Events at Horeb Recalled
1*These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel
beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Ar'abah over against
Suph, between Par'an and To'phel, La'ban, Haze'roth, and Di'zahab.
2It is eleven
days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Se'ir to
Ka'desh-bar'nea. 3And in the fortieth year, on the first day
of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the sons of Israel according
to all that the LORD had given him
in commandment to them, 4after he had defeated Si'hon the king of the
Am'orites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who
lived in Ash'taroth and in Ed're-i. 5Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab,
Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, 6“The
LORD our God said to us in Horeb,
‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain; 7turn and take your
journey, and go to the hill country of the Am'orites, and to all
their neighbors in the Ar'abah, in the hill country and in the
lowland, and in the Neg'eb, and by the seacoast, the land of the
Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river
Euphrates. 8Behold, I have set the land before you; go
in and take possession of the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after
them.’
Appointment of Heads of the
Tribes
9“At that time I
said to you, ‘I am not able alone to bear you;
10the L
ORD your God has multiplied you, and behold,
you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
11May the
L
ORD, the God of your fathers,
make you a thousand times as many as you are, and bless you, as he
has promised you!
12How can I bear alone the weight and burden
of you and your strife?
13Choose wise, understanding, and experienced
men, according to your tribes, and I will appoint them as your
heads.’
14And you answered me, ‘The thing that
you have spoken is good for us to do.’
15So I took the heads
of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads
over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds,
commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout
your tribes.
16And I charged your judges at that time,
‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously
between a man and his brother or the alien that is with him.
17You shall not be
partial in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike;
you shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is
God’s; and the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring
to me, and I will hear it.’
18And I commanded you at that time all the
things that you should do.
Israel’s Refusal to Enter the
Land
19“And
we set out from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible
wilderness which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the
Am'orites, as the L
ORD our God
commanded us; and we came to Ka'desh-bar'nea.
20And I said to you,
‘You have come to the hill country of the Am'orites, which
the L
ORD our God gives us.
21Behold, the
L
ORD your God has set the land
before you; go up, take possession, as the L
ORD, the God of your fathers, has told you; do
not fear or be dismayed.’
22Then all of you came near me, and said,
‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land
for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up
and the cities into which we shall come.’
23The thing seemed good
to me, and I took twelve men of you, one man for each tribe;
24and they
turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of
Eshcol and spied it out.
25And they took in their hands some of the
fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word
again, and said, ‘It is a good land which the L
ORD our God gives us.’
26“Yet you would not go up, but
rebelled against the command of the L
ORD your God;
27and you murmured in your tents, and said,
‘Because the L
ORD hated us
he has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to give us into
the hand of the Am'orites, to destroy us.
28Where are we going
up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, “The
people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and
fortified up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the
An'akim there.”’
29Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in
dread or afraid of them.
30The L
ORD
your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he
did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
31and in the wilderness,
where you have seen how the L
ORD
your God bore you, as a man bears his son, in all the way that you
went until you came to this place.’
32Yet in spite of this
word you did not believe the L
ORD
your God,
33who went before you in the way to seek you
out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night, to show you by
what way you should go, and in the cloud by day.
Punishment for Israel’s
Rebellion
34“And
the LORD heard your words, and was
angered, and he swore, 35‘Not one of these men of this evil
generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your
fathers, 36except Caleb the son of Jephun'neh; he
shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land
upon which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the
LORD!’ 37The LORD was angry with me also on your account, and
said, ‘You also shall not go in there; 38Joshua the son of
Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter; encourage him, for he
shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39Moreover your little ones, who you said
would become a prey, and your children, who this day have no
knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there, and to them I will
give it, and they shall possess it. 40But as for you, turn, and journey into the
wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’
41“Then you answered me, ‘We have
sinned against the LORD; we will
go up and fight, just as the LORD
our God commanded us.’ And every man of you belted on his
weapons of war, and thought it easy to go up into the hill country.
42And the
LORD said to me, ‘Say to
them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in the midst of you; lest
you be defeated before your enemies.’ 43So I spoke to you,
and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of
the LORD, and were presumptuous
and went up into the hill country. 44Then the Am'orites who lived in that hill
country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you
down in Se'ir as far as Hormah. 45And you returned and wept before the
LORD; but the LORD did not listen to your voice or give ear to
you. 46So you
remained at Ka'desh many days, the days that you remained
there.
The Years in the Wilderness
2“Then we
turned, and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the
Red Sea, as the LORD told me; and
for many days we went about Mount Se'ir. 2Then the
LORD said to me, 3‘You have been
going about this mountain country long enough; turn northward.
4And command
the people, You are about to pass through the territory of your
brethren the sons of Esau, who live in Se'ir; and they will be
afraid of you. So take good heed; 5do not contend with them; for I will not give
you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot
to tread on, because I have given Mount Se'ir to Esau as a
possession. 6You shall purchase food from them for money,
that you may eat; and you shall also buy water of them for money,
that you may drink. 7For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of
your hands; he knows your going through this great wilderness;
these forty years the LORD your
God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.’ 8So we went on, away
from our brethren the sons of Esau who live in Se'ir, away from the
Ar'abah road from E'lath and E'zion-ge'ber.
“And we turned and went in the
direction of the wilderness of Moab.
9And the L
ORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or
contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their
land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot
for a possession.’
10(The E'mim formerly lived there, a people
great and many, and tall as the An'akim;
11like the An'akim they
are also known as Reph'aim, but the Moabites call them E'mim.
12The Horites
also lived in Se'ir formerly, but the sons of Esau dispossessed
them, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their
stead; as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the
L
ORD gave to them.)
13‘Now rise up,
and go over the brook Ze'red.’ So we went over the brook
Zered.
14And
the time from our leaving Ka'desh-bar'nea until we crossed the
brook Ze'red was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation,
that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the
L
ORD had sworn to them.
15For indeed the hand of the
L
ORD was against them, to destroy
them from the camp, until they had perished.
16“So when all the men of war had
perished and were dead from among the people, 17the LORD said to me, 18‘This day you are to pass over the
boundary of Moab at Ar; 19and when you approach the frontier of the
sons of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will
not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession,
because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’
20(That also
is known as a land of Reph'aim; Rephaim formerly lived there, but
the Am'monites call them Zamzum'mim, 21a people great and
many, and tall as the An'akim; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they
dispossessed them, and settled in their stead; 22as he did for the
sons of Esau, who live in Se'ir, when he destroyed the Horites
before them, and they dispossessed them, and settled in their stead
even to this day. 23As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as
far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them
and settled in their stead.) 24‘Rise up, take your journey, and go
over the valley of the Arnon; behold, I have given into your hand
Si'hon the Am'orite, king of Heshbon, and his land; begin to take
possession, and contend with him in battle. 25This day I will begin
to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples that are under
the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall
tremble and be in anguish because of you.’
The Defeat of Sihon the King of
Heshbon
26“So I sent
messengers from the wilderness of Ked'emoth to Si'hon the king of
Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,
27‘Let me pass
through your land; I will go only by the road, I will turn aside
neither to the right nor to the left.
28You shall sell me
food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I
may drink; only let me pass through on foot,
29as the sons of Esau
who live in Se'ir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until
I go over the Jordan into the land which the L
ORD our God gives to us.’
30But Si'hon the king
of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for the L
ORD your God hardened his spirit and made his
heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as at this
day.
31And the
L
ORD said to me, ‘Behold, I
have begun to give Si'hon and his land over to you; begin to take
possession, that you may occupy his land.’
32Then Si'hon came out
against us, he and all his people, to battle at Ja'haz.
33And the
L
ORD our God gave him over to us;
and we defeated him and his sons and all his people.
34And we captured all
his cities at that time and utterly destroyed every city, men,
women, and children; we left none remaining;
35only the cattle we
took as spoil for ourselves, with the booty of the cities which we
captured.
36From Aro'er, which is on the edge of the
valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, as
far as Gilead, there was not a city too high for us; the
L
ORD our God gave all into our
hands.
37Only
to the land of the sons of Ammon you did not draw near, that is, to
all the banks of the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill
country, and wherever the L
ORD our
God forbade us.
The Defeat of Og the King of
Bashan
3“Then we turned
and went up the way to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan came out
against us, he and all his people, to battle at Ed're-i. 2But the LORD said to me, ‘Do not fear him; for I
have given him and all his people and his land into your hand; and
you shall do to him as you did to Si'hon the king of the Am'orites,
who dwelt at Heshbon.’ 3So the LORD
our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his
people; and we struck him until no survivor was left to him.
4And we took
all his cities at that time—there was not a city which we did
not take from them—sixty cities, the whole region of Argob,
the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5All these were cities fortified with high
walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages.
6And we
utterly destroyed them, as we did to Si'hon the king of Heshbon,
destroying every city, men, women, and children. 7But all the cattle and
the spoil of the cities we took as our booty. 8So we took the land at
that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Am'orites who
were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount
Hermon 9(the
Sido'nians call Hermon Sir'ion, while the Am'orites call it
Se'nir), 10all
the cities of the tableland and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far
as Sal'ecah and Ed're-i, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
11(For only Og the king
of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Reph'aim; behold, his
bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the
Am'monites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its
breadth, according to the common cubit.a)
12“When we took possession of this land
at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the
territory beginning at Aro'er, which is on the edge of the valley
of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities;
13the rest of
Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region
of Argob, I gave to the half-tribe of Manas'seh. (The whole of that
Bashan is called the land of Reph'aim.
14Ja'ir the Manas'site
took all the region of Argob, that is, Bashan, as far as the border
of the Gesh'urites and the Ma-ac'athites, and called the villages
after his own name, Hav'voth-ja'ir, as it is to this day.)
15To Ma'chir I
gave Gilead,
16and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I
gave the territory from Gilead as far as the valley of the Arnon,
with the middle of the valley as a boundary, as far over as the
river Jabbok, the boundary of the Am'monites;
17the Ar'abah also,
with the Jordan as the boundary, from Chin'nereth as far as the sea
of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the
east.
18“And I commanded you at that time,
saying, ‘The LORD your God
has given you this land to possess; all your men of valor shall
pass over armed before your brethren the sons of Israel. 19But your wives, your
little ones, and your cattle (I know that you have many cattle)
shall remain in the cities which I have given you, 20until the
LORD gives rest to your brethren,
as to you, and they also occupy the land which the LORD your God gives them beyond the Jordan; then
you shall return every man to his possession which I have given
you.’ 21And I commanded Joshua at that time,
‘Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings; so
will the LORD do to all the
kingdoms into which you are going over. 22You shall not fear
them; for it is the LORD your God
who fights for you.’
Moses Views Canaan from Pisgah
23“And I begged
the L
ORD at that time, saying,
24‘O
Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness
and your mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth
who can do such works and mighty acts as yours?
25Let me go over, I
pray, and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that excellent hill
country, and Lebanon.’
26But the L
ORD was angry with me on your account, and
would not listen to me; and the L
ORD said to me, ‘Let it satisfy you;
speak no more to me of this matter.
27Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up
your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and
behold it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan.
28But charge Joshua,
and encourage and strengthen him; for he shall go over at the head
of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land
which you shall see.’
29So we remained in the valley opposite
Beth-pe'or.
Moses Commands Obedience to God
4“And now, O
Israel, give heed to the statutes and the ordinances which I teach
you, and do them; that you may live, and go in and take possession
of the land which the LORD, the
God of your fathers, gives you. 2You shall not add to the word which I command
you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the
LORD your God which I command you.
3Your eyes
have seen what the LORD did at
Ba'al-pe'or; for the LORD your God
destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Ba'al of
Peor; 4but you
who held fast to the LORD your God
are all alive this day. 5Behold, I have taught you statutes and
ordinances, as the LORD my God
commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are
entering to take possession of it. 6Keep them and do them; for that will be your
wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who,
when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this
great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7For what great nation
is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon
him? 8And what
great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so
righteous as all this law which I set before you this
day?
9“Only take heed, and keep your soul
diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen,
and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life;
make them known to your children and your children’s
children—
10how on the day that you stood before the
L
ORD your God at Horeb, the
L
ORD said to me, ‘Gather the
people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may
learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and
that they may teach their children so.’
11And you came near and stood
at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to
the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.
12Then the
L
ORD spoke to you out of the midst
of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there
was only a voice.
13And he
declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform,
that is, the ten commandments;
b and he wrote
them upon two tables of stone. 14And the
L
ORD commanded me at that time to
teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the
land which you are going over to possess.
15“Therefore take good heed to
yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the
L
ORD spoke to you at Horeb out of
the midst of the fire,
16beware lest you act corruptly by making a
graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the
likeness of male or female,
17the likeness of any beast that is on the
earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18the likeness
of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish
that is in the water under the earth.
19And beware lest you
lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon
and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and
worship them and serve them, things which the L
ORD your God has allotted to all the peoples
under the whole heaven.
20But the L
ORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of
the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own
possession, as at this day.
21Furthermore the L
ORD was angry with me on your account, and he
swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not
enter the good land which the L
ORD
your God gives you for an inheritance.
22For I must die in
this land, I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over and
take possession of that good land.
23Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the
covenant of the L
ORD your God,
which he made with you, and make a graven image in the form of
anything which the L
ORD your God
has forbidden you.
24For the L
ORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous
God.
25“When you beget children and
children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you
act corruptly by making a graven image in the form of anything, and
by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger,
26I call
heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will
soon utterly perish from the land which you are going over the
Jordan to possess; you will not live long upon it, but will be
utterly destroyed. 27And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you
will be left few in number among the nations where the
LORD will drive you. 28And there you will
serve gods of wood and stone, the work of men’s hands, that
neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29But from there you
will seek the LORD your God, and
you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and
with all your soul. 30When you are in tribulation, and all these
things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the
LORD your God and obey his voice,
31for the
LORD your God is a merciful God;
he will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant with
your fathers which he swore to them.
32“For ask now of the days that are
past, which were before you, since the day that God created man
upon the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other,
whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever
heard of.
33Did any people ever hear the voice of God
speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still
live?
34Or has
God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the
midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by
war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great
terrors, according to all that the L
ORD your God did for you in Egypt before your
eyes?
35To you it was shown, that you might know
that the L
ORD is God; there is no
other besides him.
36Out of heaven he let you hear his voice,
that he might discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great
fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37And because
he loved your fathers and chose their descendants after them, and
brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,
38driving out
before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring
you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as at this day;
39know
therefore this day, and lay it to your heart, that the
L
ORD is God in heaven above and on
the earth beneath; there is no other.
40Therefore you shall
keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you this
day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after
you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the
L
ORD your God gives you for
ever.”
*
Cities of Refuge East of the
Jordan
41*Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond
the Jordan,
42that the manslayer might flee there, who
kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with
him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he
might save his life:
43Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland
for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan
in Bashan for the Manas'sites.
Moses Sets Forth the Law
44This is the
law which Moses set before the children of Israel;
45these are the
decrees, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Moses spoke to the
children of Israel when they came out of Egypt,
46beyond the Jordan in
the valley opposite Beth-pe'or, in the land of Si'hon the king of
the Am'orites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of
Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt.
47And they took
possession of his land and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the
two kings of the Am'orites, who lived to the east beyond the
Jordan;
48from
Aro'er, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, as far as
Mount Sir'ion
c (that is,
Hermon), 49together with all the Ar'abah on the east
side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the
slopes of Pisgah.
The Ten Commandments
5And Moses summoned
all Israel, and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes
and the ordinances which I speak in your hearing this day, and you
shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
3Not with our
fathers did the LORD make this
covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive this day.
4The
LORD spoke with you face to face
at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5while I stood between
the LORD and you at that time, to
declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire,
and you did not go up into the mountain. He said:
6“‘I am the L
ORD your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
7“‘You shall have no other gods
before
d me.
8You shall not make for yourself a graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
9you shall not bow down
to them or serve them; for I the L
ORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth
generation of those who hate me,
10but showing merciful love to thousands of
those who love me and keep my commandments.
11“‘You shall not take the name of
the L
ORD your God in vain: for the
L
ORD will not hold him guiltless
who takes his name in vain.
12“‘Observe the sabbath day, to
keep it holy, as the L
ORD your God
commanded you.
13Six days you shall labor, and do all your
work;
14but the seventh day is a sabbath to the
L
ORD your God; in it you shall not
do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your
manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your donkey, or any
of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that
your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you.
15You shall
remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the
L
ORD your God brought you out from
there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the
L
ORD your God commanded you to
keep the sabbath day.
16“‘Honor your father and your
mother, as the L
ORD your God
commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go
well with you, in the land which the L
ORD your God gives you.
18“‘Neither shall you commit
adultery.
19“‘Neither shall you steal.
20“‘Neither shall you bear false
witness against your neighbor.
21“‘Neither shall you covet your
neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your
neighbor’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his
maidservant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your
neighbor’s.’
Moses the Mediator of God’s
Will
22“These words
the L
ORD spoke to all your
assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud,
and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more.
And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me.
23And when you
heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the
mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads
of your tribes, and your elders;
24and you said, ‘Behold, the
L
ORD our God has shown us his
glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst
of the fire; we have this day seen God speak with man and man still
live.
25Now
therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us;
if we hear the voice of the L
ORD
our God any more, we shall die.
26For who is there of all flesh, that has
heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of
fire, as we have, and has still lived?
27Go near, and hear all
that the L
ORD our God will say;
and speak to us all that the L
ORD
our God will speak to you; and we will hear and do it.’
28“And the LORD heard your words, when you spoke to me; and
the LORD said to me, ‘I have
heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they
have rightly said all that they have spoken. 29Oh that they had such
a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments,
that it might go well with them and with their children for ever!
30Go and say
to them, “Return to your tents.” 31But you, stand here
by me, and I will tell you all the commandment and the statutes and
the ordinances which you shall teach them, that they may do them in
the land which I give them to possess.’ 32You shall be careful
to do therefore as the LORD your
God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand
or to the left. 33You shall walk in all the way which the
LORD your God has commanded you,
that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you
may live long in the land which you shall possess.
The Great Commandment
6“Now this is
the commandment, the statutes and the ordinances which the
LORD your God commanded me to
teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going
over, to possess it; 2that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your
son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments,
which I command you, all the days of your life; and that your days
may be prolonged. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to
do them; that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply
greatly, as the LORD, the God of
your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and
honey.
4*“Hear, O Israel: The
L
ORD our God is one L
ORD;
e 5and you shall love the L
ORD your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your might.
6And these words which I command you this day
shall be upon your heart;
7and you shall teach them diligently to your
children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and
when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
8And you shall bind them as a
sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your
eyes.
9And you
shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your
gates.
Caution against Disobedience
10“And
when the L
ORD your God brings you
into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob, to give you, with great and excellent cities, which
you did not build,
11and houses full of all good things, which
you did not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which you did not hew, and
vineyards and olive trees, which you did not plant, and when you
eat and are full,
12then take heed lest you forget the
L
ORD, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
13You shall fear the
L
ORD your God; you shall serve
him, and swear by his name.
14You shall not go after other gods, of the
gods of the peoples who are round about you;
15for the
L
ORD your God in the midst of you
is a jealous God; lest the anger of the L
ORD your God be kindled against you, and he
destroy you from off the face of the earth.
16“You shall not put the L
ORD your God to the test, as you tested him at
Massah.
17You
shall diligently keep the commandments of the L
ORD your God, and his decrees, and his
statutes, which he has commanded you.
18And you shall do what
is right and good in the sight of the L
ORD, that it may go well with you, and that you
may go in and take possession of the good land which the
L
ORD swore to give to your fathers
19by thrusting
out all your enemies from before you, as the L
ORD has promised.
20“When your son asks you in time to
come, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes
and the ordinances which the L
ORD
our God has commanded you?’
21then you shall say to your son, ‘We
were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt; and the L
ORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand;
22and the
L
ORD showed signs and wonders,
great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his
household, before our eyes;
23and he brought us out from there, that he
might bring us in and give us the land which he swore to give to
our fathers.
24And the L
ORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to
fear the L
ORD our God, for our
good always, that he might preserve us alive, as at this day.
25And it will
be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this
commandment before the L
ORD our
God, as he has commanded us.’
A Chosen People
7“When the
LORD your God brings you into the
land which you are entering to take possession of it, and clears
away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gir'gashites, the
Am'orites, the Canaanites, the Per'izzites, the Hi'vites, and the
Jeb'usites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves,
2and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you
defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no
covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. 3You shall not make marriages
with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their
daughters for your sons. 4For they would turn away your sons from
following me, to serve other gods; then the anger of the
LORD would be kindled against you,
and he would destroy you quickly. 5But thus shall you deal with them: you shall
break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew
down their Ashe'rim, and burn their graven images with
fire.
6“For you are a people holy to the
L
ORD your God; the L
ORD your God has chosen you to be a people for
his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of
the earth.
7It
was not because you were more in number than any other people that
the L
ORD set his love upon you and
chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples;
8but it is because the
L
ORD loves you, and is keeping the
oath which he swore to your fathers, that the L
ORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and
redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh
king of Egypt.
9Know
therefore that the L
ORD your God
is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and merciful love with
those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand
generations,
10and repays to their face those who hate
him, by destroying them; he will not be slack with him who hates
him, he will repay him to his face.
11You shall therefore be careful to do the
commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command
you this day.
Blessing for Obedience
12“And because
you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, the
L
ORD your God will keep with you
the covenant and the merciful love which he swore to your fathers
to keep;
13he
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 and
your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young
of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give
you.
14You
shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be male or
female barren among you, or among your cattle.
15And the
L
ORD will take away from you all
sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew,
will he inflict upon you, but he will lay them upon all who hate
you.
16And you
shall destroy all the peoples that the L
ORD your God will give over to you, your eye
shall not pity them; neither shall you serve their gods, for that
would be a snare to you.
17“If you say in your heart,
‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess
them?’
18you shall not be afraid of them, but you
shall remember what the L
ORD your
God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
19the great trials
which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and
the outstretched arm, by which the L
ORD your God brought you out; so will the
L
ORD your God do to all the
peoples of whom you are afraid.
20Moreover the L
ORD your God will send hornets among them,
until those who are left and hide themselves from you are
destroyed.
21You shall not be in dread of them; for the
L
ORD your God is in the midst of
you, a great and terrible God.
22The L
ORD
your God will clear away these nations before you little by little;
you may not make an end of them at once,
f lest the wild
beasts grow too numerous for you. 23But the
L
ORD your God will give them over
to you, and throw them into great confusion, until they are
destroyed.
24And he will give their kings into your
hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven; not a
man shall be able to stand against you, until you have destroyed
them.
25The
graven images of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not
covet the silver or the gold that is on them, or take it for
yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to
the L
ORD your God.
26And you shall not
bring an abominable thing into your house, and become accursed like
it; you shall utterly detest and abhor it; for it is an accursed
thing.
A Warning Not to Forget God
8“All the
commandment which I command you this day you shall be careful to
do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land
which the LORD swore to give to
your fathers. 2And you shall remember all the way which the
LORD your God has led you these
forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing
you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his
commandments, or not. 3And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed
you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know;
that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone,
but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of
the LORD. 4Your clothing did not
wear out upon you, and your foot did not swell, these forty years.
5Know then in
your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. 6So you shall keep the
commandments of the LORD your God,
by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land,
a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth
in valleys and hills, 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig
trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9a land in which you
will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a
land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig
copper. 10And
you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given
you.
11“Take heed lest you forget the
LORD your God, by not keeping his
commandments and his ordinances and his statutes, which I command
you this day: 12lest, when you have eaten and are full, and
have built excellent houses and live in them, 13and when your herds
and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and
all that you have is multiplied, 14then your heart be lifted up, and you
forget the LORD your God, who
brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,
15who led you
through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents
and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who
brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16who fed you in the
wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that he
might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17Beware lest you say
in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten
me this wealth.’ 18You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power
to get wealth; that he may confirm his covenant which he swore to
your fathers, as at this day. 19And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve
them and worship them, I solemnly warn you this day that you shall
surely perish. 20Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you
perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
Consequences of Rebelling against
God
9“Hear, O
Israel; you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to
dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities
great and fortified up to heaven, 2a people great and tall, the sons of the
An'akim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said,
‘Who can stand before the sons of A'nak?’ 3Know therefore this day that
he who goes over before you as a devouring fire is the
LORD your God; he will destroy
them and subdue them before you; so you shall drive them out, and
make them perish quickly, as the LORD has promised you.
4“Do not say in your heart, after the
LORD your God has thrust them out
before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the
LORD has brought me in to possess
this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these
nations that the LORD is driving
them out before you. 5Not because of your righteousness or the
uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land;
but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before
you, and that he may confirm the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob.
6“Know therefore, that the
L
ORD your God is not giving you
this good land to possess because of your righteousness; for you
are a stubborn people.
7Remember and do not forget how you provoked
the L
ORD your God to wrath in the
wilderness; from the day you came out of the land of Egypt, until
you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the
L
ORD.
8Even at Horeb you provoked
the L
ORD to wrath, and the
L
ORD was so angry with you that he
was ready to destroy you.
9When I went up the mountain to receive the
tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the
L
ORD made with you, I remained on
the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor
drank water.
10And the L
ORD gave me the two tables of stone written
with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the
L
ORD had spoken with you on the
mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11And at the
end of forty days and forty nights the L
ORD gave me the two tables of stone, the tables
of the covenant.
12Then the L
ORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly
from here; for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have
acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way
which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten
image.’
13“Furthermore the L
ORD said to me, ‘I have seen this people,
and behold, it is a stubborn people;
14let me alone, that I
may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I
will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
15So I turned
and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with
fire; and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16And I
looked, and behold, you had sinned against the L
ORD your God; you had made yourselves a molten
calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the
L
ORD had commanded you.
17So I took hold of the
two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them
before your eyes.
18Then I lay prostrate before the
L
ORD as before, forty days and
forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all
the sin which you had committed, in doing what was evil in the
sight of the L
ORD, to provoke him
to anger.
19For I
was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the
L
ORD bore against you, so that he
was ready to destroy you. But the L
ORD listened to me that time also.
20And the
L
ORD was so angry with Aaron that
he was ready to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the
same time.
21Then I took the sinful thing, the calf
which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it,
grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw
the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the
mountain.
22“At Tab'erah also, and at Massah, and
at Kib'roth-hatta'avah, you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23And when the LORD sent you from Ka'desh-bar'nea, saying,
‘Go up and take possession of the land which I have given
you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the
LORD your God, and did not believe
him or obey his voice. 24You have been rebellious against the
LORD from the day that I knew
you.
25“So I lay prostrate before the
L
ORD for these forty days and
forty nights, because the L
ORD had
said he would destroy you.
26And I prayed to the L
ORD, ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy your
people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your
greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27Remember
your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not regard the
stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sin,
28lest the
land from which you brought us say, “Because the
L
ORD was not able to bring them
into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he
has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.”
29For they are
your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great
power and by your outstretched arm.’
The Second Pair of Stone Tables
10“At that time
the LORD said to me, ‘Hew
two tables of stone like the first, and come up to me on the
mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2And I will write on the tables the words
that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put
them in the ark.’ 3So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed
two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with
the two tables in my hand. 4And he wrote on the tables, as at the first
writing, the ten commandmentsg which the L
ORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of
the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the
L
ORD gave them to me.
5Then I turned
and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark
which I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me.
6“(The sons of Israel journeyed from
Be-er'oth Be'ne-ja'akan
h to Mose'rah.
There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and his son Elea'zar
ministered as priest in his stead. 7From there they
journeyed to Gud'godah, and from Gudgodah to Jot'bathah, a land
with brooks of water.
8At that time the L
ORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the
ark of the covenant of the L
ORD,
to stand before the L
ORD to
minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.
9Therefore Levi has no
portion or inheritance with his brothers; the L
ORD is his inheritance, as the L
ORD your God said to him.)
10“I stayed on the mountain, as at the
first time, forty days and forty nights, and the LORD listened to me that time also; the
LORD was unwilling to destroy you.
11And the
LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go
on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and
possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give
them.’
The Essence of the Law
12“And
now, Israel, what does the L
ORD
your God require of you, but to fear the L
ORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love
him, to serve the L
ORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul,
13and to keep the
commandments and statutes of the L
ORD, which I command you this day for your
good?
14Behold, to the L
ORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of
heavens, the earth with all that is in it;
15yet the
L
ORD set his heart in love upon
your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all
peoples, as at this day.
16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your
heart, and be no longer stubborn.
17For the L
ORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords,
the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and
takes no bribe.
18He executes justice for the fatherless and
the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.
19Love the sojourner
therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
20You shall fear the
L
ORD your God; you shall serve him
and cling to him, and by his name you shall swear.
21He is your praise; he
is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things
which your eyes have seen.
22Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy
persons; and now the L
ORD your God
has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.
Rewards for Obedience
11“You shall
therefore love the LORD your God,
and keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his
commandments always. And consider this day (since I am not speaking
to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the
disciplinei of the L
ORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand
and his outstretched arm,
3his signs and his deeds which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh
the king of Egypt and to all his land; 4and what he did to the
army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how he made
the water of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued after you,
and how the LORD has destroyed
them to this day; 5and what he did to you in the wilderness,
until you came to this place; 6and what he did to Da'than and Abi'ram the
sons of Eli'ab, son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth and
swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every
living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel;
7for your eyes
have seen all the great work of the LORD which he did.
8“You shall therefore keep all the
commandment which I command you this day, that you may be strong,
and go in and take possession of the land which you are going over
to possess, 9and that you may live long in the land which
the LORD swore to your fathers to
give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and
honey. 10For
the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not
like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed
your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of
vegetables; 11but the land which you are going over to
possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the
rain from heaven, 12a land which the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the
LORD your God are always upon it,
from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
13“And if you will obey my commandments
which I command you this day, to love the L
ORD your God, and to serve him with all your
heart and with all your soul,
14he
j will give the
rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later
rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your
oil. 15And he
j will give
grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be
full. 16Take heed lest your heart be deceived, and
you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,
17and the anger of the
L
ORD be kindled against you, and
he shut up the heavens, so that there be no rain, and the land
yield no fruit, and you perish quickly off the good land which the
L
ORD gives you.
18“You shall therefore lay up these
words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind
them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between your eyes.
19And you shall teach them to your children,
talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you
are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
20And you
shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your
gates,
21that
your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the
land which the L
ORD swore to your
fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22For if you
will be careful to do all this commandment which I command you to
do, loving the L
ORD your God,
walking in all his ways, and clinging to him,
23then the
L
ORD will drive out all these
nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and
mightier than yourselves.
24Every place on which the sole of your foot
treads shall be yours; your territory shall be from the wilderness
and Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western
sea.
25No man
shall be able to stand against you; the L
ORD your God will lay the fear of you and the
dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread, as he promised
you.
26“Behold, I set before you this day a
blessing and a curse:
27the blessing, if you obey the commandments
of the L
ORD your God, which I
command you this day,
28and the curse, if you do not obey the
commandments of the L
ORD your God,
but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go
after other gods which you have not known.
29And when the L
ORD your God brings you into the land which you
are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing
on Mount Ger'izim and the curse on Mount E'bal.
30Are they not beyond the
Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the
land of the Canaanites who live in the Ar'abah, over against
Gilgal, beside the Oak
k of
Mo'reh? 31For you are to pass over the Jordan to go
in to take possession of the land which the L
ORD your God gives you; and when you possess it
and live in it,
32you shall be careful to do all the statutes
and the ordinances which I set before you this day.
Pagan Shrines to Be Destroyed
12“These are the
statutes and ordinances which you shall be careful to do in the
land which the LORD, the God of
your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live
upon the earth. 2*You shall surely destroy all the
places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their
gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every
green tree; 3you
shall tear down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and
burn their Ashe'rim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images
of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place. 4You shall not do so to
the LORD your God. 5But you shall seek the place
which the LORD your God will
choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his
habitation there; there you shall go, 6and there you shall
bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the
offering that you present, your votive offerings, your freewill
offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock;
7and there you
shall eat before the LORD your
God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that
you undertake, in which the LORD
your God has blessed you. 8You shall not do according to all that we
are doing here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his
own eyes; 9for
you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which
the LORD your God gives you.
10But when you
go over the Jordan, and live in the land which the LORD your God gives you to inherit, and when he
gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live
in safety, 11then to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name
dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your
burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering
that you present, and all your votive offerings which you vow to
the LORD. 12And you shall rejoice
before the LORD your God, you and
your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your
maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he
has no portion or inheritance with you. 13Take heed that you do
not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see;
14but at the
place which the LORD will choose
in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings,
and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
Concerning Eating
15“However, you may slaughter
and eat flesh within any of your towns, as much as you desire,
according to the blessing of the L
ORD your God which he has given you; the
unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of
the deer.
16Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall
pour it out upon the earth like water.
17You may not eat
within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of
your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or of your flock, or any
of your votive offerings which you vow, or your freewill offerings,
or the offering that you present;
18but you shall eat them before the
L
ORD your God in the place which
the L
ORD your God will choose, you
and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your
maidservant, and the Levite who is within your towns; and you shall
rejoice before the L
ORD your God
in all that you undertake.
19Take heed that you do not forsake the
Levite as long as you live in your land.
20“When the L
ORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has
promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat flesh,’ because
you crave flesh, you may eat as much flesh as you desire.
21If the place which
the L
ORD your God will choose to
put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of
your herd or your flock, which the L
ORD has given you, as I have commanded you; and
you may eat within your towns as much as you desire.
22Just as the gazelle
or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it; the unclean and the
clean alike may eat of it.
23Only be sure that you do not eat the blood;
for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the
flesh.
24You
shall not eat it; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water.
25You shall
not eat it; that all may go well with you and with your children
after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the
L
ORD.
26But the holy things
which are due from you, and your votive offerings, you shall take,
and you shall go to the place which the L
ORD will choose,
27and offer your burnt
offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the
L
ORD your God; the blood of your
sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the L
ORD your God, but the flesh you may eat.
28Be careful
to heed all these words which I command you, that it may go well
with you and with your children after you for ever, when you do
what is good and right in the sight of the L
ORD your God.
Warning against Idolatry
29“When the
L
ORD your God cuts off before you
the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them
and dwell in their land,
30take heed that you be not ensnared to
follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that
you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these
nations serve their gods?—that I also may do likewise.’
31You shall
not do so to the L
ORD your God;
for every abominable thing which the L
ORD hates they have done for their gods; for
they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their
gods.
32l“Everything that I command you you shall be
careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from
it.
13“If a prophet
arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a
wonder, 2and
the sign or wonder which he tells you comes to pass, and if he
says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not
known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3you shall not listen
to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for the
LORD your God is testing you, to
know whether you love the LORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4You shall walk after
the LORD your God and fear him,
and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve
him and cling to him. 5But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams
shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the
LORD your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage,
to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you
shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
6“If your brother, the son of your
mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom,
or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly,
saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither
you nor your fathers have known, 7some of the gods of the peoples that are
round about you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one
end of the earth to the other, 8you shall not yield to him or listen to him,
nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you
conceal him; 9but you shall kill him; your hand shall be
first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of
all the people. 10You shall stone him to death with stones,
because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 11And all Israel shall
hear, and fear, and never again do any such wickedness as this
among you.
12“If you hear in one of your cities,
which the LORD your God gives you
to dwell there, 13that certain base fellows have gone out
among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of the city, saying,
‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not
known, 14then
you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently; and behold,
if it be true and certain that such an abominable thing has been
done among you, 15you shall surely put the inhabitants of
that city to the sword, destroying it utterly, all who are in it
and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16You shall gather all
its spoil into the midst of its open square, and burn the city and
all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the
LORD your God; it shall be a heap
for ever, it shall not be built again. 17None of the devoted
things shall cling to your hand; that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger,
and show you mercy, and have compassion on you, and multiply you,
as he swore to your fathers, 18if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, keeping all his commandments
which I command you this day, and doing what is right in the sight
of the LORD your God.
Pagan Practices Forbidden
14“You are the
sons of the LORD your God; you
shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for
the dead. 2For you are a people holy to the
LORD your God, and the
LORD has chosen you to be a people
for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face
of the earth.
3“You shall not eat any abominable
thing.
4These
are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle,
the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the
mountain-sheep.
6Every animal that parts the hoof and has the
hoof cloven in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may
eat.
7Yet of
those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat
these: The camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew
the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you.
8And the swine, because
it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you.
Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not
touch.
9“Of all that are in the waters you may
eat these: Whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10And whatever does not
have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for
you.
11“You may eat all clean birds.
12But these
are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the
osprey, 13the
buzzard, the kite, after their kinds; 14every raven after its
kind; 15the
ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk, after their kinds;
16the little
owl and the great owl, the water hen 17and the pelican, the
carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18the stork, the heron, after their kinds;
the hoopoe and the bat. 19And all winged insects are unclean for you;
they shall not be eaten. 20All clean winged things you may eat.
21“You shall not eat anything that dies
of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your towns,
that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are
a people holy to the L
ORD your
God.
“You shall not boil a kid in its
mother’s milk.
Regulations concerning Tithes
22“You shall
tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth from the field
year by year.
23And before the L
ORD your God, in the place which he will
choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of
your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstlings of
your herd and flock; that you may learn to fear the L
ORD your God always.
24And if the way is too
long for you, so that you are not able to bring the tithe, when the
L
ORD your God blesses you, because
the place is too far from you, which the L
ORD your God chooses, to set his name there,
25then you
shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and
go to the place which the L
ORD
your God chooses,
26and spend the money for whatever you
desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your
appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the L
ORD your God and rejoice, you and your
household.
27And you shall not forsake the Levite who is
within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with
you.
28“At the end of every three years you
shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in the same year,
and lay it up within your towns; 29and the Levite, because he has no portion
or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the
widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled;
that the LORD your God may bless
you in all the work of your hands that you do.
Concerning the Sabbatical Year
15“At the end
of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2And this is the manner
of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to
his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother,
because the LORD’s release has been proclaimed. 3Of a foreigner you may
exact it; but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand
shall release. 4But there will be no poor among you (for the
LORD will bless you in the land
which the LORD your God gives you
for an inheritance to possess), 5if only you will obey the voice of the
LORD your God, being careful to do
all this commandment which I command you this day. 6For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised
you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow;
and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over
you.
7“If there is among you a poor man, one
of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the
L
ORD your God gives you, you shall
not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,
8but you shall
open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need,
whatever it may be.
9Take heed lest there be a base thought in
your heart, and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of
release is near,’ and your eye be hostile to your poor
brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the L
ORD against you, and it be sin in you.
10You shall
give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you
give to him; because for this the L
ORD your God will bless you in all your work
and in all that you undertake.
11For the poor will never cease out of the
land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to
your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.
12“If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a
Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in
the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
13And when you let him
go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed;
14you shall furnish him
liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out
of your wine press; as the L
ORD
your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
15You shall remember
that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the L
ORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command
you this today.
16But if he says to you, ‘I will not go
out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since
he fares well with you,
17then you shall take an awl, and thrust it
through his ear into the door, and he shall be your bondman for
ever. And to your bondwoman you shall do likewise.
18It shall not seem
hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for at half the
cost of a hired servant he has served you six years. So the
L
ORD your God will bless you in
all that you do.
Regulations concerning Livestock
19“All the
firstling males that are born of your herd and flock you shall
consecrate to the L
ORD your God;
you shall do no work with the firstling of your herd, nor shear the
firstling of your flock.
20You shall eat it, you and your household,
before the L
ORD your God year by
year at the place which the L
ORD
will choose.
21But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or
blind, or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice
it to the L
ORD your God.
22You shall eat it
within your towns; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as
though it were a gazelle or a deer.
23Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall
pour it out on the ground like water.
Keeping the Passover
16“Observe the
month of A'bib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God; for in the month of Abib the
LORD your God brought you out of
Egypt by night. 2And you
shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at
the place which the LORD will
choose, to make his name dwell there. 3You shall eat no leavened
bread with it; seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread,
the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt
in hurried flight—that all the days of your life you may
remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4No leaven shall be seen with
you in all your territory for seven days; nor shall any of the
flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain
all night until morning. 5You may not offer the Passover sacrifice
within any of your towns which the LORD your God gives you; 6but at the place which
the LORD your God will choose, to
make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover
sacrifice, in the evening at the going down of the sun, at the time
you came out of Egypt. 7And you shall boil it and eat it at the
place which the LORD your God will
choose; and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.
8For six days you shall
eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day there shall be a
solemn assembly to the LORD your
God; you shall do no work on it.
Keeping the Feast of Weeks
9“You shall
count seven weeks; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you
first put the sickle to the standing grain.
10Then you shall keep
the feast of weeks to the L
ORD
your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand,
which you shall give as the L
ORD
your God blesses you;
11and you shall rejoice before the
L
ORD your God, you and your son
and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, the Levite
who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the
widow who are among you, at the place which the L
ORD your God will choose, to make his name
dwell there.
12You shall remember that you were a slave in
Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
Keeping the Feast of Booths
13“You
shall keep the feast of booths seven days, when you make your
ingathering from your threshing floor and your wine press;
14you shall
rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your
manservant and your maidservant, the Levite, the sojourner, the
fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. 15For seven days you
shall keep the feast to the LORD
your God at the place which the LORD will choose; because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce
and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether
joyful.
16“Three times a year all your males
shall appear before the L
ORD your
God at the place which he will choose: at the feast of unleavened
bread, at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of booths. They
shall not appear before the L
ORD
empty-handed;
17every man shall give as he is able,
according to the blessing of the L
ORD your God which he has given you.
Appointing Judges and Officers
18“You shall
appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the
L
ORD your God gives you, according
to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous
judgment.
19You shall not pervert justice; you shall not
show partiality; and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds
the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.
20Justice, and
only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the
land which the L
ORD your God gives
you.
Forbidden Forms of Worship
21“You shall not
plant any tree as an Ashe'rah beside the altar of the
L
ORD your God which you shall
make.
22And
you shall not set up a pillar, which the L
ORD your God hates.
17“You shall not
sacrifice to the LORD your God an
ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever; for that
is an abomination to the LORD your
God.
2“If there is found among you, within
any of your towns which the L
ORD
your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the
sight of the L
ORD your God, in
transgressing his covenant,
3and has gone and served other gods and
worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of
heaven, which I have forbidden,
4and it is told you and you hear of it; then
you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that
such an abominable thing has been done in Israel,
5then you shall bring
forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing,
and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.
6On the evidence of two
witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to die shall be put to
death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one
witness.
7The hand of the witnesses shall be first
against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the
people. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
Legal Decisions by Priests and
Judges
8“If any
case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and
another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of
assault and another, any case within your towns which is too
difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place
which the LORD your God will
choose, 9and
coming to the Levitical priests, and to the judge who is in office
in those days, you shall consult them, and they shall declare to
you the decision. 10Then you shall do according to what they
declare to you from that place which the LORD will choose; and you shall be careful to do
according to all that they direct you; 11according to the
instructions which they give you, and according to the decision
which they pronounce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside
from the verdict which they declare to you, either to the right
hand or to the left. 12The man who acts presumptuously, by not
obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the
LORD your God, or the judge, that
man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13And all the people
shall hear, and fear, and not act presumptuously again.
Limitations of Royal Authority
14“When
you come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and
dwell in it, and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like
all the nations that are round about me’; 15you may indeed set as
king over you him whom the LORD
your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as
king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not
your brother. 16Only he must not multiply horses for
himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to
multiply horses, since the LORD
has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way
again.’ 17And he shall not multiply wives for
himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply
for himself silver and gold.
18“And when he sits on the throne of his
kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law,
from that which is in the charge of the Levitical priests;
19and it shall
be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that
he may learn to fear the L
ORD his
God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and
doing them;
20that his heart may not be lifted up above
his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment,
either to the right hand or to the left; so that he may continue
long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
Privileges of Priests and
Levites
18“The Levitical
priests, that is, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or
inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings by fire to
the LORD, and his rightful dues.
2They shall
have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
3And this
shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those
offering a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep: they shall give to
the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.
4The first
fruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first
of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your
tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever.
6“And if a Levite comes from any of
your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come
when he desires—to the place which the L
ORD will choose,
7then he may minister
in the name of the L
ORD his God,
like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the
L
ORD.
8They shall have equal
portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his
patrimony.
m
Abominable Practices Prohibited
9“When
you come into the land which the L
ORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to
follow the abominable practices of those nations.
10There shall not be found
among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an
offering,
n any one
who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a
sorcerer, 11or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or
a necromancer.
12For whoever does these things is an
abomination to the L
ORD; and
because of these abominable practices the L
ORD your God is driving them out before you.
13You shall be
blameless before the L
ORD your
God.
14For
these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to
soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the L
ORD your God has not allowed you so to
do.
15“The L
ORD your God will raise up for you a prophet
like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall
heed—
16just as you desired of the L
ORD your God at Horeb on the day of the
assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of
the L
ORD my God, or see this great
fire any more, lest I die.’
17And the L
ORD said to me, ‘They have rightly said
all that they have spoken.
18I will raise up for them a prophet
* like you from among their brethren; and I will put my
words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command
him.
19And
whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my
name, I myself will require it of him.
20But the prophet who
presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him
to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same
prophet shall die.’
21And if you say in your heart, ‘How
may we know the word which the L
ORD has not spoken?’—
22when a prophet speaks
in the name of the L
ORD, if the
word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the
L
ORD has not spoken; the prophet
has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.
Cities of Refuge
19“When the
LORD your God cuts off the nations
whose land the LORD your God gives
you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their
houses, 2you
shall set apart three cities for you in the land which the
LORD your God gives you to
possess. 3You
shall prepare the roads, and divide into three parts the area of
the land which the LORD your God
gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to
them.
4“This is the provision for the
manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If any one kills
his neighbor unintentionally without having been at enmity with him
in time past—5as when a man goes into the forest with his
neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a
tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor
so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and save
his life; 6lest the avenger of blood in hot anger
pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and
wound him mortally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he
was not at enmity with his neighbor in time past. 7Therefore I command
you, You shall set apart three cities. 8And if the
LORD your God enlarges your
border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land
which he promised to give to your fathers—9provided you are
careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you this day,
by loving the LORD your God and by
walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three other
cities to these three, 10lest innocent blood be shed in your land
which the LORD your God gives you
for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon
you.
11“But if any man hates his neighbor,
and lies in wait for him, and attacks him, and wounds him mortally
so that he dies, and the man flees into one of these cities,
12then the
elders of his city shall send and fetch him from there, and hand
him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die.
13Your eye shall not pity
him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood
o from Israel,
so that it may be well with you.
Concerning Landmarks
14“In
the inheritance which you will hold in the land that the
LORD your God gives you to
possess, you shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which
the men of old have set.
Concerning Witnesses
15“A single
witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime or for any
wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed; only on
the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a
charge be sustained.
16If a malicious witness rises against any man
to accuse him of wrongdoing,
17then both parties to the dispute shall
appear before the L
ORD, before the
priests and the judges who are in office in those days;
18the judges shall
inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has
accused his brother falsely,
19then you shall do to him as he had meant to
do to his brother; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of
you.
20And the
rest shall hear, and fear, and shall never again commit any such
evil among you.
21Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
foot.
Concerning Warfare
20“When you go
forth to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and
an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them; for
the LORD your God is with you, who
brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 2And when you draw near
to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the
people, 3and
shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you draw near this day to
battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint; do not fear,
or tremble, or be in dread of them; 4for the LORD your God is he that goes with you, to fight
for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’
5Then the
officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘What man is
there that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him
go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man
dedicate it. 6And what man is there that has planted a
vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his
house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit.
7And what man
is there that has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him
go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man
take her.’ 8And the officers shall speak further to the
people, and say, ‘What man is there that is fearful and
fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest the heart of his
fellows melt as his heart.’ 9And when the officers have made an end of
speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the
head of the people.
10“When you draw near to a city to
fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. 11And if its answer to
you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found
in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. 12But if it makes no
peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege
it; 13and when
the LORD your God gives it into
your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, 14but the women and the
little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its
spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy
the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. 15Thus you shall do to
all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of
the nations here. 16But in the cities of these peoples that the
LORD your God gives you for an
inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17but you shall utterly
destroy them, the Hittites and the Am'orites, the Canaanites and
the Per'izzites, the Hi'vites and the Jeb'usites, as the
LORD your God has commanded;
18that they
may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices
which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin
against the LORD your God.
19“When you besiege a city for a long
time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not
destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat
of them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the
field men that they should be besieged by you? 20Only the trees which
you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down that
you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you,
until it falls.
Concerning the Slain
21“If in the
land which the LORD your God gives
you to possess, any one is found slain, lying in the open country,
and it is not known who killed him, 2then your elders and your judges shall come
forth, and they shall measure the distance to the cities which are
around him that is slain; 3and the elders of the city which is nearest
to the slain man shall take a heifer which has never been worked
and which has not pulled in the yoke. 4And the elders of that
city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water,
which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the
heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5And the priests the
sons of Levi shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him
and to bless in the name of the LORD, and by their word every dispute and every
assault shall be settled. 6And all the elders of that city nearest to
the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was
broken in the valley; 7and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did
not shed this blood, neither did our eyes see it shed. 8Forgive, O
LORD, your people Israel, whom you
have redeemed, and set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst
of your people Israel; but let the guilt of blood be forgiven
them.’ 9So you shall purge the guilt of innocent
blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of
the LORD.
Women Taken Captive
10“When
you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hands, and
you take them captive, 11and see among the captives a beautiful
woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself
as wife, 12then you shall bring her home to your
house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13And she shall put off
her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail
her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to
her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14Then, if you have no
delight in her, you shall let her go where she will; but you shall
not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, since
you have humiliated her.
Right of the First-born Son
15“If a man has
two wives, the one loved and the other disliked, and they have
borne him children, both the loved and the disliked, and if the
first-born son is hers that is disliked,
16then on the day when
he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may
not treat the son of the loved as the first-born in preference to
the son of the disliked, who is the first-born,
17but he shall acknowledge
the first-born, the son of the disliked, by giving him a double
portion of all that he has, for he is the first issue of his
strength; the right of the first-born is his.
Rebellious Sons
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, though they chastise him,
will not give heed to them,
19then his father and his mother shall take
hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate
of the place where he lives,
20and they shall say to the elders of his
city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not
obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’
21Then all the men of
the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge
the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and
fear.
Miscellaneous Laws
22“And if a man
has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death,
and you hang him on a tree,
23his body shall not remain all night upon the
tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is
accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the
L
ORD your God gives you for an
inheritance.
22“You shall not
see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and withhold
your helpp from them; you shall take them back
to your brother.
2And if he is not near you, or if you do not know him,
you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you
until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him.
3And so you
shall do with his donkey; so you shall do with his garment; so you
shall do with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he
loses and you find; you may not withhold your help. 4You shall not see your
brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way, and
withhold your helpp from them; you shall help him to lift
them up again.
5“A woman shall not wear anything that
pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment;
for whoever does these things is an abomination to the
LORD your God.
6“If you chance to come upon a
bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or
eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, you
shall not take the mother with the young; 7you shall let the
mother go, but the young you may take to yourself; that it may go
well with you, and that you may live long.
8“When you build a new house, you shall
make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of
blood upon your house, if any one fall from it.
9“You shall not sow your vineyard with
two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited to the
sanctuary,
q the
crop which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.
10You shall
not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
11You shall not wear a
mingled stuff, wool and linen together.
12“You shall make yourself tassels on
the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.
Concerning Sexual Relations
13“If
any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her,
14and charges
her with shameful conduct, and brings an evil name upon her,
saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did
not find in her the tokens of virginity,’
15then the father of
the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens
of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate;
16and the father of the
young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to
this man to wife, and he spurns her;
17and behold, he has
made shameful charges against her, saying, “I did not find in
your daughter the tokens of virginity.” And yet these are the
tokens of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall
spread the garment before the elders of the city.
18Then the elders of
that city shall take the man and whip him;
19and they shall fine
him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the
young woman, because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of
Israel; and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his
days.
20But if
the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in
the young woman,
21then they shall bring out the young woman to
the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall
stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in
Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you
shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
22“If a man is found lying with the wife
of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the
woman, and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from
Israel.
23“If there is a betrothed virgin, and
a man meets her in the city and lies with her,
24then you shall bring them
both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to
death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help
though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his
neighbor’s wife; so you shall purge the evil from the midst
of you.
25“But if in the open country a man
meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and
lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.
26But to the
young woman you shall do nothing; in the young woman there is no
offense punishable by death, for this case is like that of a man
attacking and murdering his neighbor; 27because he came upon
her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried
for help there was no one to rescue her.
28“If a man meets a virgin who is not
betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found,
29then the man who lay
with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels
of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her;
he may not put her away all his days.
30r“A man
shall not take his father’s wife, nor shall he uncover her
who is his father’s.s
Exclusion from the Assembly
23“He whose
testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not
enter the assembly of the LORD.
2“No bastard shall enter the assembly
of the LORD; even to the tenth
generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the
LORD.
3“No Am'monite or Moabite shall enter
the assembly of the L
ORD; even to
the tenth generation none belonging to them shall enter the
assembly of the L
ORD for ever;
4because they
did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you
came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam
the son of Beor from Pe'thor of Mesopota'mia, to curse you.
5Nevertheless
the L
ORD your God would not listen
to Balaam; but the L
ORD your God
turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the
L
ORD your God loved you.
6You shall not seek
their peace or their prosperity all your days for ever.
7“You shall not abhor an E'domite, for
he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you
were a sojourner in his land. 8The children of the third generation that
are born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.
Sanitary, Ritual, and
Humanitarian Precepts
9“When
you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, then you shall
keep yourself from every evil thing.
10“If there is among you any man who is
not clean by reason of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go
outside the camp, he shall not come within the camp; 11but when evening
comes on, he shall bathe himself in water, and when the sun is
down, he may come within the camp.
12“You shall have a place outside the
camp and you shall go out to it; 13and you shall have a stick with your
weapons; and when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a
hole with it, and turn back and cover up your excrement. 14Because the
LORD your God walks in the midst
of your camp, to save you and to give up your enemies before you,
therefore your camp must be holy, that he may not see anything
indecent among you, and turn away from you.
15“You shall not give up to his master
a slave who has escaped from his master to you; 16he shall dwell with
you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one
of your towns, where it pleases him best; you shall not oppress
him.
17“There shall be no cult prostitute of
the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a cult prostitute
of the sons of Israel.
18You shall not bring the hire of a harlot, or
the wages of a dog,
t into the
house of the LORD your God in
payment for any vow; for both of these are an abomination to the
LORD your God.
19“You shall not lend upon interest to
your brother, interest on money, interest on victuals, interest on
anything that is lent for interest.
20To a foreigner you may lend upon interest,
but to your brother you shall not lend upon interest; that the
L
ORD your God may bless you in all
that you undertake in the land which you are entering to take
possession of it.
21“When you make a vow to the
L
ORD your God, you shall not be
slack to pay it; for the L
ORD your
God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin in you.
22But if you
refrain from vowing, it shall be no sin in you.
23You shall be careful
to perform what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily
vowed to the L
ORD your God what
you have promised with your mouth.
24“When you go into your
neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many
as you wish, but you shall not put any in your vessel.
25When you go into your
neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your
hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s
standing grain.
Laws concerning Marriage and
Divorce
24*“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then
she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency
in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand
and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
2and if she
goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3and the latter husband
dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her
hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies,
who took her to be his wife, 4then her former husband, who sent her away,
may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled;
for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt upon the
land which the LORD your God gives
you for an inheritance.
Various Laws
5“When a man is
newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with
any business; he shall be free at home one year, to be happy with
his wife whom he has taken.
6“No man shall take a mill or an upper
millstone in pledge; for he would be taking a life in pledge.
7“If a man is found stealing one of his
brethren, the sons of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or
sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil
from the midst of you.
8“Take heed, in an attack of leprosy, to
be very careful to do according to all that the Levitical priests
shall direct you; as I commanded them, so you shall be careful to
do.
9Remember
what the L
ORD your God did to
Miriam on the way as you came forth out of Egypt.
10“When you make your neighbor a loan
of any sort, you shall not go into his house to fetch his pledge.
11You shall
stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring
the pledge out to you. 12And if he is a poor man, you shall not
sleep in his pledge; 13when the sun goes down, you shall restore
to him the pledge that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and
it shall be righteousness to you before the LORD your God.
14“You shall not oppress a hired servant
who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brethren or one of
the sojourners who are in your land within your towns;
15you shall give him his hire
on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he is poor,
and sets his heart upon it); lest he cry against you to the
L
ORD, and it be sin in you.
16“The fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for
the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
17“You shall not pervert the justice due
to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s
garment in pledge;
18but you shall remember that you were a slave
in Egypt and the L
ORD your God
redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
19“When you reap your harvest in your
field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go
back to get it; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and
the widow; that the L
ORD your God
may bless you in all the work of your hands.
20When you beat your olive
trees, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the
sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
21When you gather the grapes
of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for
the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
22You shall remember
that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you
to do this.
25“If there is
a dispute between men, and they come into court, and the judges
decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the
guilty, 2then if
the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to
lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in
proportion to his offense. 3Forty stripes may be given him, but not more;
lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these,
your brother be degraded in your sight.
4“You shall not muzzle an ox when it
treads out the grain.
Duty to a Brother’s Widow
5“If brothers
dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of
the dead shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her
husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his
wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.
6And the first son whom
she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead,
that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
7And if the man does
not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s
wife shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My
husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s
name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s
brother to me.’
8Then the elders of his city shall call him,
and speak to him: and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish
to take her,’
9then his brother’s wife shall go up to
him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his
foot, and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘So
shall it be done to the man who does not build up his
brother’s house.’
10And the name of his house
u shall be
called in Israel, The house of him that had his sandal pulled
off.
Various Commands
11“When
men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to
rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and
puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, 12then you shall cut
off her hand; your eye shall have no pity.
13“You shall not have in your bag two
kinds of weights, a large and a small.
14You shall not have in
your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small.
15A full and just
weight you shall have, a full and just measure you shall have; that
your days may be prolonged in the land which the L
ORD your God gives you.
16For all who do such
things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the
L
ORD your God.
17“Remember what Am'alek did to you on
the way as you came out of Egypt,
18how he attacked you on the way, when you
were faint and weary, and cut off at your rear all who lagged
behind you; and he did not fear God.
19Therefore when the
L
ORD your God has given you rest
from all your enemies round about, in the land which the
L
ORD your God gives you for an
inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of
Am'alek from under heaven; you shall not forget.
First Fruits and Tithes
26“When you come
into the land which the LORD your
God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it,
and live in it, 2you
shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which
you harvest from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in
a basket, and you shall go to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to
dwell there. 3And you shall go to the priest who is in
office at that time, and say to him, ‘I declare this day to
the LORD your God that I have come
into the land which the LORD swore
to our fathers to give us.’ 4Then the priest shall take the basket from
your hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.
5“And you shall make response before the
L
ORD your God, ‘A wandering
Arame'an was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned
there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty,
and populous.
6And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and
afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.
7Then we cried to the
L
ORD the God of our fathers, and
the L
ORD heard our voice, and saw
our affliction, our toil, and our oppression;
8and the L
ORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;
9and he
brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing
with milk and honey.
10And behold, now I bring the first of the
fruit of the ground, which you, O L
ORD, have given me.’ And you shall set it
down before the L
ORD your God, and
worship before the L
ORD your God;
11and you
shall rejoice in all the good which the L
ORD your God has given to you and to your
house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among
you.
12“When you have finished paying all
the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of
tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless,
and the widow, that they may eat within your towns and be filled,
13then you
shall say before the LORD your
God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and
moreover I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the
fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment which
you have commanded me; I have not transgressed any of your
commandments, neither have I forgotten them; 14I have not eaten of
the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was
unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; I have obeyed the voice
of the LORD my God, I have done
according to all that you have commanded me. 15Look down from your
holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the
ground which you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land
flowing with milk and honey.’
Concluding Exhortation
16“This
day the L
ORD your God commands you
to do these statutes and ordinances; you shall therefore be careful
to do them with all your heart and with all your soul.
17You have declared
this day concerning the L
ORD that
he is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his
statutes and his commandments and his ordinances, and will obey his
voice;
18and
the L
ORD has declared this day
concerning you that you are a people for his own possession, as he
has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,
19that he will set you
high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in fame and
in honor, and that you shall be a people holy to the L
ORD your God, as he has spoken.”
The Inscribed Stones and Altar on
Mount Ebal
27Now Moses and the
elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep all the
commandment which I command you this day. 2And on the day you pass over
the Jordan to the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall set up large
stones, and plaster them with plaster; 3and you shall write
upon them all the words of this law, when you pass over to enter
the land which the LORD your God
gives you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the
LORD, the God of your fathers, has
promised you. 4And when you have passed over the Jordan,
you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you this
day, on Mount E'bal, and you shall plaster them with plaster.
5And there you shall
build an altar to the LORD your
God, an altar of stones; you shall lift up no iron tool upon them.
6You shall build an
altar to the LORD your God of
unhewnv stones; and you shall offer burnt
offerings on it to the L
ORD your
God;
7and you shall
sacrifice peace offerings, and shall eat there; and you shall
rejoice before the LORD your God.
8And you shall
write upon the stones all the words of this law very
plainly.”
9And Moses and the Levitical priests said to
all Israel, “Keep silence and hear, O Israel: this day you
have become the people of the LORD
your God. 10You shall therefore obey the voice of the
LORD your God, keeping his
commandments and his statutes, which I command you this
day.”
Twelve Curses at Mount Ebal
11And Moses
charged the people the same day, saying, 12“When you have
passed over the Jordan, these shall stand upon Mount Ger'izim to
bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Is'sachar, Joseph, and
Benjamin. 13And these shall stand upon Mount E'bal for
the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zeb'ulun, Dan, and Naph'tali.
14And the
Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel with a loud
voice:
15“‘Cursed be the man who makes a
graven or molten image, an abomination to the L
ORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman,
and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer
and say, ‘Amen.’
16“‘Cursed be he who dishonors his
father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
17“‘Cursed be he who removes his
neighbor’s landmark.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
18“‘Cursed be he who misleads a
blind man on the road.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
19“‘Cursed be he who perverts the
justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’
And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
20“‘Cursed be he who lies with his
father’s wife, because he has uncovered her who is his
father’s.’
w And all the
people shall say, ‘Amen.’
21“‘Cursed be he who lies with any
kind of beast.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
22“‘Cursed be he who lies with his
sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his
mother.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
23“‘Cursed be he who lies with his
mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
24“‘Cursed be he who slays his
neighbor in secret.’ And all the people shall say,
‘Amen.’
25“‘Cursed be he who takes a
bribe to slay an innocent person.’ And all the people shall
say, ‘Amen.’
26“‘Cursed be he who does not
confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the
people shall say, ‘Amen.’
Blessing for Obedience
28“And if you
obey the voice of the LORD your
God, being careful to do all his commandments which I command you
this day, the LORD your God will
set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2And all these
blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the
voice of the LORD your God.
3Blessed shall
you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4Blessed shall
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. 5Blessed shall be your basket and your
kneading-trough. 6Blessed shall you be when you come in, and
blessed shall you be when you go out.
7“The L
ORD will cause your enemies who rise against
you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one
way, and flee before you seven ways.
8The L
ORD will command the blessing upon you in your
barns, and in all that you undertake; and he will bless you in the
land which the L
ORD your God gives
you.
9The
L
ORD will establish you as a
people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the
commandments of the L
ORD your God,
and walk in his ways.
10And all the peoples of the earth shall see
that you are called by the name of the L
ORD; and they shall be afraid of you.
11And the
L
ORD will make you abound in
prosperity, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your
cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, within the land which the
L
ORD swore to your fathers to give
you.
12The
L
ORD will open to you his good
treasury the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season
and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many
nations, but you shall not borrow.
13And the L
ORD will make you the head, and not the tail;
and you shall tend upward only, and not downward; if you obey the
commandments of the L
ORD your God,
which I command you this day, being careful to do them,
14and if you do not
turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to
the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve
them.
Warnings against Disobedience
15“But
if you will not obey the voice of the L
ORD your God or be careful to do all his
commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, then
all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
16Cursed shall you be in the
city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
17Cursed shall be your
basket and your kneading-trough.
18Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and
the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the
young of your flock.
19Cursed shall you be when you come in, and
cursed shall you be when you go out.
20“The L
ORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and
frustration, in all that you undertake to do, until you are
destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the evil of your
doings, because you have forsaken me.
21The L
ORD will make the pestilence cling to you until
he has consumed you off the land which you are entering to take
possession of it.
22The
L
ORD will strike you with
consumption, and with fever, inflammation, and fiery heat, and with
drought,
x and
with blasting, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you
perish. 23And the heavens over your head shall be
brass, and the earth under you shall be iron.
24The L
ORD will make the rain of your land powder and
dust; from heaven it shall come down upon you until you are
destroyed.
25“The L
ORD will cause you to be defeated before your
enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways
before them; and you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the
earth.
26And
your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air, and for the
beasts of the earth; and there shall be no one to frighten them
away.
27The
L
ORD will strike you with the
boils of Egypt, and with the ulcers and the scurvy and the itch, of
which you cannot be healed.
28The L
ORD
will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind;
29and you
shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you
shall not prosper in your ways; and you shall be only oppressed and
robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.
30You shall
betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; you shall build
a house, and you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard,
and you shall not use the fruit of it.
31Your ox shall be
slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it; your donkey
shall be violently taken away before your face, and shall not be
restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and
there shall be no one to help you.
32Your sons and your daughters shall be given
to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing
for them all the day; and it shall not be in the power of your hand
to prevent it.
33A nation which you have not known shall eat
up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors; and you shall
be only oppressed and crushed continually;
34so that you shall be
driven mad by the sight which your eyes shall see.
35The L
ORD will strike you on the knees and on the
legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the
sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36“The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you set
over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known;
and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. 37And you shall become
a horror, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where the
LORD will lead you away. 38You shall carry much
seed into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust
shall consume it. 39You shall plant vineyards and dress them,
but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for
the worm shall eat them. 40You shall have olive trees throughout all
your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for
your olives shall drop off. 41You shall beget sons and daughters, but
they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.
42All your
trees and the fruit of your ground the locust shall possess.
43The
sojourner who is among you shall mount above you higher and higher;
and you shall come down lower and lower. 44He shall lend to you,
and you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall
be the tail. 45All these curses shall come upon you and
pursue you and overtake you, till you are destroyed, because you
did not obey the voice of the LORD
your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he
commanded you. 46They shall be upon you as a sign and a
wonder, and upon your descendants for ever.
47“Because you did not serve the
L
ORD your God with joyfulness and
gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things,
48therefore you shall serve your
enemies whom the L
ORD will send
against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and in want of all
things; and he will put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has
destroyed you.
49The L
ORD will bring a nation against you from afar,
from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation
whose language you do not understand,
50a nation of stern countenance, who shall not
regard the person of the old or show favor to the young,
51and shall eat the offspring of your
cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; who
also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your
cattle or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to
perish.
52They shall besiege you in
all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you
trusted, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege
you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the
L
ORD your God has given you.
53And you shall eat the offspring of
your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the
L
ORD your God has given you, in
the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall
distress you.
54The man who is the
most tender and delicately bred among you will grudge food to his
brother, to the wife of his bosom, and to the last of the children
who remain to him;
55so that he will
not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is
eating, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the
distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your
towns.
56The most tender and
delicately bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the
sole of her foot upon the ground because she is so delicate and
tender, will grudge to the husband of her bosom, to her son and to
her daughter,
57her afterbirth that
comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears,
because she will eat them secretly, for want of all things, in the
siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you
in your towns.
58“If you are not careful to do all the
words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear
this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, 59then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring
extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and
sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60And he will bring upon you again all the
diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cling
to you. 61Every sickness also, and every affliction
which is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are
destroyed. 62Whereas you were as the stars of heaven for
multitude, you shall be left few in number; because you did not
obey the voice of the LORD your
God. 63And as
the LORD took delight in doing you
good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you
and destroying you; and you shall be plucked off the land which you
are entering to take possession of it. 64And the
LORD will scatter you among all
peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you
shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor
your fathers have known. 65And among these nations you shall find no
ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the
LORD will give you there a
trembling heart, and failing eyes, and a languishing soul;
66your life
shall hang in doubt before you; night and day you shall be in
dread, and have no assurance of your life. 67In the morning you
shall say, ‘Would it were evening!’ and at evening you
shall say, ‘Would it were morning!’ because of the
dread which your heart shall fear, and the sights which your eyes
shall see. 68And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a
journey which I promised that you should never make again; and
there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male
and female slaves, but no man will buy you.”
The Covenant Renewed in Moab
29yThese are the words of the covenant
which the L
ORD commanded Moses to
make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the
covenant which he had made with them at Horeb.
2zAnd Moses
summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that
the LORD did before your eyes in
the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all
his land, 3the great trials which your eyes saw, the
signs, and those great wonders;
4but to this day the L
ORD has not given you a mind to understand, or
eyes to see, or ears to hear.
5I have led you forty years in the
wilderness; your clothes have not worn out upon you, and your
sandals have not worn off your feet;
6you have not eaten
bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink; that you may
know that I am the L
ORD your God.
7And when you
came to this place, Si'hon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of
Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them;
8we took their
land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the
Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manas'sites.
9Therefore be careful to do
the words of this covenant, that you may prosper
a in all that
you do.
10“You stand this day all of you before
the L
ORD your God; the heads of
your tribes,
b your
elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11your little ones,
your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, both he who hews
your wood and he who draws your water,
12that you may enter
into the sworn covenant of the L
ORD your God, which the L
ORD your God makes with you this day;
13that he may establish
you this day as his people, and that he may be your God, as he
promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob.
14Nor is it with you only that I make this
sworn covenant,
15but with him who is not here with us this
day as well as with him who stands here with us this day before the
L
ORD our God.
16“You know how we dwelt in the land of
Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through
which you passed;
17and you have seen their detestable things,
their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among
them.
18Beware lest there be among you a man or
woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the
L
ORD our God to go and serve the
gods of those nations; lest there be among you a root bearing
poisonous and bitter fruit,
19one who, when he hears the words of this
sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I
shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my
heart.’ This would lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry
alike.
20The
L
ORD would not pardon him, but
rather the anger of the L
ORD and
his jealousy would smoke against that man, and the curses written
in this book would settle upon him, and the L
ORD would blot out his name from under heaven.
21And the
L
ORD would single him out from all
the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the
curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
22And the generation to
come, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who
comes from a far land, would say, when they see the afflictions of
that land and the sicknesses with which the L
ORD has made it sick—
23the whole land
brimstone and salt, and a burnt-out waste, unsown, and growing
nothing, where no grass can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom
and Gomor'rah, Admah and Zeboi'im, which the L
ORD overthrew in his anger and
wrath—
24yes, all the nations would say, ‘Why
has the L
ORD done thus to this
land? What means the heat of this great anger?’
25Then men would say,
‘It is because they forsook the covenant of the
L
ORD, the God of their fathers,
which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of
Egypt,
26and
went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had
not known and whom he had not allotted to them;
27therefore the anger
of the L
ORD was kindled against
this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book;
28and the
L
ORD uprooted them from their land
in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land,
as at this day.’
29“The secret things belong to the
LORD our God; but the things that
are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may
do all the words of this law.
God’s Fidelity Assured
30“And when all
these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I
have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the
nations where the LORD your God
has driven you, 2and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey
his voice in all that I command you this day, with all your heart
and with all your soul; 3then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes, and
have compassion upon you, and he will gather you again from all the
peoples where the LORD your God
has scattered you. 4If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts
of heaven, from there the LORD
your God will gather you, and from there he will fetch you;
5and the
LORD your God will bring you into
the land which your fathers possessed, that you may possess it; and
he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
6And the
LORD your God will circumcise your
heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the
LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul, that you may live. 7And the LORD your God will put all these curses upon
your foes and enemies who persecuted you. 8And you shall again
obey the voice of the LORD, and
keep all his commandments which I command you this day. 9The LORD your God will make you abundantly
prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body,
and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground;
for the LORD will again take
delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers,
10if you obey
the voice of the LORD your God, to
keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this
book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all
your soul.
Exhortation to Choose Life
11“For
this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for
you, neither is it far off.
12It is not in heaven, that you should say,
‘Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we
may hear it and do it?’
13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you
should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to
us, that we may hear it and do it?’
14But the word is very near
you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do
it.
15“See, I have set before you this day
life and good, death and evil.
16If you obey the commandments of the
L
ORD your God
c which I
command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by
keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then
you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which
you are entering to take possession of it. 17But if your heart
turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship
other gods and serve them,
18I declare to you this day, that you shall
perish; you shall not live long in the land which you are going
over the Jordan to enter and possess.
19I call heaven and earth to
witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your
descendants may live,
20loving the L
ORD your God, obeying his voice, and clinging
to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may
dwell in the land which the L
ORD
swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give
them.”
Joshua Becomes Moses’
Successor
31So Moses continued
to speak these words to all Israel. 2And he said to them, “I am a hundred
and twenty years old this day; I am no longer able to go out and
come in. The LORD has said to me,
‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’ 3The LORD your God himself will go over before you;
he will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall
dispossess them; and Joshua will go over at your head, as the
LORD has spoken. 4And the LORD will do to them as he did to Si'hon and Og,
the kings of the Am'orites, and to their land, when he destroyed
them. 5And the
LORD will give them over to you,
and you shall do to them according to all the commandment which I
have commanded you. 6Be strong and of good courage, do not fear or
be in dread of them: for it is the LORD your God who goes with you; he will not
fail you or forsake you.”
7Then Moses summoned Joshua, and said to him
in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage;
for you shall go with this people into the land which the
L
ORD has sworn to their fathers to
give them; and you shall put them in possession of it.
8It is the L
ORD who goes before you; he will be with you,
he will not fail you or forsake you; do not fear or be
dismayed.”
Rereading of the Law Commanded
9And Moses
wrote this law, and gave it to the priests the sons of Levi, who
carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. 10And Moses commanded
them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time of
the year of release, at the feast of booths, 11when all Israel comes
to appear before the LORD your God
at the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before
all Israel in their hearing. 12Assemble the people, men, women, and little
ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and
learn to fear the LORD your God,
and be careful to do all the words of this law, 13and that their
children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the
LORD your God, as long as you live
in the land which you are going over the Jordan to
possess.”
Moses and Joshua Receive God’s
Charge
14And the
LORD said to Moses, “Behold,
the days approach when you must die; call Joshua, and present
yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may commission
him.” And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in
the tent of meeting. 15And the LORD appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud;
and the pillar of cloud stood by the door of the tent.
16And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, you are about
to sleep with your fathers; then this people will rise and play the
harlot after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be
among them, and they will forsake me and break my covenant which I
have made with them. 17Then my anger will be kindled against them
in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them,
and they will be devoured; and many evils and troubles will come
upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these
evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’
18And I will
surely hide my face in that day on account of all the evil which
they have done, because they have turned to other gods. 19Now therefore write
this song, and teach it to the sons of Israel; put it in their
mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the sons of
Israel. 20For
when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey,
which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are
full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them,
and despise me and break my covenant. 21And when many evils
and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as
a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their
descendants); for I know the purposes which they are already
forming, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to
give.” 22So Moses wrote this song the same day, and
taught it to the sons of Israel.
23And the LORD commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and
said, “Be strong and of good courage; for you shall bring the
children of Israel into the land which I swore to give them: I will
be with you.”
24When Moses had finished writing the words
of this law in a book, to the very end, 25Moses commanded the
Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, 26“Take this book of the law, and put
it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a
witness against you. 27For I know how rebellious and stubborn you
are; behold, while I am yet alive with you, today you have been
rebellious against the LORD; how
much more after my death! 28Assemble to me all the elders of your
tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their
ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them. 29For I know that after
my death you will surely act corruptly, and turn aside from the way
which I have commanded you; and in the days to come evil will
befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the
LORD, provoking him to anger
through the work of your hands.”
The Song of Moses
30Then Moses
spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears
of all the assembly of Israel:
32“Give ear, O
heavens, and I will speak;
and let the earth hear the words of my
mouth.
2May my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distil as the dew,
as the gentle rain upon the tender
grass,
and as the showers upon the herb.
3For I will proclaim the name of the
LORD.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
4“The Rock, his work is perfect;
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without
iniquity,
just and right is he.
5They have dealt corruptly with him,
they are no longer his children because of
their blemish;
they are a perverse and crooked
generation.
6Do you thus repay the L
ORD,
you foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father, who created
you,
who made you and established you?
7Remember the days of old,
consider the years of many
generations;
ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
8When the Most High gave to the nations their
inheritance,
when he separated the sons of men,
he fixed the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of
Israel.
d9For the LORD’s portion is his
people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
10“He found him in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of the
wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that flutters over its young,
spreading out its wings, catching
them,
bearing them on its pinions,
12the LORD alone
did lead him,
and there was no foreign god with him.
13He made him ride on the high places of the
earth,
and he ate the produce of the field;
and he made him suck honey out of the
rock,
and oil out of the flinty rock.
14Curds from the herd, and milk from the
flock,
with fat of lambs and rams,
herds of Bashan and goats,
with the finest of the wheat—
and of the blood of the grape you drank
wine.
15“But Jesh'urun waxed fat, and
kicked;
you waxed fat, you grew thick, you became
sleek;
then he forsook God who made him,
and scoffed at the Rock of his
salvation.
16They stirred him to jealousy with strange
gods;
with abominable practices they provoked him
to anger.
17They sacrificed to demons which were no
gods,
to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come in of late,
whom your fathers had never dreaded.
18You were unmindful of the Rock that
begot
e you,
and you forgot the God who gave you
birth.
19“The LORD saw it, and spurned them,
because of the provocation of his sons and
his daughters.
20And he said, ‘I will hide my face
from them,
I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom is no faithfulness.
21They have stirred me to jealousy with what
is no god;
they have provoked me with their
idols.
So I will stir them to jealousy with those
who are no people;
I will provoke them with a foolish
nation.
22For a fire is kindled by my anger,
and it burns to the depths of Sheol,
devours the earth and its increase,
and sets on fire the foundations of the
mountains.
23“‘And I will heap evils upon
them;
I will spend my arrows upon them;
24they shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured with burning heat
and poisonous pestilence;
and I will send the teeth of beasts against
them,
with venom of crawling things of the
dust.
25In the open the sword shall bereave,
and in the chambers shall be terror,
destroying both young man and virgin,
the sucking child with the man of gray
hairs.
26I would have said, “I will scatter
them afar,
I will make the remembrance of them cease
from among men,”
27had I not feared provocation by the
enemy,
lest their adversaries should judge
amiss,
lest they should say, “Our hand is
triumphant,
the LORD has
not wrought all this.”’
28“For they are a nation void of
counsel,
and there is no understanding in them.
29If they were wise, they would understand
this,
they would discern their latter end!
30How should one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
and the LORD
had given them up?
31For their rock is not as our Rock,
even our enemies themselves being
judges.
32For their vine comes from the vine of
Sodom,
and from the fields of Gomor'rah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
their clusters are bitter;
33their wine is the poison of serpents,
and the cruel venom of asps.
34“Is not this laid up in store with
me,
sealed up in my treasuries?
35Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall
slip;
for the day of their calamity is at
hand,
and their doom comes swiftly.
36For the LORD
will vindicate his people
and have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
and there is none remaining, bond or
free.
37Then he will say, ‘Where are their
gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
38who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink
offering?
Let them rise up and help you,
let them be your protection!
39“‘See now that I, even I, am
he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my
hand.
40For I lift up my hand to heaven,
and swear, As I live for ever,
41if I sharpen my glittering sword,
f
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my
adversaries,
and will repay those who hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with
blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the
captives,
from the long-haired heads of the
enemy.’
43“Praise his people, O you
nations;
for he avenges the blood of his
servants,
and takes vengeance on his
adversaries,
and makes expiation for the land of his
people.”
g44Moses came and recited all the words of this
song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua
h the son of
Nun. 45And when Moses had finished speaking all
these words to all Israel,
46he said to them, “Lay to heart all
the words which I enjoin upon you this day, that you may command
them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words
of this law.
47For it is no trifle for you, but it is your
life, and thereby you shall live long in the land which you are
going over the Jordan to possess.”
Moses’ Death Foretold
48And the
L
ORD said to Moses that very day,
49“Ascend this
mountain of the Ab'arim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab,
opposite Jericho; and view the land of Canaan, which I give to the
sons of Israel for a possession;
50and die on the mountain which you ascend,
and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount
Hor and was gathered to his people;
51because you broke faith with me in the
midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Mer'ibath-ka'desh, in
the wilderness of Zin; because you did not revere me as holy in the
midst of the sons of Israel.
52For you shall see the land before you; but
you shall not go there, into the land which I give to the sons of
Israel.”
Moses’ Final Blessing
33This is the
blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of
Israel before his death. 2He said,
“The LORD
came from Sinai,
and dawned from Se'ir upon us;
ihe shone forth from Mount Par'an,
he came from the ten thousands of holy
ones,
with flaming fire
j at his right
hand.3Yes, he loved his people;
k
all those consecrated to him were in
his
x hand;so they followed
j in your
steps,receiving direction from you,
4when Moses commanded us a law,
as a possession for the assembly of
Jacob.
5Thus the LORD
became king in Jesh'urun,
when the heads of the people were
gathered,
all the tribes of Israel together.
6“Let Reuben live, and not die,
nor let his men be few.”
7And this he said of Judah:
“Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah,
and bring him in to his people.
With your hands contend
l for
him,and be a help against his
adversaries.”
“Give to Levi
m your
Thummim,and your U'rim to your godly one,
whom you tested at Massah,
with whom you strove at the waters of
Mer'ibah;
9who said of his father and mother,
‘I regard them not’;
he disowned his brothers,
and ignored his children.
For they observed your word,
and kept your covenant.
10They shall teach Jacob your
ordinances,
and Israel your law;
they shall put incense before you,
and whole burnt offering upon your
altar.
11Bless, O LORD,
his substance,
and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those that hate him, that they rise not
again.”
12Of Benjamin he said,
“The beloved of the LORD,
he dwells in safety by him;
he encompasses him all the day long,
and makes his dwelling between his
shoulders.”
“Blessed by the LORD be his land,
with the choicest gifts of heaven
above,
nand of the deep that lies beneath,
14with the choicest fruits of the sun,
and the rich yield of the months,
15with the finest produce of the ancient
mountains,
and the abundance of the everlasting
hills,
16with the best gifts of the earth and its
fulness,
and the favor of him that dwelt in the
bush.
Let these come upon the head of
Joseph,
and upon the crown of the head of him that
is prince among his brothers.
17His firstling bull has majesty,
and his horns are the horns of a wild
ox;
with them he shall push the peoples,
all of them, to the ends of the earth;
such are the ten thousands of
E'phraim,
and such are the thousands of
Manas'seh.”
18And of Zeb'ulun he said,
“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going
out;
and Is'sachar, in your tents.
19They shall call peoples to their
mountain;
there they offer right sacrifices;
for they suck the affluence of the
seas
and the hidden treasures of the
sand.”
20And of Gad he said,
“Blessed be he who enlarges Gad!
Gad lurks like a lion,
he tears the arm, and the crown of the
head.
21He chose the best of the land for
himself,
for there a commander’s portion was
reserved;
and he came to the heads of the
people,
with Israel he executed the commands
and just decrees of the LORD.”
22And of Dan he said,
“Dan is a lion’s whelp,
that leaps forth from Bashan.”
23And of Naph'tali he said,
“O Naphtali, satisfied with
favor,
and full of the blessing of the
LORD,
possess the lake and the south.”
24And of Asher he said,
“Blessed above sons be Asher;
let him be the favorite of his
brothers,
and let him dip his foot in oil.
25Your bars shall be iron and bronze;
and as your days, so shall your strength
be.
26“There is none like God, O
Jesh'urun,
who rides through the heavens to your
help,
and in his majesty through the skies.
27The eternal God is your dwelling
place,
and underneath are the everlasting
arms.
And he thrust out the enemy before
you,
and said, Destroy.
28So Israel dwelt in safety,
the fountain of Jacob alone,
in a land of grain and wine;
yes, his heavens drop down dew.
29Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like
you,
a people saved by the LORD,
the shield of your help,
and the sword of your triumph!
Your enemies shall come fawning to
you;
and you shall tread upon their high
places.”
The Death of Moses
34And Moses went up
from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which
is opposite Jericho. And the LORD
showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, 2all Naph'tali, the
land of E'phraim and Manas'seh, all the land of Judah as far as the
western sea, 3the Neg'eb, and the Plain, that is, the
valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4And the LORD said to him, “This is the land of
which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will
give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your
eyes, but you shall not go over there.” 5So Moses the servant
of the LORD died there in the land
of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, 6and he buried him in the valley in the land
of Moab opposite Beth-pe'or; but no man knows the place of his
burial to this day. 7Moses was a hundred and twenty years old
when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
8And the sons
of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then
the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
9And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the
spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the
sons of Israel obeyed him, and did as the L
ORD had commanded Moses.
10And there has not arisen a
prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the L
ORD knew face to face,
11none like him for all
the signs and the wonders which the L
ORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to
Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land,
12and for all the
mighty power and all the great and terrible deeds which Moses
wrought in the sight of all Israel.