house of bondage. That prophet wants to draw you out of the way in which Yahweh your God commanded you to walk. So put away the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}Suppose that your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is to you like your own soul, secretly entices you and says, 'Let us go and worship other gods that you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors—

\VS{7}any of the gods of the peoples that are round about you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth.'

\VS{8}You must not give in to him or listen to him, and you must not permit your eye to pity him, and you must not spare him or conceal him.

\VS{9}Instead, you will surely kill him; your hand will be the first on him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

\VS{10}You will stone him to death with stones, because he has tried to draw you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

\VS{11}All Israel will hear and fear, and will not continue to do this kind of wickedness among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}If you hear anyone say about one of your cities, that Yahweh your God gives you to live in:

\VS{13}Some wicked fellows have gone out from among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city and said, 'Let us go and worship other gods that you have not known.'

\VS{14}Then you will examine the evidence, make search, and investigate it thoroughly. When you discover that it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you, then you will take action.

\VS{15}You will surely attack the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, completely destroy it and all the people who are in it, along with its livestock, with the edge of the sword.

\VS{16}You will gather all the spoil from it into the middle of its street and will burn the city, as well as all its spoil—for Yahweh your God. The city will be a heap of ruins forever; it must never be built again.

\VS{17}None of those things set apart for destruction must stick in your hand. This must be the case, so that Yahweh will turn from the fierceness of his anger, show you mercy, have compassion on you, and make you increase in numbers, as he has sworn to your fathers.

\VS{18}He will do this because you are listening to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep all his commandments that I am commanding you today, to do that which is right in the eyes of Yahweh your God.



\par }\Chap{14}{\PP \VerseOne{1}You are the people of Yahweh your God. Do not cut yourselves, nor shave any part of your face for the dead.

\VS{2}For you are a nation that is set apart to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, more than all peoples that are on the surface of the earth.


\par }{\PP \VS{3}You must not eat any abominable thing.

\VS{4}These are the animals that you may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat,

\VS{5}the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, and ibex, and the antelope, and the mountain sheep.

\VS{6}You may eat any animals that parts the hoof, that is, that has the hoof divided in two, and that chews the cud.

\VS{7}Nevertheless, you must not eat some animals that chew the cud or that have the hoof divided in two: the camel, the rabbit, and the rock badger; because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, they are unclean to you.

\VS{8}The pig is unclean to you as well because he parts the hoof but does not chew the cud; he is unclean to you. Do not eat pig meat, and do not touch their carcasses.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}Of these things that are in water you may eat: whatever has fins and scales;

\VS{10}but whatever has no fins and scales you must not eat; they are unclean to you.


\par }{\PP \VS{11}All clean birds you may eat.

\VS{12}But these are the birds that you must not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey,

\VS{13}the red kite and black kite, any kind of falcon.

\VS{14}You must not eat any kind of raven,

\VS{15}and the ostrich, and the night hawk, the sea gull, any kind of hawk,

\VS{16}the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,

\VS{17}the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant.

\VS{18}You must not eat the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.

\VS{19}All winged, swarming things are unclean to you; they must not be eaten.

\VS{20}You may eat all clean flying things.


\par }{\PP \VS{21}You must not eat of anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the foreigner who is within your towns, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a nation that is set apart to Yahweh your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}You must surely tithe all the yield of your seed, that which comes out from the field year after year.

\VS{23}You must eat before Yahweh your God, in the place that he will choose as his sanctuary, the tithe of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock; that you may learn to always honor Yahweh your God.

\VS{24}If the journey is too long for you so that you are not able to carry it, because the place that Yahweh your God will choose as his sanctuary is too far from you, then, when Yahweh God blesses you,

\VS{25}you will convert the offering into money, tie up the money in your hand, and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose.

\VS{26}There you will spend the money for whatever you desire: for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever you desire; you will eat there before Yahweh your God, and you will rejoice, you and your household.

\VS{27}The Levite who is within your gates—do not forsake him, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.


\par }{\PP \VS{28}At the end of every three years you will present all the tithe of your produce in the same year, and you will store it up within your gates;

\VS{29}and the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, will come and eat and be satisfied. Do this so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.



\par }\Chap{15}{\PP \VerseOne{1}At the end of every seven years, you must cancel debts.

\VS{2}This is the manner of the release: Every creditor will cancel that which he has lent to his neighbor; he will not demand it from his neighbor or his brother because Yahweh's cancellation of debts has been proclaimed.

\VS{3}From a foreigner you may demand it; but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand must release.

\VS{4}However, there should be no poor among you (for Yahweh will surely bless you in the land that he gives you as an inheritance to possess),

\VS{5}if only you diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep all these commandments that I am commanding you today.

\VS{6}For Yahweh your God will bless 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.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, within any of your gates in your land that Yahweh your God is giving you, you must not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother;

\VS{8}but you must surely open your hand to him and surely lend him sufficient for his need.

\VS{9}Be careful not to have a wicked thought in your heart, saying, 'The seventh year, the year of release, is near,' so that you will not be stingy in regard to your poor brother and give him nothing; he might cry out to Yahweh about you, and it would be sin for you.

\VS{10}You must surely give to him, and your heart must not be sorry when you give to him, because in return for this Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to.

\VS{11}For the poor will never cease to exist in the land; therefore I command you and say, 'You must surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor in your land.'


\par }{\PP \VS{12}If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let him go free from you.

\VS{13}When you let him go free from you, you must not let him go empty-handed.

\VS{14}You must liberally provide for him out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As Yahweh your God has blessed you, you must give to him.

\VS{15}You must remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that Yahweh your God redeemed you; therefore I am commanding you today to do this.

\VS{16}It will happen that if he says to you, 'I will not go away from you,' because he loves you and your house, and because he is well off with you,

\VS{17}then you must take an awl and thrust it through his ear to a door, and he will be your servant for life. You must do the same with your female servant.

\VS{18}It must not seem difficult for you to let him go free from you, because he has served you for six years and given twice the value of a hired person. Yahweh your God will bless you in all that you do.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}All the firstborn males in your herd and your flock you must set apart to Yahweh your God. You will do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.

\VS{20}You must eat the firstborn before Yahweh your God year by year in the place that Yahweh will choose, you and your household.

\VS{21}If it has any blemish—for example, if it is lame or blind, or has any blemish whatever—you must not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God.

\VS{22}You will eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean persons alike must eat it, as you would eat a gazelle or a deer.

\VS{23}Only you must not eat its blood; you must pour its blood out on the ground like water.



\par }\Chap{16}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, for in the month of Aviv Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

\VS{2}You will sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God with some of the flock and the herd in the place that Yahweh will choose as his sanctuary.

\VS{3}You will eat no leavened bread with it; seven days will you eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. Do this all the days of your life so that you may call to mind the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

\VS{4}No yeast must be seen among you within all your borders during seven days; nor must any of the meat that you sacrifice in the evening on the first day remain until the morning.

\VS{5}You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your city gates that Yahweh your God is giving you.

\VS{6}Instead, sacrifice at the place that Yahweh your God will choose as his sanctuary. There you will perform the sacrifice of the Passover in the evening at the going down of the sun, at the time of year that you came out of Egypt.

\VS{7}You must roast it and eat it at the place that Yahweh your God will choose; in the morning you will turn and go to your tents.

\VS{8}For six days you will eat unleavened bread; on the seventh day there will be a solemn assembly for Yahweh your God; on that day you must do no work.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}You will count seven weeks for yourselves; from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you must start counting seven weeks.

\VS{10}You must keep the Festival of Weeks for Yahweh your God with the contribution of a freewill offering from your hand that you will give, according as Yahweh your God has blessed you.

\VS{11}You will rejoice before Yahweh your God—you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your city gates, and the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that Yahweh your God will choose for his sanctuary.

\VS{12}You will call to mind that you were a slave in Egypt; you must observe and do these statutes.


\par }{\PP \VS{13}You must keep the Festival of Shelters for seven days after you have gathered in the harvest from your threshing floor and from your winepress.

\VS{14}You will rejoice during your festival—you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, and the foreigner, and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates.

\VS{15}For seven days you must observe the festival for Yahweh your God at the place that Yahweh will choose, because Yahweh your God will bless you in all your harvest and all the work of your hands, and you must be completely joyful.

\VS{16}Three times in a year all your males must appear before Yahweh 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 Shelters. No one will appear before Yahweh empty-handed;

\VS{17}instead, every man will give as he is able, that you might know the blessing that Yahweh your God has given to you.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}You must make judges and officers within all your city gates that Yahweh your God is giving you; they will be taken from each of your tribes, and they must judge the people with righteous judgment.

\VS{19}You must not take justice away by force; you must not show partiality nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.

\VS{20}You must follow after justice, after justice alone, so that you may live and inherit the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.


\par }{\PP \VS{21}You must not set up for yourselves an Asherah, any sort of pole, beside the altar of Yahweh your God that you will make for yourself.

\VS{22}Neither must you set up for yourself any sacred stone pillar, which Yahweh your God hates.



\par }\Chap{17}{\PP \VerseOne{1}You must not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep in which is any blemish or anything bad, for that would be an abomination to Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{2}If there is found among you, within any of your city gates that Yahweh your God is giving you, any man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God and transgresses his covenant,

\VS{3}anyone who has gone and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, either the sun, the moon, or any of the host of heaven—nothing that I have commanded—

\VS{4}and if you are told about this, or if you have heard of it, then you must make a careful investigation. If it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, this is what you should do.

\VS{5}You must bring that man or woman, who has done this evil thing, to your city gates, that very man or woman, and you must stone that person to death.

\VS{6}At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, will he who must die be put to death; but at the mouth of only one witness he must not be put to death.

\VS{7}The hand of the witnesses must be the first to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people; and you will remove the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}If a matter arises that is too hard for you to judge—perhaps a question of murder or accidental death, of one person's right and another person's right, or a question of one kind of harm done, or another kind of matter, matters of controversy within your city gates—then you must go up to the place that Yahweh your God will choose as his sanctuary.

\VS{9}You must go to the priests, the descendants of Levi, and to the judge who will be serving at that time; you will seek their advice, and they will give you the verdict.

\VS{10}You must follow the law given to you at the place Yahweh will choose as his sanctuary. You will be careful to do everything that they direct you to do.

\VS{11}Follow the law they teach you, and do according to the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right hand or to the left.

\VS{12}Anyone who acts arrogantly, in not listening to the priest who is standing to serve before Yahweh your God, or in not listening to the judge—that man will die; you will put away the evil from Israel.

\VS{13}All the people must hear and fear, and act arrogantly no more.


\par }{\PP \VS{14}When you have come to the land that Yahweh your God gives you, and when you take possession of it and begin to live in it, and then you say, 'I will set a king over myself, like all the nations that are round about me,'

\VS{15}then you must surely set as king over yourself someone whom Yahweh your God will choose. You must set as king over yourself someone from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner, who is not your brother, over yourself.

\VS{16}But he must not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt so that he may multiply horses, for Yahweh had said to you, 'You will never return that way again.'

\VS{17}He must not take many wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn away. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself in a scroll a copy of this law, from the law that is before the priests, who are Levites.

\VS{19}The scroll must be with him, and he must read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to honor Yahweh his God, so as to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to observe them.

\VS{20}He must do this so that his heart is not lifted up above his brothers, and so that he does not turn away from the commandments, to the right hand or to the left; for the purpose that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, among Israel.



\par }\Chap{18}{\PP \VerseOne{1}The priests, who are Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, will have no portion nor inheritance with Israel; they must eat the offerings of Yahweh made by fire as their inheritance.

\VS{2}They must have no inheritance among their brothers; Yahweh is their inheritance, as he said to them.

\VS{3}This is the share given to the priests, given to them from the people who offer a sacrifice, whether it be an oxen or a sheep: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the inner parts.

\VS{4}The firstfruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you must give him.

\VS{5}For Yahweh your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to serve in the name of Yahweh, him and his sons forever.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}If a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel from where he is living, and desires with all his soul to come to the place Yahweh will choose,

\VS{7}then he must serve in the name of Yahweh his God as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before Yahweh.

\VS{8}They must have similar portions to eat, besides of what comes of the sale of his family's inheritance.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}When you have come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, you must not learn to observe the abominations of those nations.

\VS{10}There must not be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or his daughter in the fire, anyone who uses divination or tells fortunes, or reads signs found in a cup, or engages in witchcraft,

\VS{11}any charmer, anyone who conjurs up spirits, or one who casts spells, or who talks with spirits of the dead.

\VS{12}For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh; it is because of these abominations that Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you.

\VS{13}You must be blameless before Yahweh your God.

\VS{14}For these nations that you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery and divination; but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do so.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, one of your brothers, like me. You must listen to him.

\VS{16}This is what you asked from Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let us not hear again the voice of Yahweh our God, nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.'

\VS{17}Yahweh said to me, 'What they have said is good.

\VS{18}I will raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers, just like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him.

\VS{19}It will happen that if anyone does not listen to the words of mine that he speaks in my name, I will require it of him.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}But the prophet who speaks a word arrogantly in my name, a word that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that very prophet must die.'

\VS{21}This is what you must say in your heart: 'How will we recognize a message that Yahweh has not spoken?'

\VS{22}You will recognize a message that Yahweh has spoken when a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh. If that thing does not occur nor happen, then that is something that Yahweh has not spoken and the prophet has spoken it arrogantly, and you must not be afraid of him.



\par }\Chap{19}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations, those whose land Yahweh your God is giving you, and when you come after them and live in their cities and houses,

\VS{2}you must select three cities for yourself in the middle of your land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess.

\VS{3}You must build a road and divide the borders of your land into three parts, the land that Yahweh your God is causing you to inherit, so that everyone who kills another person may flee there.


\par }{\PP \VS{4}This is the law for the one who kills another and who flees there to live—anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, and did not previously hate him.

\VS{5}For example, if a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his chops with the ax to cut down a tree, and the ax head slips off of the handle and strikes his neighbor and kills him—then that man must flee to one of these cities and save his life.

\VS{6}Otherwise the avenger of blood might go after the one who took a life, and in the heat of his anger overtake him, if the distance is too great, strike him and kill him, even though that man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.

\VS{7}Therefore I command you to select three cities for yourself.

\VS{8}If Yahweh your God enlarges your borders, as he has sworn to your ancestors to do, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your ancestors;

\VS{9}if you keep all these commandments to do them, which I am commanding you today—commandments to love Yahweh your God and to always walk in his ways, then you must add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.

\VS{10}Do this so that innocent blood is not shed in the midst of the land that Yahweh your God is giving you for as an inheritance, so that no bloodguilt may be on you.


\par }{\PP \VS{11}But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, and mortally wounds him so that he dies, and if he then flees into one of these cities—

\VS{12}then the elders of his city must send and bring him back from there, and turn him over into the hand of the responsible relative, so that he may die.

\VS{13}Your eye must not pity him; instead, you must eradicate the bloodguilt from Israel, that it may go well with you.


\par }{\PP \VS{14}You must not remove your neighbor's landmark that they set in place a long time ago, in your inheritance that you will inherit, in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}One sole witness must not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any matter that he sins; at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, must any matter be confirmed.

\VS{16}Suppose that an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing.

\VS{17}Then both men, the ones between whom the controversy exists, must stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days.

\VS{18}The judges must make diligent inquiries; see, if the witness is a false witness and has testified falsely against his brother,

\VS{19}then must you do to him, as he had wished to do to his brother; and you will remove the evil from among you.

\VS{20}Then those who remain will hear and fear, and will from then on commit no longer any such evil among you.

\VS{21}Your eyes must not pity; life will pay for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.



\par }\Chap{20}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When you march out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, chariots, and a people more numerous than you, you must not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God is with you, he who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

\VS{2}When you are about to enter into battle, the priest must approach and speak to the people.

\VS{3}He must say to them, 'Listen, Israel, you are going to battle against your enemies. Do not let your hearts faint. Do not fear or tremble. Do not be afraid of them.

\VS{4}For Yahweh your God is the one who is going with you to fight for you against your enemies and to save you.'

\VS{5}The officers must speak to the people and say, 'What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man dedicates it.

\VS{6}Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go home, so he will not die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit.

\VS{7}What man is there who is engaged to marry a woman but has not yet married her? Let him go home so that he does not die in battle and another man marries her.'

\VS{8}The officers must speak further to the people and say, 'What man is there who is fearful or fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, so that his brother's heart does not melt like his own heart.'

\VS{9}When the officers have finished speaking to the people, they must appoint commanders over them.


\par }{\PP \VS{10}When you march up to attack a city, make those people an offer of peace.

\VS{11}If they accept your offer and open their gates to you, all the people who are found in it must become forced labor for you and must serve you.

\VS{12}But if it makes no offer of peace to you, but instead makes war against you, then you must besiege it,

\VS{13}and when Yahweh your God gives you victory and puts them under your control, you must kill every man in the town.

\VS{14}But the women, the little ones, the cattle, and everything that is in the city, and all its spoil, you will take as booty for yourself. You will consume the booty of your enemies, whom Yahweh your God has given to you.

\VS{15}You must act in this way toward all the cities that are very far from you, cities that are not of the cities of these following nations.

\VS{16}In the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must save alive nothing that breathes.

\VS{17}Instead, you must completely destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you.

\VS{18}Do this so that they do not teach you to act in any of their abominable ways, as they have done with their gods. If you do, you will sin against Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}When you will besiege a city for a long time, as you wage war against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. For you may eat from them, so you must not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man whom you should besiege?

\VS{20}Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you may destroy and cut down; you will build siege works against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.



\par }\Chap{21}{\PP \VerseOne{1}If someone is found killed in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has attacked him;

\VS{2}then your elders and your judges must go out, and they must measure to the cities that are around him who has been killed.

\VS{3}Then the elders of the town nearest to the dead man's body must take a heifer from the herd, one that has never been put to work, and that has not borne the yoke.

\VS{4}Then they must lead the heifer down to a valley with running water, a valley that has been neither plowed nor sown, and there in the valley they must break the heifer's neck.

\VS{5}The priests, descendants of Levi, must come forward, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to serve him and give blessing in the name of Yahweh and to decide every case of dispute and assault by their word.

\VS{6}All the elders of the city that is the nearest to the killed man must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

\VS{7}and they must answer to the case and say, 'Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

\VS{8}Forgive, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not put guilt for innocent bloodshed in the midst of your people Israel.' Then the bloodshed will be forgiven them.

\VS{9}In this way you will put away the innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.


\par }{\PP \VS{10}When you go out to do battle against your enemies and Yahweh your God gives you victory and puts them under your control, and you take them away as captives,

\VS{11}if you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have a desire for her and wish to take her for yourself as a wife,

\VS{12}then you will bring her home to your house; she will shave her head and cut her nails.

\VS{13}Then she will take off the clothes she was wearing when she was taken captive and she will remain in your house and mourn for her father and her mother a full month. After that you may sleep with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife.

\VS{14}But if you take no delight in her, then you may let her go where she wishes. But you must not sell her at all for money, and you must not treat her like a slave, because you have humiliated her.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}If a man has two wives and one is loved and the other is hated, and they have both borne him children—both the beloved wife and the hated wife—if the firstborn son is of her that is hated,

\VS{16}then on the day that the man causes his sons to inherit what he possesses, he may not make the son of the beloved wife the firstborn before the son of the hated wife, the son who is actually the firstborn.

\VS{17}Instead, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double portion of all that he possesses; for that son is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, even though they correct him, will not listen to them;

\VS{19}then his father and his mother must lay hold on him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his city.

\VS{20}They must say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

\VS{21}Then all the men of his city must stone him to death with stones; and you will remove the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and fear.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

\VS{23}then his body must not remain all night on the tree. Instead, you must surely bury him the same day; for whoever is hanged is cursed by God. Obey this commandment so that you do not defile the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.



\par }\Chap{22}{\PP \VerseOne{1}You must not watch your fellow Israelite's ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them; you must surely bring them back to him.

\VS{2}If your fellow Israelite is not near to you, or if you do not know him, then you must bring the animal home to your house, and it must be with you until he looks for it, and then you must restore it to him.

\VS{3}You must do the same with his donkey; you must do the same with his garment; you must do the same with every lost thing of your fellow Israelite's, anything that he has lost and you have found; you must not hide yourself.

\VS{4}You must not see your fellow Israelite's donkey or his ox fallen down in the road and hide yourself from them; you must surely help him to lift it up again.


\par }{\PP \VS{5}A woman must not wear what pertains to a man, and neither must a man put on women's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}If a bird's nest happens to be in front of you on the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs in it, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young.

\VS{7}You must surely let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself. Obey this command so that it may go well with you, and that you may prolong your days.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}When you build a new house, then you must make a railing for your roof so that you do not bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}You must not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed, so that the whole harvest is not confiscated by the holy place, the seed that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.

\VS{10}You must not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

\VS{11}You must not wear fabric made of wool and linen together.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}You must make yourself fringes on the four corners of the cloak with which you clothe yourself.


\par }{\PP \VS{13}Suppose a man takes a wife, sleeps with her, and then hates her,

\VS{14}and then accuses her of shameful things and puts a bad reputation on her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I came near to her, I found no proof of virginity in her.'

\VS{15}Then the father and mother of the girl must take proof of her virginity to the elders at the city gate.

\VS{16}The girl's father must say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he hates her.

\VS{17}See, he has accused her of shameful things and said, “I did not find in your daughter the proof of virginity.” But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity.' Then they will spread the garment out before the elders of the city.

\VS{18}The elders of that city must take that man and punish him;

\VS{19}and they must fine him one hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the girl, because the man has caused a bad reputation for a virgin of Israel. She must be his wife; he may not send her away during all his days.

\VS{20}But if this thing is true, that the proof of virginity was not found in the girl,

\VS{21}then they must bring out the girl to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city must stone her to death with stones, because she has committed a disgraceful action in Israel, to act as a harlot in her father's house; and you will remove the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}If a man is found sleeping with a woman who is married to another man, then they must both die, the man who was sleeping with the woman and the woman herself; and you will remove the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{23}If there is a girl who is a virgin, engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and sleeps with her,

\VS{24}take both of them to the city gate, and stone them to death. You must stone the girl, because she did not cry out, even though she was in the city. You must stone the man, because he violated his neighbor's wife; and you will remove the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{25}But if the man finds the engaged girl in the field, and if he seizes her and sleeps with her, then only the man who sleeps with her must die.

\VS{26}But to the girl you must do nothing; there is no sin worthy of death in the girl. For this case is like when a man attacks his neighbor and kills him.

\VS{27}For he found her in the field; the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.


\par }{\PP \VS{28}If a man finds a girl who is a virgin but who is not engaged, and if he seizes her and sleeps with her, and if they are discovered,

\VS{29}then the man who slept with her must give fifty shekels of silver to the girl's father, and she must become his wife, because he has humiliated her. He may not send her away during all his days.


\par }{\PP \VS{30}A man must not take his father's wife as his own; he must not take away his father's marriage rights.



\par }\Chap{23}{\PP \VerseOne{1}No man injured by crushing or cutting off may enter the assembly of Yahweh.


\par }{\PP \VS{2}No illegitimate child may belong to the assembly of Yahweh; as far as to the tenth generation of his descendants, none of them may belong to the assembly of Yahweh.


\par }{\PP \VS{3}An Ammonite or a Moabite may not belong to the assembly of Yahweh; as far as to the tenth generation of his descendants, none of them may belong to the assembly of Yahweh.

\VS{4}This is because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the road when you had come out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim, to curse you.

\VS{5}But Yahweh your God would not listen to Balaam; instead, Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because Yahweh your God loved you.

\VS{6}You must never seek their peace or prosperity, during all your days.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}You must not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother; you must not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a foreigner in his land.

\VS{8}The descendants of the third generation that are born to them may belong to the assembly of Yahweh.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}When you march out as an army against your enemies, then you must keep yourselves from every evil thing.

\VS{10}If there is among you any man who is unclean because of what happened to him at night, then he must go out of the army's camp; he must not come back into the camp.

\VS{11}When evening comes, he must bathe himself in water; when the sun goes down, he will come back inside the camp.

\VS{12}You must have a place also outside the camp to which you will go;

\VS{13}and you will have something among your tools to dig with; when you squat down to relieve yourself, you must dig with it and then put back the earth and cover up what has come out from you.

\VS{14}For Yahweh your God walks in the midst of your camp to give you victory and to give your enemies into your hand. Therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see any unclean thing among you and turn away from you.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}You must not give back to his master a slave who has escaped from his master.

\VS{16}Let him live with you, in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.


\par }{\PP \VS{17}There must be no cultic prostitute among any of the daughters of Israel, neither must there be a cultic prostitute among the sons of Israel.

\VS{18}You must not bring the wages of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow; for both these are abominations to Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}You must not lend on interest to your fellow Israelite—interest of money, interest of food, or the interest of anything that is lent on interest.

\VS{20}To a foreigner you may lend on interest; but to your fellow Israelite you must not lend on interest, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land which you are going in to possess.


\par }{\PP \VS{21}When you make a vow to Yahweh your God, you must not be slow in fulfilling it, for Yahweh your God will surely require it of you; it would be sin for you not to fulfill it.

\VS{22}But if you will refrain from making a vow, it will be no sin for you.

\VS{23}That which has gone out from your lips you must observe and do; according as you have vowed to Yahweh your God, anything that you have freely promised with your mouth.


\par }{\PP \VS{24}When you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you desire, but do not put any in your basket.

\VS{25}When you go into your neighbor's ripe grain, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but do not put a sickle to your neighbor's ripe grain.



\par }\Chap{24}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When a man takes a wife and marries her, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unsuitable thing in her, then he must write her a certificate of divorce, put it into her hand, and send her out of his house.

\VS{2}When she has gone out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.

\VS{3}If the second husband hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it into her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the second husband dies, the man who took her to be his wife—

\VS{4}then her former husband, the one who had first sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has become impure; for that would be an abomination to Yahweh. You must not cause the land to become guilty, the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.


\par }{\PP \VS{5}When a man takes a new wife, he will not go to war with the army, neither may he be commanded to go on any forced duty; he will be free to be at home for one year and will cheer his wife whom he has taken.


\par }{\PP \VS{6}No man may take a mill or an upper millstone as a pledge, for that would be taking a person's life as a pledge.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}If a man is found kidnapping any of his brothers from among the people of Israel, and treats him as a slave and sells him, that thief must die; and you will remove the evil from among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}Take heed regarding any plague of leprosy, so that you carefully observe and follow every instruction given to you which the priests, the Levites, teach you; as I commanded them, so you will act.

\VS{9}Call to mind what Yahweh your God did to Miriam as you were coming out of Egypt.


\par }{\PP \VS{10}When you make your neighbor any kind of loan, you must not go into his house to fetch his pledge.

\VS{11}You will stand outside, and the man to whom you have lent will bring the pledge outside to you.

\VS{12}If he is a poor man, you must not sleep with his pledge in your possession.

\VS{13}You must surely restore to him the pledge by the time the sun goes down, so that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; it will be righteousness for you before Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{14}You must not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is of your fellow Israelites, or of the foreigners who are in your land within your city gates;

\VS{15}Each day you must give him his wage; the sun must not go down on this unsettled matter, for he is poor and is counting on it. Do this so that he does not cry out against you to Yahweh, and so that it not be a sin that you have committed.


\par }{\PP \VS{16}The parents must not be put to death for their children, neither must the children be put to death for their parents. Instead, everyone must be put to death for his own sin.


\par }{\PP \VS{17}You must not use force to take away the justice that is due the foreigner or the fatherless, nor take the widow's cloak as a pledge.

\VS{18}Instead, you must call to mind that you were a slave in Egypt, and that Yahweh your God rescued you from there. Therefore I instruct you to obey this command.


\par }{\PP \VS{19}When you reap your harvest in your field, and if you have forgotten an omer of grain in the field, you must not go back to get it; it must be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, or for the widow, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

\VS{20}When you shake your olive tree, you must not go over the branches again; it will be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, or for the widow.

\VS{21}When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not glean it again. What is left over will be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

\VS{22}You must call to mind that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I instruct you to obey this command.



\par }\Chap{25}{\PP \VerseOne{1}If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges judge them, then they will acquit the righteous and condemn the wicked.

\VS{2}If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, then the judge will make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the ordered number of blows, as was his crime.

\VS{3}The judge may give him forty blows, but he may not exceed that number; for if he should exceed that number and beat him with many more blows, then your fellow Israelite would be humiliated before your eyes.


\par }{\PP \VS{4}You must not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.


\par }{\PP \VS{5}If brothers live together and one of them dies, not having any son, then the wife of the dead man must not be married off to someone else outside the family. Instead, her husband's brother must sleep with her and take her to himself as a wife, and do the duty of a husband's brother to her.

\VS{6}This is so that the firstborn that she bears will succeed in the name of that man's dead brother, so that his name will not perish from Israel.

\VS{7}But if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife for himself, then his brother's wife must go up to the gate to the elders and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to raise up for his brother a name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.'

\VS{8}Then the elders of his city must call him and speak to him. But suppose that he insists and says, 'I do not wish to take her.'

\VS{9}Then his brother's wife must come up to him in the presence of the elders, take off his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. She must answer him and say, 'This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.'

\VS{10}His name will be called in Israel, 'The house of him whose sandal has been taken off.'


\par }{\PP \VS{11}If men fight with each other, and the wife of one comes to rescue her husband out of the hand of him who struck him, and if she stretches out her hand and takes him by the private parts,

\VS{12}then you must cut off her hand; your eye must have no pity.


\par }{\PP \VS{13}You must not have in your bag different weights, a large and a small.

\VS{14}You must not have in your house different measures, a large and a small.

\VS{15}A perfect and just weight you must have; a perfect and just measure you must have, so that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.

\VS{16}For all who do such things, all that act unrighteously, are an abomination to Yahweh your God.


\par }{\PP \VS{17}Call to mind what Amalek did to you on the road as you came out of Egypt,

\VS{18}how he met you on the road and attacked those of you at the rear, all who were feeble in your rear, when you were faint and weary; he did not honor God.

\VS{19}Therefore, when Yahweh your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about, in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you must not forget that you must blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.



\par }\Chap{26}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When you have come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, and when you possess it and live in it,

\VS{2}then you must take some of the first of all the harvest of the land that you have brought in from the land that Yahweh your God is giving you. You must put it in a basket and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose as his sanctuary.

\VS{3}You must go to the priest who will be serving in those days and say to him, 'I acknowledge today to Yahweh your God that I have come to the land that Yahweh swore to our ancestors to give us.'

\VS{4}The priest must take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of Yahweh your God.

\VS{5}You must say before Yahweh your God, 'My ancestor was a wandering Aramean. He went down into Egypt and stayed there, and his people were few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.

\VS{6}The Egyptians treated us badly and afflicted us. They made us do the work of slaves.

\VS{7}We cried out to Yahweh, the God of our fathers, and he heard our voice and saw our affliction, our labor, and our oppression.

\VS{8}Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, with great fearsomeness, with signs, and with wonders;

\VS{9}and he has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land that flows with milk and honey.

\VS{10}Now look, I have brought the first of the harvest of the land that you, Yahweh, have given me.' You must set it down before Yahweh your God and worship before him;

\VS{11}and you must rejoice in all the good that Yahweh your God has done for you, for your house—you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is among you.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}When you have finished giving all the tithe of your harvest in the third year, that is, the year of tithing, then you must give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, so that they may eat within your city gates and be filled.

\VS{13}You must say before Yahweh your God, 'I have brought out of my house the things that belong to Yahweh, and have given them to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandments that you have given me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten them.

\VS{14}I have not eaten any of it in my mourning, nor have I put it somewhere else when I was impure, nor have I given any of it in honor of the dead. I have listened to the voice of Yahweh my God; I have obeyed everything you have commanded me to do.

\VS{15}Look down from the holy place where you live, from heaven, and bless your people Israel, and the land that you have given us, as you had sworn to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.'


\par }{\PP \VS{16}Today Yahweh your God is commanding you to obey these statutes and decrees; you will therefore keep them and do them with all your heart and with all your soul.

\VS{17}You have declared today that Yahweh is your God, and that you will walk in his ways and keep his statutes, his commandments, and his decrees, and that you will listen to his voice.

\VS{18}Today Yahweh has declared that you are a people who are his own possession, as he had promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,

\VS{19}and he will set you high above all the other nations that he has made, and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. You will be a people that is set apart to Yahweh your God, just as he said.”



\par }\Chap{27}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people and said, “Keep all the commandments that I command you today.

\VS{2}On the day when you will pass over the Jordan to the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, you must set up some large stones and plaster them with plaster.

\VS{3}You must write on them all the words of this law when you have passed over; that you may go into the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

\VS{4}When you have passed over the Jordan, set up these stones that I am commanding you about today, on Mount Ebal, and plaster them with plaster.

\VS{5}There you must build an altar to Yahweh your God, an altar of stones; but you must raise no iron tool to work the stones.

\VS{6}You must build the altar of Yahweh your God of unworked stones; you must offer burnt offerings on it to Yahweh your God,

\VS{7}and you will sacrifice fellowship offerings and will eat there; you will rejoice before Yahweh your God.

\VS{8}You will write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.”


\par }{\PP \VS{9}Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel and said, “Be silent and listen, Israel: Today you have become the people of Yahweh your God.

\VS{10}You must therefore obey the voice of Yahweh your God and obey his commandments and statutes that I am commanding you today.”


\par }{\PP \VS{11}Moses commanded the people the same day and said,

\VS{12}“These tribes must stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people after you have passed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

\VS{13}These are the tribes that must stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce curses: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

\VS{14}The Levites will answer and say to all the men of Israel in a loud voice:


\par }{\PP \VS{15}'May the man be cursed who makes a carved or cast figure, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of a craftsman, and who sets it up in secret.' Then all the people must answer and say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{16}'May the man be cursed who dishonors his father or his mother.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{17}'May the man be cursed who removes his neighbor's landmark.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{18}'May the man be cursed who makes the blind to wander away from the road.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{19}'May the man be cursed who uses force to take away the justice due to a foreigner, fatherless, or widow.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{20}'May the man be cursed who lies with his father's wife, because he has taken away his father's rights.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{21}'May the man be cursed who sleeps with any kind of beast.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{22}'May the man be cursed who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father, or with the daughter of his mother.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{23}'May the man be cursed who sleeps with his mother-in-law.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{24}'May the man be cursed who kills his neighbor secretly.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{25}'May the man be cursed who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'


\par }{\PP \VS{26}'May the man be cursed who does not confirm the words of this law, that he will obey them.' Then all the people must say, 'Amen.'



\par }\Chap{28}{\PP \VerseOne{1}If you listen carefully to the voice of Yahweh your God so as to keep all his commandments that I am commanding you today, Yahweh your God will set you above all the other nations of the earth.

\VS{2}All these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

\VS{3}Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the field.

\VS{4}Blessed will be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

\VS{5}Blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough.

\VS{6}Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you; they will come out against you one way but will flee before you seven ways.

\VS{8}Yahweh will command the blessing to come on you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to; he will bless you in the land that he is giving you.

\VS{9}Yahweh will establish you as a people that is set apart for himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and walk in his ways.

\VS{10}All the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.

\VS{11}Yahweh will make you very prosperous in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your cattle, in the fruit of your ground, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.

\VS{12}Yahweh will open to you his storehouse of the heavens to give the rain for your land at the right time, and to bless all the work of your hand; you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

\VS{13}Yahweh will make you the head, and not the tail; you will be only above, and you will never be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today, so as to observe and to do them,

\VS{14}and if you do not turn away from any of the words that I am commanding you today, to the right hand or to the left, so as to go after other gods to serve them.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}But if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, so as to keep all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you.

\VS{16}Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the field.

\VS{17}Cursed will be your basket and your kneading trough.

\VS{18}Cursed will be the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

\VS{19}Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}Yahweh will send on you curses, confusion, and rebukes in all that you put your hand to, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly because of your wicked actions by which you will have forsaken me.

\VS{21}Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until he destroys you from off the land that you are going in to possess.

\VS{22}Yahweh will attack you with infectious diseases, with fever, with inflammation, and with drought and blistering heat, and with scorching winds and mildew. These will pursue you until you perish.

\VS{23}Your skies that are over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron.

\VS{24}Yahweh will make the rain of your land into powder and dust; from the heavens will it come down on you, until you are destroyed.


\par }{\PP \VS{25}Yahweh will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you will go out one way against them but will flee before them seven ways. You will be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth.

\VS{26}Your dead body will be food to all the birds of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to frighten them away.

\VS{27}Yahweh will attack you with the boils of Egypt and with ulcers, scurvy, and itch, from which you cannot be healed.

\VS{28}Yahweh will attack you with madness, with blindness, and with mental confusion.

\VS{29}You will grope about at noonday like the blind grope in the darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; you will be always oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.

\VS{30}You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will seize her and rape her. You will build a house but not live in it; you will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.

\VS{31}Your ox will be slain before your eyes, but you will not eat its meat; your donkey will be forcibly taken away from before you and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to aid you.

\VS{32}Your sons and your daughters will be given to other peoples; your eyes will look for them the entire day, but will fail with longing for them. There will be no strength in your hand.

\VS{33}The harvest of your land and of all your labors—a nation that you do not know will eat it up; you will always be oppressed and crushed,

\VS{34}so that you will become insane by what you have to see happen.

\VS{35}Yahweh will attack you in the knees and legs with severe boils from which you cannot be cured, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.


\par }{\PP \VS{36}Yahweh will take you and the king whom you will place over yourself to a nation that you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors; there you will worship other gods of wood and stone.

\VS{37}You will become a source of horror, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away.

\VS{38}You will take much seed out into the field, but will gather little seed in, for the locusts will consume it.

\VS{39}You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will neither drink any of the wine, nor even gather in the grapes, for worms will eat them.

\VS{40}You will have olive trees within all your territory, but you will not rub any of the oil on yourself, for your olive trees will drop their fruit.

\VS{41}You will have sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity.

\VS{42}All your trees and the fruit of your ground—the locusts will take them over.

\VS{43}The foreigner who is among you will rise up above you higher and higher; you yourself will come down lower and lower.

\VS{44}He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.

\VS{45}All these curses will come on you and will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. This will happen because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, so as to keep his commandments and his regulations that he commanded you.

\VS{46}These curses will be on you as signs and wonders, and on your descendants forever.


\par }{\PP \VS{47}Because you did not worship Yahweh your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart when you were in prosperity,

\VS{48}therefore will you serve the enemies that Yahweh will send against you; you will serve them in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in poverty. He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he destroys you.

\VS{49}Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle flies to its victim, a nation whose language you do not understand;

\VS{50}a nation with a fierce face that does not respect the aged and does not show favor to the young.

\VS{51}They will eat the young of your cattle and the fruit of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave for you no grain, new wine, or oil, no young of your cattle or of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

\VS{52}They will besiege you in all your city gates, until your high and fortified walls come down everywhere in your land, walls in which you had trusted. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout all the land that Yahweh your God had given you.

\VS{53}You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God gave you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will put upon you.

\VS{54}The man who is tender and very delicate among you—he will be envious of his brother and his own dear wife, and of whatever children he has left.

\VS{55}So he will not give to any of them the flesh of his own children that he is going to eat, because he will have nothing left for himself in the siege and in the distress which your enemy will put upon you within all your city gates.

\VS{56}The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to put the bottom of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness—she will be envious of her own dear husband, of her son, and of her daughter,

\VS{57}and of her own newborn that comes out from between her legs, and of the children whom she will bear. She will eat them in private for lack of anything else, during the siege and in the distress which your enemy will put upon you within your city gates.


\par }{\PP \VS{58}If you do not keep all the words of this law that are written in this book, so as to honor this glorious and fearful name, Yahweh your God,

\VS{59}then Yahweh will make your plagues terrible, and those of your descendants; they will be great plagues, of long duration, and severe diseases, of long duration.

\VS{60}He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt that you were afraid of; they will cling to you.

\VS{61}Also every sickness and plague that is not written in the book of this law, those also Yahweh will bring on you until you are destroyed.

\VS{62}You will be left few in number, although you were like the stars of the heavens in number, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

\VS{63}As Yahweh once rejoiced over you in doing you good, and in multiplying you, so he will rejoice over you in making you perish and in destroying you. You will be plucked off the land that you are going into to possess.

\VS{64}Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; there you will worship other gods that you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors, gods of wood and stone.

\VS{65}Among these nations will you find no ease, and there will be no rest for the bottoms of your feet; instead, Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a soul that mourns.

\VS{66}Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will fear every night and day and will have no certainty at all in your life.

\VS{67}In the morning you will say, 'I wish it were evening!' and in the evening you will say, 'I wish it were morning!' because of the fear in your hearts and the things your eyes will have to see.

\VS{68}Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again by ships, by the route about which I had said to you, 'You will not see Egypt again.' There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will purchase you.”



\par }\Chap{29}{\PP \VerseOne{1}These are the words that Yahweh commanded Moses to tell the people of Israel in the land of Moab, words that were added to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.


\par }{\PP \VS{2}Moses called to all Israel and said to them, “You have seen everything that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land—

\VS{3}the great sufferings that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.

\VS{4}But until today Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

\VS{5}I have led you for forty years in the wilderness; your clothes did not wear out on you, and your sandals did not wear out on your feet.

\VS{6}You did not eat any bread, and you did not drink any wine or other alcoholic drinks, so that you might know that I am Yahweh your God.

\VS{7}When you came to this place, Sihon, the king of Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against us to fight, and we struck them down.

\VS{8}We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

\VS{9}Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, so that you may prosper in everything that you do.


\par }{\PP \VS{10}You stand today, all of you, before Yahweh your God; your chiefs, your tribes, your elders, and your officers—all the men of Israel,

\VS{11}your little ones, your wives, and the foreigner who is among you in your camp, from him who cuts your wood to him who draws your water.

\VS{12}You are here in order to enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God and into the oath that Yahweh your God is making with you today,

\VS{13}so that he may make you today into a people for himself, and that he may be God for you, as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.


\par }{\PP \VS{14}For it is not only with you that I am making this covenant and this oath—

\VS{15}with everyone standing here with us today before Yahweh our God—but also with those who are not here with us today.


\par }{\PP \VS{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.

\VS{17}You have seen their disgusting idols made of wood and stone, silver and gold, that were among them.

\VS{18}Make sure there is not among you any man, woman, clan, or tribe whose heart is turning away today from Yahweh our God, so as to go worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is not among you any root that produces gall and wormwood.

\VS{19}When that person hears the words of this curse, he will bless himself in his heart and say, 'I will have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.' This would destroy the wet together with the dry.

\VS{20}Yahweh will not pardon him, but instead, the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smolder against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book will come on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under heaven.

\VS{21}Yahweh will set him apart for disaster out of all the tribes of Israel, in keeping with all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}The generation to come, your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, will speak when they see the plagues on this land and the diseases with which Yahweh has made it sick—

\VS{23}and when they see that the whole land has become sulfur and burning salt, where nothing is sown or bears fruit, where no vegetation grows, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, that Yahweh destroyed in his anger and wrath—

\VS{24}they will say together with all the other nations, 'Why has Yahweh done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?'

\VS{25}Then people will say, 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, that he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,

\VS{26}and because they went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods that they had not known and that he had not given to them.

\VS{27}Therefore the anger of Yahweh has been kindled against this land, so as to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book.

\VS{28}Yahweh has uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great fury, and has thrown them into another land, as today.'

\VS{29}The secret matters belong alone to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong forever to us and to our descendants, so that we may do all the words of this law.



\par }\Chap{30}{\PP \VerseOne{1}When all these things have come on you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, and when you call them to mind among all the other nations where Yahweh your God has driven you,

\VS{2}and when you return to Yahweh your God and obey his voice, following all that I am commanding you today— you and your children—with all your heart and with all your soul,

\VS{3}then Yahweh your God will reverse your captivity and have compassion on you; he will return and gather you from all the peoples where Yahweh your God has scattered you.

\VS{4}If any of your exiled people are in the farthest places under the heavens, from there Yahweh your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you.

\VS{5}Yahweh your God will bring you into the land that your forefathers possessed, and you will possess it again; he will do you good and will multiply you more than he did your forefathers.

\VS{6}Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so you will love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

\VS{7}Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, those who persecuted you.

\VS{8}You will return and obey the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today.

\VS{9}Yahweh your God will make you abundant in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, for prosperity; for Yahweh will again rejoice over you for prosperity, as he rejoiced over your fathers.

\VS{10}He will do this if you will obey the voice of Yahweh your God, so as to keep his commandments and regulations that are written in this book of the law, if you turn to Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul.


\par }{\PP \VS{11}For this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, neither is it too far for you to reach.

\VS{12}It is not in heaven, so that you should have to say, 'Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it down to us and make us able to hear it, so that we may do it?'

\VS{13}Neither is it beyond the sea, so that you should have to say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us and make us to hear it, so that we may do it?'

\VS{14}But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and your heart, so that you may do it.


\par }{\PP \VS{15}See, today I have placed before you life and good, death and evil.

\VS{16}If you obey the decrees of Yahweh your God, in which I am commanding you today to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his regulations, and his statutes, you will live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

\VS{17}But if your heart turns away, and you do not listen but instead are drawn away and bow down to other gods and worship them,

\VS{18}then I announce to you today that you will surely perish; you will not prolong your days in the land that you are passing over the Jordan to go into and possess.

\VS{19}I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life so that you may live, you and your descendants.

\VS{20}Do this so as to love Yahweh your God, to obey his voice, and to cling to him. For he is your life and the length of your days; do this so that you may live in the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”



\par }\Chap{31}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.

\VS{2}He said to them, “I am now one hundred twenty years old; I can no more go out and come in; Yahweh has said to me, 'You will not go over this Jordan.'

\VS{3}Yahweh your God, he will go over before you; he will destroy these nations from before you, and you will dispossess them. Joshua, he will go over before you, as Yahweh has spoken.

\VS{4}Yahweh will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, which he destroyed.

\VS{5}Yahweh will give you victory over them when you meet them in battle, and you will do to them all that I commanded you.

\VS{6}Be strong and of good courage, fear not, and do not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God, he it is who goes with you; he will not fail you nor forsake you.”

\VS{7}Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage, for you will go with this people into the land that Yahweh has sworn to their ancestors to give them; you will cause them to inherit it.

\VS{8}Yahweh, he it is who goes before you; he will be with you; he will not fail you nor abandon you; do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.”


\par }{\PP \VS{9}Moses wrote this law and gave it out to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh; he also gave copies of it to all the elders of Israel.

\VS{10}Moses commanded them and said, “At the end of every seven years, at the time fixed for the cancellation of debts, during the Festival of Shelters,

\VS{11}when all Israel has come to appear before Yahweh your God in the place that he will choose for his sanctuary, you will read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

\VS{12}Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and your foreigner who is within your city gates, so that they may hear and learn, and so that they may honor Yahweh your God and keep all the words of this law.

\VS{13}Do this so that their children, who have not known, may hear and learn to honor Yahweh your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”


\par }{\PP \VS{14}Yahweh said to Moses, “Look, the day is coming when you must die; call Joshua and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, so that I may give him a command.” Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting.

\VS{15}Yahweh appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud; the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the tent.

\VS{16}Yahweh said to Moses, “Look, you will sleep with your fathers; this people will rise up and act like a prostitute going after the strange gods that are among them in the land where they are going. They will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.

\VS{17}Then, on that day, my anger will be kindled against them and I will abandon them. I will hide my face from them and they will be devoured. Many disasters and troubles will find them so that they will say on that day, 'Have these disasters not come upon us because our God is not in our midst?'

\VS{18}I will surely hide my face from them on that day because of all the evil that they will have done, because they has turned to other gods.

\VS{19}Now therefore write this song for yourselves and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, so that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

\VS{20}For when I will have brought them into the land that I swore to give to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and when they have eaten and become satisfied and fat, then they will turn to other gods and they will serve them and they will despise me and they will break my covenant.

\VS{21}When many evils and troubles come upon this people, this song will testify before them as a witness (for it will not be forgotten from the mouths of their descendants). For I know the plans that they are forming today, even before I have brought them into the land that I promised them.”

\VS{22}So Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel.

\VS{23}Yahweh gave Joshua son of Nun a command and said, “Be strong and of good courage; for you will bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to them, and I will be with you.”


\par }{\PP \VS{24}It happened that when Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book,

\VS{25}that he commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and he said,

\VS{26}“Take this book of the law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, so that it may be there as a witness against you.

\VS{27}For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck; look, while I am still alive with you even today, you have been rebellious against Yahweh; how much more after my death?

\VS{28}Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, so that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

\VS{29}For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside out of the path that I have commanded you; disaster will come on you in the following days. This will happen because you will do what is evil in the sight of Yahweh, so as to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”


\par }{\PP \VS{30}Moses recited in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song until they were finished.



\par }\PoetryChap{32}{\Q \VerseOne{1}Give ear, you heavens, and let me speak.

\par }{\Q Let the earth listen to the words of my mouth.


\par }{\Q \VS{2}Let my teaching drop down like the rain,

\par }{\Q let my speech distill like the dew,

\par }{\Q like the gentle rain on the tender grass,

\par }{\Q and like the showers on the plants.


\par }{\Q \VS{3}For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh,

\par }{\Q and ascribe greatness to our God.


\par }{\Q \VS{4}The Rock, his work is perfect;

\par }{\Q for all his paths are just.

\par }{\Q He is the faithful God, without iniquity.

\par }{\Q He is just and upright.


\par }{\Q \VS{5}They have acted corruptly against him.

\par }{\Q They are not his children. It is their disgrace.

\par }{\Q They are a perverted and crooked generation.


\par }{\Q \VS{6}Do you reward Yahweh in this way,

\par }{\Q you foolish and senseless people?

\par }{\Q Is he not your father, the one who has created you?

\par }{\Q He made you and established you.


\par }{\Q \VS{7}Call to mind the days of ancient times,

\par }{\Q think about the years of many ages past.

\par }{\Q Ask your father and he will show you,

\par }{\Q your elders and they will tell you.


\par }{\Q \VS{8}When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance—

\par }{\Q when he divided all of mankind,

\par }{\Q and he set the boundaries of the peoples,

\par }{\Q as he also fixed the number of their gods.


\par }{\Q \VS{9}For Yahweh's portion is his people;

\par }{\Q Jacob is his apportioned inheritance.


\par }{\Q \VS{10}He found him in a desert land,

\par }{\Q and in the barren and howling wilderness;

\par }{\Q he shielded him and cared for him,

\par }{\Q he guarded him as the apple of his eye.


\par }{\Q \VS{11}As an eagle that guards her nest

\par }{\Q and flutters over her young,

\par }{\Q Yahweh spread out his wings and took them,

\par }{\Q and carried them on his pinions.


\par }{\Q \VS{12}Yahweh alone led him;

\par }{\Q no foreign god was with him.


\par }{\Q \VS{13}He made him ride on high places of the land,

\par }{\Q and he fed him the fruits of the field;

\par }{\Q he nourished him with honey from the rock,

\par }{\Q and oil from the flinty crag.


\par }{\Q \VS{14}He ate butter from the herd and drank milk from the flock,

\par }{\Q with fat of lambs,

\par }{\Q rams of Bashan and goats,

\par }{\Q with the finest of the wheat—

\par }{\Q and you drank foaming wine made from the juice of grapes.


\par }{\Q \VS{15}But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—

\par }{\Q you grew fat, you were too fat, and you had eaten your fill—

\par }{\Q he abandoned the God who made him,

\par }{\Q and he rejected the Rock of his salvation.


\par }{\Q \VS{16}They made Yahweh jealous by their strange gods;

\par }{\Q with their abominations they angered him.


\par }{\Q \VS{17}They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—

\par }{\Q gods they had not known,

\par }{\Q gods that recently appeared,

\par }{\Q gods your fathers did not fear.


\par }{\Q \VS{18}You have deserted the Rock, who became your father,

\par }{\Q and you forgot the God who gave you birth.


\par }{\Q \VS{19}Yahweh saw this and he rejected them,

\par }{\Q because his sons and his daughters provoked him so.


\par }{\Q \VS{20}“I will hide my face from them,” he said,

\par }{\Q “and I will see what their end will be;

\par }{\Q for they are a perverse generation,

\par }{\Q children who are unfaithful.


\par }{\Q \VS{21}They have made me jealous by what is not god

\par }{\Q and angered me by their worthless things.

\par }{\Q I will make them envious by those who are not a people;

\par }{\Q by a foolish nation I will make them angry.


\par }{\Q \VS{22}For a fire is kindled by my anger

\par }{\Q and is burning to the lowest Sheol;

\par }{\Q it is devouring the earth and its harvest;

\par }{\Q it is setting on fire the foundations of the mountains.


\par }{\Q \VS{23}I will heap disasters on them;

\par }{\Q I will shoot all my arrows at them;


\par }{\Q \VS{24}They will be wasted by hunger and devoured by burning heat

\par }{\Q and bitter destruction;

\par }{\Q I will send on them the teeth of wild animals,

\par }{\Q with the poison of things that crawl in the dust.


\par }{\Q \VS{25}Outside the sword will bereave,

\par }{\Q and in the bedrooms terror will do so.

\par }{\Q It will destroy both young man and virgin,

\par }{\Q the nursing baby, and the man of gray hairs.


\par }{\Q \VS{26}I said that I would scatter them far away,

\par }{\Q that I would make the memory of them to cease from among mankind.


\par }{\Q \VS{27}Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,

\par }{\Q and that their enemies would judge mistakenly,

\par }{\Q and that they would say, 'Our hand is exalted,'

\par }{\Q I would have done all this.


\par }{\Q \VS{28}For Israel is a nation devoid of wisdom,

\par }{\Q and there is no understanding in them.


\par }{\Q \VS{29}Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this,

\par }{\Q that they would consider their coming fate!


\par }{\Q \VS{30}How could one chase a thousand,

\par }{\Q and two put ten thousand to flight,

\par }{\Q unless their Rock had sold them,

\par }{\Q and Yahweh had given them up?


\par }{\Q \VS{31}For our enemies' rock is not like our Rock,

\par }{\Q just as even our enemies admit.


\par }{\Q \VS{32}For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom,

\par }{\Q and from the fields of Gomorrah;

\par }{\Q their grapes are grapes of poison;

\par }{\Q their clusters are bitter.


\par }{\Q \VS{33}Their wine is the poison of serpents

\par }{\Q and the cruel venom of asps.


\par }{\Q \VS{34}Is not this plan secretly kept by me,

\par }{\Q sealed up among my treasures?


\par }{\Q \VS{35}Vengeance is mine to give, and recompense,

\par }{\Q at the time when their foot slips;

\par }{\Q for the day of disaster for them is near,

\par }{\Q and the things that are to come on them will hurry to happen.”


\par }{\Q \VS{36}For Yahweh will give justice to his people,

\par }{\Q and he will pity his servants.

\par }{\Q He will see that their power is gone,

\par }{\Q and no one remains, either slaves or free people.


\par }{\Q \VS{37}Then he will say, “Where are their gods,

\par }{\Q the rock in whom they took refuge?—


\par }{\Q \VS{38}The gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices

\par }{\Q and drank the wine of their drink offerings?

\par }{\Q Let them rise up and help you;

\par }{\Q let them be your protection.


\par }{\Q \VS{39}See now that I, even I, am God,

\par }{\Q and that there is no god besides me;

\par }{\Q I kill, and I make alive;

\par }{\Q I wound, and I heal,

\par }{\Q and there is no one who can save you from my might.


\par }{\Q \VS{40}For I lift up my hand to heaven

\par }{\Q and say, 'As I live forever, I will act.


\par }{\Q \VS{41}When I sharpen my glittering sword,

\par }{\Q and when my hand begins to bring justice,

\par }{\Q I will render vengeance on my enemies,

\par }{\Q and I will pay back those who hate me.


\par }{\Q \VS{42}I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

\par }{\Q and my sword will devour flesh

\par }{\Q with the blood of the killed and the captives,

\par }{\Q and from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.'”


\par }{\Q \VS{43}Rejoice, you nations, with God's people,

\par }{\Q for he will avenge the blood of his servants;

\par }{\Q he will render vengeance on his enemies,

\par }{\Q and he will make atonement for his land, for his people.


\par }{\PP \VS{44}Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Joshua son of Nun.

\VS{45}Then Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel.

\VS{46}He said to them, “Fix your mind on all the words that I have witnessed to you today, so that you may command your children to keep them, all the words of this law.

\VS{47}For this is no trivial matter for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you will prolong your days in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”


\par }{\PP \VS{48}Yahweh spoke to Moses on that same day and said,

\VS{49}“Go up into this range of the mountains of Abarim, up Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho. You will look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel as their possession.

\VS{50}You will die on the mountain that you go up, and you will be gathered to your people, as Aaron your fellow Israelite died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

\VS{51}This will happen because you were unfaithful to me among the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah in Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you did not treat me with honor and respect among the people of Israel.

\VS{52}For you will see the land before you, but you will not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.”



\par }\Chap{33}{\PP \VerseOne{1}This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.

\VS{2}He said:

\par }{\Q Yahweh came from Sinai

\par }{\Q and rose from Seir upon them.

\par }{\Q He shined out from Mount Paran,

\par }{\Q and he came with ten thousands of holy ones.

\par }{\Q In his right hand were flashes of lightning.


\par }{\Q \VS{3}Indeed, he loves the peoples;

\par }{\Q all his holy ones are in your hand,

\par }{\Q and they bowed down at your feet;

\par }{\Q they received your words.


\par }{\Q \VS{4}Moses commanded us a law,

\par }{\Q an inheritance for the assembly of Jacob.


\par }{\Q \VS{5}Then there was a king in Jeshurun,

\par }{\Q when the heads of the people had gathered,

\par }{\Q all the tribes of Israel together.


\par }{\Q \VS{6}Let Reuben live and not die,

\par }{\Q but may his men be few.


\par }{\PP \VS{7}This is the blessing for Judah. Moses said:

\par }{\Q Listen, Yahweh, to the voice of Judah,

\par }{\Q and bring him to his people again.

\par }{\Q Fight for him;

\par }{\Q be a help against his enemies.


\par }{\PP \VS{8}About Levi, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Your Thummim and your Urim belong your loyal one,

\par }{\Q the one whom you tested at Massah,

\par }{\Q with whom you struggled at the waters of Meribah.


\par }{\Q \VS{9}The man who said about his father and mother, “I have not seen them.”

\par }{\Q Neither did he acknowledge his brothers,

\par }{\Q nor did he take account of his own children.

\par }{\Q For he guarded your word

\par }{\Q and kept your covenant.


\par }{\Q \VS{10}He teaches Jacob your decrees

\par }{\Q and Israel your law.

\par }{\Q He will put incense before you

\par }{\Q and whole burnt offerings on your altar.


\par }{\Q \VS{11}Bless, Yahweh, his possessions,

\par }{\Q and accept the work of his hands.

\par }{\Q Shatter the loins of those who rise up against him,

\par }{\Q and those of the people who hate him, so that they do not rise up again.


\par }{\PP \VS{12}About Benjamin, Moses said:

\par }{\Q The one loved by Yahweh lives in security beside him;

\par }{\Q Yahweh shields him all the day long,

\par }{\Q and he lives between Yahweh's arms.


\par }{\PP \VS{13}About Joseph, Moses said:

\par }{\Q May his land be blessed by Yahweh

\par }{\Q with the precious things of heaven, with the dew,

\par }{\Q and with the deep that lies beneath.


\par }{\Q \VS{14}May his land be blessed with the precious things of the harvest of the sun,

\par }{\Q with the precious things of the produce of the months,


\par }{\Q \VS{15}with the finest things of the ancient mountains,

\par }{\Q and with the precious things of the everlasting hills.


\par }{\Q \VS{16}May his land be blessed with the precious things of the earth and its abundance,

\par }{\Q and with the good will of him who was in the bush.

\par }{\Q Let the blessing come on the head of Joseph,

\par }{\Q and on the top of the head of him who was prince over his brothers.


\par }{\Q \VS{17}The firstborn of an ox, majestic is he,

\par }{\Q and his horns are the horns of a wild ox.

\par }{\Q With them he will push the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth.

\par }{\Q These are the ten thousands of Ephraim;

\par }{\Q these are the thousands of Manasseh.


\par }{\PP \VS{18}About Zebulun, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out,

\par }{\Q and you, Issachar, in your tents.


\par }{\Q \VS{19}They will call the peoples to the mountains.

\par }{\Q There will they offer sacrifices of righteousness.

\par }{\Q For they will suck the abundance of the seas,

\par }{\Q and from the sand on the seashore.


\par }{\PP \VS{20}About Gad, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Blessed be he who enlarges Gad.

\par }{\Q He will live there like a lioness,

\par }{\Q and he will tear off an arm or a head.


\par }{\Q \VS{21}He provided the best part for himself,

\par }{\Q for there was the leader's portion of land reserved.

\par }{\Q He came with the heads of the people.

\par }{\Q He carried out the justice of Yahweh

\par }{\Q and his decrees with Israel.


\par }{\PP \VS{22}About Dan, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Dan is a lion cub

\par }{\Q that leaps out from Bashan.


\par }{\PP \VS{23}About Naphtali, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Naphtali, satisfied with favor,

\par }{\Q and full of the blessing of Yahweh,

\par }{\Q take possession of the land to the west and south.


\par }{\PP \VS{24}About Asher, Moses said:

\par }{\Q Blessed be Asher more than the other sons;

\par }{\Q let him be acceptable to his brothers,

\par }{\Q and let him dip his foot in olive oil.


\par }{\Q \VS{25}May your city bars be iron and bronze;

\par }{\Q as long as will be your days, so long will your security be.


\par }{\Q \VS{26}There is no one like God, Jeshurun—the upright one,

\par }{\Q who rides through the heavens to your help,

\par }{\Q and in his majesty on the clouds.


\par }{\Q \VS{27}The eternal God is a refuge,

\par }{\Q and underneath are the everlasting arms.

\par }{\Q He thrust out the enemy from before you,

\par }{\Q and he said, “Destroy!”


\par }{\Q \VS{28}Israel dwelt in safety.

\par }{\Q Jacob's spring was secure

\par }{\Q in a land of grain and new wine;

\par }{\Q indeed, let his heavens drop dew on him.


\par }{\Q \VS{29}Your blessings are many, Israel!

\par }{\Q Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh,

\par }{\Q the shield of your help,

\par }{\Q and the sword of your majesty?

\par }{\Q Your enemies will come trembling to you;

\par }{\Q you will trample down their high places.



\par }\Chap{34}{\PP \VerseOne{1}Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. There Yahweh showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan,

\VS{2}and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, to the western sea,

\VS{3}and the Negev, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar.

\VS{4}Yahweh said to him, “This is the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have allowed you to look at it with your eyes, but you will not go over there.”

\VS{5}So Moses the servant of Yahweh, died there in the land of Moab, as the word of Yahweh promised.

\VS{6}Yahweh buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor, but no one knows where his grave is to this day.

\VS{7}Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

\VS{8}The people of Israel mourned for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days, and then the days of mourning for Moses were finished.


\par }{\PP \VS{9}Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. The people of Israel listened to him and did what Yahweh had commanded Moses.

\VS{10}There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face.

\VS{11}There has never been any prophet like him in all the signs and wonders that Yahweh sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land.

\VS{12}There has never been any prophet like him in all the great, fearsome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.


\par }