Chapter 1
1: These are
the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in
the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suph, between Paran
and Tophel, Laban, Haze'roth, and Di'-zahab.
2: It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of
Mount Se'ir to Ka'desh-bar'nea.
3: And in the fortieth year, on the first day of the
eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to
all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them,
4: after he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites,
who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived in
Ash'taroth and in Ed're-i.
5: Beyond 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;
7: turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country
of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in
the hill country and in the lowland, and in the Negeb, and by
the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as
the great river, the river Euphra'tes.
8: Behold, 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.'
9: "At that time I said to you, `I am not able alone
to bear you;
10: the LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you
are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
11: May the LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a
thousand times as many as you are, and bless you, as he has
promised you!
12: How can I bear alone the weight and burden of you and
your strife?
13: Choose wise, understanding, and experienced men,
according to your tribes, and I will appoint them as your
heads.'
14: And you answered me, `The thing that you have spoken
is good for us to do.'
15: So 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.
16: And 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.
17: You 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.'
18: And I commanded you at that time all the things that
you should do.
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 Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded
us; and we came to Ka'desh-bar'nea.
20: And I said to you, `You have come to the hill country
of the Amorites, which the LORD our God gives us.
21: Behold, the LORD your God has set the land before
you; go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your
fathers, has told you; do not fear or be dismayed.'
22: Then 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.'
23: The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men of
you, one man for each tribe;
24: and they turned and went up into the hill country,
and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out.
25: And 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 LORD our God gives us.'
26: "Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against
the command of the LORD your God;
27: and you murmured in your tents, and said, `Because
the LORD hated us he has brought us forth out of the land of
Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28: Whither 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 Anakim there."'
29: Then I said to you, `Do not be in dread or afraid of
them.
30: The LORD your God who goes before you will himself
fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
31: and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the
LORD your God bore you, as a man bears his son, in all the way
that you went until you came to this place.'
32: Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the
LORD your God,
33: who 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.
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,
36: except 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!'
37: The LORD was angry with me also on your account, and
said, `You also shall not go in there;
38: Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he
shall enter; encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit
it.
39: Moreover 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.
40: But 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 girded on his weapons of
war, and thought it easy to go up into the hill country.
42: And 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.'
43: So I spoke to you, and you would not hearken; but you
rebelled against the command of the LORD, and were presumptuous
and went up into the hill country.
44: Then the Amorites 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.
45: And you returned and wept before the LORD; but the
LORD did not hearken to your voice or give ear to you.
46: So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that
you remained there.
Chapter 2
1: "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.
2: Then the LORD said to me,
3: `You have been going about this mountain country long
enough; turn northward.
4: And 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;
5: do 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.
6: You 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.
7: For 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.'
8: So we went on, away from our brethren the sons of Esau
who live in Se'ir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and
E'zion-ge'ber. "And we turned and went in the direction of
the wilderness of Moab.
9: And the LORD 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 Emim formerly lived there, a people great and
many, and tall as the Anakim;
11: like the Anakim they are also known as Reph'aim, but
the Moabites call them Emim.
12: The 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 LORD gave to them.)
13: `Now rise up, and go over the brook Zered.' So we
went over the brook Zered.
14: And the time from our leaving Ka'desh-bar'nea until
we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the
entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from
the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.
15: For indeed the hand of the LORD 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,
17: the LORD said to me,
18: `This day you are to pass over the boundary of Moab
at Ar;
19: and 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; Reph'aim
formerly lived there, but the Ammonites call them Zamzum'mim,
21: a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but
the LORD destroyed them before them; and they dispossessed them,
and settled in their stead;
22: as 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.
23: As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as
Gaza, the Caph'torim, 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 Sihon the
Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; begin to take
possession, and contend with him in battle.
25: This 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.'
26: "So I sent messengers from the wilderness of
Ked'emoth to Sihon 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.
28: You 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,
29: as 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 LORD our God gives to us.'
30: But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass
by him; for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his
heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as at
this day.
31: And the LORD said to me, `Behold, I have begun to
give Sihon and his land over to you; begin to take possession,
that you may occupy his land.'
32: Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his
people, to battle at Jahaz.
33: And the LORD our God gave him over to us; and we
defeated him and his sons and all his people.
34: And we captured all his cities at that time and
utterly destroyed every city, men, women, and children; we left
none remaining;
35: only the cattle we took as spoil for ourselves, with
the booty of the cities which we captured.
36: From 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 LORD our God
gave all into our hands.
37: Only 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 LORD our God
forbade us.
Chapter 3
1: "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.
2: But 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 Sihon the king of the
Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.'
3: So the LORD our God gave into our hand Og also, the
king of Bashan, and all his people; and we smote him until no
survivor was left to him.
4: And 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.
5: All these were cities fortified with high walls,
gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages.
6: And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon the
king of Heshbon, destroying every city, men, women, and
children.
7: But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we took
as our booty.
8: So we took the land at that time out of the hand of
the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from
the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon
9: (the Sido'nians call Hermon Si'rion, while the
Amorites call it Senir),
10: all 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 Ammonites? Nine cubits was its
length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common
cubit.)
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;
13: the 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.
14: Ja'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.)
15: To Machir I gave Gilead,
16: and 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 Ammonites;
17: the Arabah 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 people
of Israel.
19: But 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,
20: until 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.'
21: And 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.
22: You shall not fear them; for it is the LORD your God
who fights for you.'
23: "And I besought the LORD at that time, saying,
24: `O Lord GOD, thou hast only begun to show thy servant
thy greatness and thy mighty hand; for what god is there in
heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as
thine?
25: Let me go over, I pray, and see the good land beyond
the Jordan, that goodly hill country, and Lebanon.'
26: But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and
would not hearken to me; and the LORD said to me, `Let it
suffice you; speak no more to me of this matter.
27: Go 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.
28: But 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.'
29: So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-pe'or.
Chapter 4
1: "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.
2: You 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.
3: Your 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 Pe'or;
4: but you who held fast to the LORD your God are all
alive this day.
5: Behold, 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.
6: Keep 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.'
7: For 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?
8: And 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 --
10: how on the day that you stood before the LORD your
God at Horeb, the LORD 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.'
11: And 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.
12: Then the LORD 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.
13: And he declared to you his covenant, which he
commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he
wrote them upon two tables of stone.
14: And the LORD 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 LORD spoke to you at Horeb
out of the midst of the fire,
16: beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven
image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of
male or female,
17: the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the
likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18: the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground,
the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
19: And 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 LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples
under the whole heaven.
20: But the LORD 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.
21: Furthermore the LORD 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 LORD your God
gives you for an inheritance.
22: For 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.
23: Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant
of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a graven
image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has
forbidden you.
24: For the LORD 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,
26: I 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.
27: And 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.
28: And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the
work of men's hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor
smell.
29: But 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.
30: When 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,
31: for 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.
33: Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking
out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
34: Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation
for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by
signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that
the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35: To you it was shown, that you might know that the
LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
36: Out 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.
37: And 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,
38: driving 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;
39: know therefore this day, and lay it to your heart,
that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath;
there is no other.
40: Therefore 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 LORD your God gives you
for ever."
41: Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond
the Jordan,
42: that 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:
43: Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the
Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in
Bashan for the Manas'sites.
44: This is the law which Moses set before the children
of Israel;
45: these are the testimonies, the statutes, and the
ordinances, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when
they came out of Egypt,
46: beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-pe'or,
in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at
Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel defeated when
they came out of Egypt.
47: And they took possession of his land and the land of
Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived
to the east beyond the Jordan;
48: from Aro'er, which is on the edge of the valley of
the Arnon, as far as Mount Si'rion (that is, Hermon),
49: together with all the Arabah on the east side of the
Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of
Pisgah.
Chapter 5
1: And 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.
2: The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
3: Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant,
but with us, who are all of us here alive this day.
4: The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain,
out of the midst of the fire,
5: while 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 LORD 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 me.
8: "`You 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;
9: you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I
the LORD 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,
10: but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who
love me and keep my commandments.
11: "`You shall not take the name of the LORD your
God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes
his name in vain.
12: "`Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as
the LORD your God commanded you.
13: Six days you shall labor, and do all your work;
14: but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your
God; 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 ass, 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.
15: You shall remember that you were a servant in the
land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with
a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your
God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
16: "`Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD
your God commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and
that it may go well with you, in the land which the LORD your
God gives you.
17: "`You shall not kill.
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 ass, or
anything that is your neighbor's.'
22: "These words the LORD 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.
23: And 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;
24: and you said, `Behold, the LORD 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.
25: Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire
will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any
more, we shall die.
26: For 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?
27: Go near, and hear all that the LORD our God will say;
and speak to us all that the LORD 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.
29: Oh 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!
30: Go and say to them, "Return to your tents."
31: But 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.'
32: You 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.
33: You 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.
Chapter 6
1: "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;
2: that 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.
3: Hear 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 LORD our God is one LORD;
5: and you shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
6: And these words which I command you this day shall be
upon your heart;
7: and 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.
8: And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and
they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
9: And you shall write them on the doorposts of your
house and on your gates.
10: "And when the LORD 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 goodly cities, which you
did not build,
11: and 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,
12: then take heed lest you forget the LORD, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
13: You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve
him, and swear by his name.
14: You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the
peoples who are round about you;
15: for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a
jealous God; lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled
against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
16: "You shall not put the LORD your God to the
test, as you tested him at Massah.
17: You shall diligently keep the commandments of the
LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he
has commanded you.
18: And you shall do what is right and good in the sight
of the LORD, that it may go well with you, and that you may go
in and take possession of the good land which the LORD swore to
give to your fathers
19: by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as
the LORD has promised.
20: "When your son asks you in time to come, `What
is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the
ordinances which the LORD our God has commanded you?'
21: then you shall say to your son, `We were Pharaoh's
slaves in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a
mighty hand;
22: and the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and
grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his
household, before our eyes;
23: and 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.
24: And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes,
to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might
preserve us alive, as at this day.
25: And it will be righteousness for us, if we are
careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as
he has commanded us.'
Chapter 7
1: "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 Amorites, the
Canaanites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites,
seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves,
2: and 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.
3: You shall not make marriages with them, giving your
daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons.
4: For 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.
5: But 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 LORD your God;
the LORD 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.
7: It was not because you were more in number than any
other people that the LORD set his love upon you and chose you,
for you were the fewest of all peoples;
8: but it is because the LORD loves you, and is keeping
the oath which he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has
brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the
house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9: Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the
faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those
who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand
generations,
10: and requites to their face those who hate him, by
destroying them; he will not be slack with him who hates him, he
will requite him to his face.
11: You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment,
and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this
day.
12: "And because you hearken to these ordinances,
and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the
covenant and the steadfast love which he swore to your fathers
to keep;
13: he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he
will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your
ground, your grain 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.
14: You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall
not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.
15: And the LORD 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.
16: And you shall destroy all the peoples that the LORD
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?'
18: you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall
remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
19: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the
wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the
LORD your God brought you out; so will the LORD your God do to
all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
20: Moreover the LORD your God will send hornets among
them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are
destroyed.
21: You shall not be in dread of them; for the LORD your
God is in the midst of you, a great and terrible God.
22: The LORD your God will clear away these nations
before you little by little; you may not make an end of them at
once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.
23: But the LORD your God will give them over to you, and
throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.
24: And 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.
25: The 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 LORD your God.
26: And 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.
Chapter 8
1: "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.
2: And 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.
3: And 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.
4: Your clothing did not wear out upon you, and your foot
did not swell, these forty years.
5: Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his
son, the LORD your God disciplines you.
6: So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your
God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
7: For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good
land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs,
flowing forth in valleys and hills,
8: a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and
pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,
9: a land 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.
10: And 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:
12: lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have
built goodly houses and live in them,
13: and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your
silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is
multiplied,
14: then 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,
15: who 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,
16: who 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.
17: Beware lest you say in your heart, `My power and the
might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.'
18: You 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.
19: And 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.
20: Like 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.
Chapter 9
1: "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,
2: a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom
you know, and of whom you have heard it said, `Who can stand
before the sons of Anak?'
3: Know 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.
5: Not 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 LORD your God is not
giving you this good land to possess because of your
righteousness; for you are a stubborn people.
7: Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD
your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you came out
of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have
been rebellious against the LORD.
8: Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the
LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.
9: When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of
stone, the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you,
I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I
neither ate bread nor drank water.
10: And the LORD gave me the two tables of stone written
with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the
LORD had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the
fire on the day of the assembly.
11: And at the end of forty days and forty nights the
LORD gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the
covenant.
12: Then the LORD 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 LORD said to me, `I have seen
this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people;
14: let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out
their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation
mightier and greater than they.'
15: So 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.
16: And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the
LORD your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had
turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded
you.
17: So I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out
of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.
18: Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty
days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water,
because of all the sin which you had committed, in doing what
was evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
19: For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure
which the LORD bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy
you. But the LORD hearkened to me that time also.
20: And the LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was
ready to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same
time.
21: Then 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.
23: And 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.
24: You have been rebellious against the LORD from the
day that I knew you.
25: "So I lay prostrate before the LORD for these
forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said he would
destroy you.
26: And I prayed to the LORD, `O Lord GOD, destroy not
thy people and thy heritage, whom thou hast redeemed through thy
greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a mighty
hand.
27: Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do
not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness,
or their sin,
28: lest the land from which thou didst bring us say,
"Because the LORD 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."
29: For they are thy people and thy heritage, whom thou
didst bring out by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm.'
Chapter 10
1: "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.
2: And 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.'
3: So 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.
4: And he wrote on the tables, as at the first writing,
the ten commandments which the LORD had spoken to you on the
mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the
assembly; and the LORD gave them to me.
5: Then 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 people of Israel journeyed from Be-er'oth
Bene-ja'akan to Mose'rah. There Aaron died, and there he was
buried; and his son Elea'zar ministered as priest in his stead.
7: From there they journeyed to Gud'godah, and from
Gud'godah to Jot'bathah, a land with brooks of water.
8: At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to
carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the
LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.
9: Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his
brothers; the LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God said
to him.)
10: "I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time,
forty days and forty nights, and the LORD hearkened to me that
time also; the LORD was unwilling to destroy you.
11: And 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.'
12: "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God
require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all
his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul,
13: and to keep the commandments and statutes of the
LORD, which I command you this day for your good?
14: Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the
heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it;
15: yet the LORD set his heart in love upon your fathers
and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples,
as at this day.
16: Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and
be no longer stubborn.
17: For the LORD 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.
18: He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow,
and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.
19: Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners
in the land of Egypt.
20: You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him
and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear.
21: He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for
you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen.
22: Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons; and
now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven for
multitude.
Chapter 11
1: "You
shall therefore love the LORD your God, and keep his charge, his
statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments always.
2: And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your
children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline
of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his
outstretched arm,
3: his signs and his deeds which he did in Egypt to
Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land;
4: and 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;
5: and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you
came to this place;
6: and what he did to Dathan 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;
7: for 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,
9: and 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.
10: For 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;
11: but the land which you are going over to possess is a
land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from
heaven,
12: a 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 LORD your God, and to serve
him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14: he 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.
15: And he will give grass in your fields for your
cattle, and you shall eat and be full.
16: Take heed lest your heart be deceived, and you turn
aside and serve other gods and worship them,
17: and the anger of the LORD 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 LORD 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.
19: And 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.
20: And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your
house and upon your gates,
21: that your days and the days of your children may be
multiplied in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to
give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22: For if you will be careful to do all this commandment
which I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in
all his ways, and cleaving to him,
23: then the LORD will drive out all these nations before
you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than
yourselves.
24: Every 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 Euphra'tes, to the western
sea.
25: No man shall be able to stand against you; the LORD
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:
27: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the
LORD your God, which I command you this day,
28: and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of
the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command
you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known.
29: And when the LORD 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 Ebal.
30: Are 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 Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oak of
Moreh?
31: For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to take
possession of the land which the LORD your God gives you; and
when you possess it and live in it,
32: you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the
ordinances which I set before you this day.
Chapter 12
1: "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;
3: you 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.
4: You shall not do so to the LORD your God.
5: But 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; thither you shall go,
6: and thither 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;
7: and 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.
8: You shall not do according to all that we are doing
here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his own
eyes;
9: for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the
inheritance which the LORD your God gives you.
10: But 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,
11: then to the place which the LORD your God will
choose, to make his name dwell there, thither 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.
12: And 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.
13: Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings
at every place that you see;
14: but 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.
15: "However, you may slaughter and eat flesh within
any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the
blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you; the
unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of
the hart.
16: Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it
out upon the earth like water.
17: You 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;
18: but you shall eat them before the LORD your God in
the place which the LORD 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 LORD your God in all that you undertake.
19: Take heed that you do not forsake the Levite as long
as you live in your land.
20: "When the LORD your God enlarges your territory,
as he has promised you, and you say, `I will eat flesh,' because
you crave flesh, you may eat as much flesh as you desire.
21: If the place which the LORD 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 LORD has given you, as I have
commanded you; and you may eat within your towns as much as you
desire.
22: Just as the gazelle or the hart is eaten, so you may
eat of it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.
23: Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the
blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the
flesh.
24: You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out upon the
earth like water.
25: You 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 LORD.
26: But the holy things which are due from you, and your
votive offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place
which the LORD will choose,
27: and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the
blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; the blood of your
sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your
God, but the flesh you may eat.
28: Be 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 LORD your God.
29: "When the LORD your God cuts off before you the
nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them
and dwell in their land,
30: take 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.'
31: You shall not do so to the LORD your God; for every
abominable thing which the LORD hates they have done for their
gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the
fire to their gods.
32: "Everything that I command you you shall be
careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from it.
Chapter 13
1: "If a
prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you
a sign or a wonder,
2: and 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,'
3: you 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.
4: You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him,
and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall
serve him and cleave to him.
5: But 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,
7: some 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,
8: you 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;
9: but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first
against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all
the people.
10: You 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.
11: And 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,
13: that 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,
14: then 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,
15: you 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.
16: You 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.
17: None of the devoted things shall cleave 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,
18: if 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.
Chapter 14
1: "You
are the sons of the LORD your God; you shall not cut yourselves
or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead.
2: For 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.
4: These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep,
the goat,
5: the hart, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the
ibex, the antelope, and the mountain-sheep.
6: Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof
cloven in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, you may
eat.
7: Yet 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.
8: And 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.
10: And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall
not eat; it is unclean for you.
11: "You may eat all clean birds.
12: But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the
eagle, the vulture, the osprey,
13: the buzzard, the kite, after their kinds;
14: every raven after its kind;
15: the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk,
after their kinds;
16: the little owl and the great owl, the water hen
17: and the pelican, the carrion vulture and the
cormorant,
18: the stork, the heron, after their kinds; the hoopoe
and the bat.
19: And all winged insects are unclean for you; they
shall not be eaten.
20: All 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 LORD your God. "You shall not boil a kid
in its mother's milk.
22: "You shall tithe all the yield of your seed,
which comes forth from the field year by year.
23: And before the LORD 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 LORD your God always.
24: And if the way is too long for you, so that you are
not able to bring the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you,
because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God
chooses, to set his name there,
25: then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the
money in your hand, and go to the place which the LORD your God
chooses,
26: and 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 LORD your God and rejoice,
you and your household.
27: And 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;
29: and 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.
Chapter 15
1: "At
the end of every seven years you shall grant a release.
2: And 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.
3: Of a foreigner you may exact it; but whatever of yours
is with your brother your hand shall release.
4: But 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),
5: if only you will obey the voice of the LORD your God,
being careful to do all this commandment which I command you
this day.
6: For 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 LORD
your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your
hand against your poor brother,
8: but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him
sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.
9: Take 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 LORD against you, and it be sin in
you.
10: You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall
not be grudging when you give to him; because for this the LORD
your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you
undertake.
11: For 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.
13: And when you let him go free from you, you shall not
let him go empty-handed;
14: you shall furnish him liberally out of your flock,
out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press; as the
LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
15: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land
of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I
command you this today.
16: But 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,
17: then 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.
18: It 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 LORD your God will bless you in all
that you do.
19: "All the firstling males that are born of your
herd and flock you shall consecrate to the LORD your God; you
shall do no work with the firstling of your herd, nor shear the
firstling of your flock.
20: You shall eat it, you and your household, before the
LORD your God year by year at the place which the LORD will
choose.
21: But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind, or
has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to
the LORD your God.
22: You shall eat it within your towns; the unclean and
the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a
hart.
23: Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it
out on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1:
"Observe the month of Abib, 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.
2: And 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.
3: You 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.
4: No 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.
5: You may not offer the passover sacrifice within any of
your towns which the LORD your God gives you;
6: but 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.
7: And 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.
8: For 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.
9: "You shall count seven weeks; begin to count the
seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the
standing grain.
10: Then you shall keep the feast of weeks to the LORD
your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand,
which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you;
11: and you shall rejoice before the LORD 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 LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell
there.
12: You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt;
and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
13: "You shall keep the feast of booths seven days,
when you make your ingathering from your threshing floor and
your wine press;
14: you 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.
15: For 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 LORD 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 LORD
empty-handed;
17: every man shall give as he is able, according to the
blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you.
18: "You shall appoint judges and officers in all
your towns which the LORD your God gives you, according to your
tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
19: You 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.
20: Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you
may live and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you.
21: "You shall not plant any tree as an Ashe'rah
beside the altar of the LORD your God which you shall make.
22: And you shall not set up a pillar, which the LORD
your God hates.
Chapter 17
1: "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 LORD your God gives you, a man or woman who does
what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing
his covenant,
3: and 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,
4: and 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,
5: then 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.
6: On 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.
7: The 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.
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,
9: and 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.
10: Then 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;
11: according 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.
12: The 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.
13: And all the people shall hear, and fear, and not act
presumptuously again.
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';
15: you 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.
16: Only 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.'
17: And 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;
19: and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all
the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his
God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes,
and doing them;
20: that 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.
Chapter 18
1: "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.
2: They shall have no inheritance among their brethren;
the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
3: And 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.
4: The 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.
5: For 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 LORD will choose,
7: then he may minister in the name of the LORD his God,
like all his fellow-Levites who stand to minister there before
the LORD.
8: They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what he
receives from the sale of his patrimony.
9: "When you come into the land which the LORD your
God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable
practices of those nations.
10: There shall not be found among you any one who burns
his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices
divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer,
11: or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a
necromancer.
12: For whoever does these things is an abomination to
the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD
your God is driving them out before you.
13: You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.
14: For these nations, which you are about to dispossess,
give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the
LORD your God has not allowed you so to do.
15: "The LORD your God will raise up for you a
prophet like me from among you, from your brethren -- him you
shall heed --
16: just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on
the day of the assembly, when you said, `Let me not hear again
the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more,
lest I die.'
17: And the LORD said to me, `They have rightly said all
that they have spoken.
18: I 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.
19: And whoever will not give heed to my words which he
shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
20: But 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.'
21: And if you say in your heart, `How may we know the
word which the LORD has not spoken?' --
22: when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the
word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which
the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it
presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.
Chapter 19
1: "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,
2: you shall set apart three cities for you in the land
which the LORD your God gives you to possess.
3: You 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 --
5: as 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;
6: lest 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.
7: Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three
cities.
8: And 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 --
9: provided 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,
10: lest 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,
12: then 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.
13: Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the
guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with
you.
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.
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.
16: If a malicious witness rises against any man to
accuse him of wrongdoing,
17: then both parties to the dispute shall appear before
the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in
those days;
18: the judges shall inquire diligently, and if the
witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely,
19: then 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.
20: And the rest shall hear, and fear, and shall never
again commit any such evil among you.
21: Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Chapter 20
1: "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.
2: And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall
come forward and speak to the people,
3: and 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;
4: for the LORD your God is he that goes with you, to
fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.'
5: Then 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.
6: And 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.
7: And 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.'
8: And 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.'
9: And 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.
11: And 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.
12: But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war
against you, then you shall besiege it;
13: and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand
you shall put all its males to the sword,
14: but 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.
15: Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very
far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.
16: But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your
God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing
that breathes,
17: but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and
the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per'izzites, the Hivites
and the Jeb'usites, as the LORD your God has commanded;
18: that 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?
20: Only 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.
Chapter 21
1: "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,
2: then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and
they shall measure the distance to the cities which are around
him that is slain;
3: and 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.
4: And 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.
5: And 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.
6: And 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;
7: and they shall testify, `Our hands did not shed this
blood, neither did our eyes see it shed.
8: Forgive, O LORD, thy people Israel, whom thou hast
redeemed, and set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst
of thy people Israel; but let the guilt of blood be forgiven
them.'
9: So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from
your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
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,
11: and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you
have desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife,
12: then you shall bring her home to your house, and she
shall shave her head and pare her nails.
13: And 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.
14: Then, 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.
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,
16: then 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,
17: but 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.
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,
19: then 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,
20: and 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.'
21: Then 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.
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,
23: his 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 LORD
your God gives you for an inheritance.
Chapter 22
1: "You
shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and
withhold your help from them; you shall take them back to your
brother.
2: And 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.
3: And so you shall do with his ass; 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.
4: You shall not see your brother's ass or his ox fallen
down by the way, and withhold your help 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;
7: you 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, the
crop which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.
10: You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together.
11: You 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.
13: "If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her,
and then spurns her,
14: and 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,'
15: then 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;
16: and the father of the young woman shall say to the
elders, `I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he spurns
her;
17: and lo, 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.
18: Then the elders of that city shall take the man and
whip him;
19: and 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.
20: But if the thing is true, that the tokens of
virginity were not found in the young woman,
21: then 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,
24: then 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.
26: But 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;
27: because 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,
29: then 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.
30: "A man shall not take his father's wife, nor
shall he uncover her who is his father's.
Chapter 23
1: "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 Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly
of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none belonging to them
shall enter the assembly of the LORD for ever;
4: because 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 Be'or from Pethor of
Mesopota'mia, to curse you.
5: Nevertheless the LORD your God would not hearken to
Balaam; but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing
for you, because the LORD your God loved you.
6: You 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.
8: The children of the third generation that are born to
them may enter the assembly of the LORD.
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 what chances to him by night, then he shall go
outside the camp, he shall not come within the camp;
11: but 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;
13: and you shall have a stick with your weapons; and
when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it, and
turn back and cover up your excrement.
14: Because 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;
16: he 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.
18: You shall not bring the hire of a harlot, or the
wages of a dog, 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.
20: To a foreigner you may lend upon interest, but to
your brother you shall not lend upon interest; that the LORD
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 LORD your God, you
shall not be slack to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely
require it of you, and it would be sin in you.
22: But if you refrain from vowing, it shall be no sin in
you.
23: You shall be careful to perform what has passed your
lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD 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.
25: When 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.
Chapter 24
1: "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,
2: and if she goes and becomes another man's wife,
3: and 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,
4: then 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.
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 people 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.
9: Remember what the LORD 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.
11: You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make
the loan shall bring the pledge out to you.
12: And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his
pledge;
13: when 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;
15: you 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 LORD, 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;
18: but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt
and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I
command you to do this.
19: "When you reap your harvest in your field, and
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 LORD your God may bless you in all the work of
your hands.
20: When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over
the boughs again; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless,
and the widow.
21: When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you
shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the
fatherless, and the widow.
22: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land
of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.
Chapter 25
1: "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,
2: then 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.
3: Forty 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.
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.
6: And 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.
7: And 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.'
8: Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak
to him: and if he persists, saying, `I do not wish to take her,'
9: then 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.'
10: And the name of his house shall be called in Israel,
The house of him that had his sandal pulled off.
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,
12: then 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.
14: You shall not have in your house two kinds of
measures, a large and a small.
15: A 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 LORD your God gives you.
16: For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly,
are an abomination to the LORD your God.
17: "Remember what Am'alek did to you on the way as
you came out of Egypt,
18: how 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.
19: Therefore when the LORD your God has given you rest
from all your enemies round about, in the land which the LORD
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.
Chapter 26
1: "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,
2: you 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.
3: And 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.'
4: Then 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 LORD your
God, `A wandering Aramean 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.
6: And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted
us, and laid upon us hard bondage.
7: Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and
the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and
our oppression;
8: and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty
hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and
wonders;
9: and he brought us into this place and gave us this
land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10: And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the
ground, which thou, O LORD, hast given me.' And you shall set it
down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your
God;
11: and you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD
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,
13: then 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 thy commandment which thou hast
commanded me; I have not transgressed any of thy commandments,
neither have I forgotten them;
14: I 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 thou hast commanded me.
15: Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and
bless thy people Israel and the ground which thou hast given us,
as thou didst swear to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and
honey.'
16: "This day the LORD 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.
17: You have declared this day concerning the LORD 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;
18: and the LORD 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,
19: that 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 LORD your God, as he has spoken."
Chapter 27
1: Now Moses
and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying,
"Keep all the commandment which I command you this day.
2: And 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;
3: and 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.
4: And when you have passed over the Jordan, you shall
set up these stones, concerning which I command you this day, on
Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster.
5: And there you shall build an altar to the LORD your
God, an altar of stones; you shall lift up no iron tool upon
them.
6: You shall build an altar to the LORD your God of
unhewn stones; and you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the
LORD your God;
7: and you shall sacrifice peace offerings, and shall eat
there; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God.
8: And you shall write upon the stones all the words of
this law very plainly."
9: And 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.
10: You shall therefore obey the voice of the LORD your
God, keeping his commandments and his statutes, which I command
you this day."
11: And 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.
13: And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal for the curse:
Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zeb'ulun, Dan, and Naph'tali.
14: And 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 LORD, 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.' 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.'
Chapter 28
1: "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.
2: And all these blessings shall come upon you and
overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.
3: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall
you be in the field.
4: Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit
of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of
your cattle, and the young of your flock.
5: Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough.
6: Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed
shall you be when you go out.
7: "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise
against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out
against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.
8: The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your
barns, and in all that you undertake; and he will bless you in
the land which the LORD your God gives you.
9: The LORD will establish you as a people holy to
himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of
the LORD your God, and walk in his ways.
10: And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you
are called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of
you.
11: And the LORD 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 LORD swore
to your fathers to give you.
12: The LORD 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.
13: And the LORD 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 LORD your God, which I command you
this day, being careful to do them,
14: and 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.
15: "But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD
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.
16: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you
be in the field.
17: Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough.
18: Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit
of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of
your flock.
19: Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed
shall you be when you go out.
20: "The LORD will send upon you 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.
21: The LORD will make the pestilence cleave to you until
he has consumed you off the land which you are entering to take
possession of it.
22: The LORD will smite you with consumption, and with
fever, inflammation, and fiery heat, and with drought, and with
blasting, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you
perish.
23: And the heavens over your head shall be brass, and
the earth under you shall be iron.
24: The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and
dust; from heaven it shall come down upon you until you are
destroyed.
25: "The LORD 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.
26: And 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.
27: The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt, and
with the ulcers and the scurvy and the itch, of which you cannot
be healed.
28: The LORD will smite you with madness and blindness
and confusion of mind;
29: and 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.
30: You 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.
31: Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you
shall not eat of it; your ass 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.
32: Your 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.
33: A 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;
34: so that you shall be driven mad by the sight which
your eyes shall see.
35: The LORD will smite 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.
37: And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a
byword, among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.
38: You shall carry much seed into the field, and shall
gather little in; for the locust shall consume it.
39: You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you
shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the
worm shall eat them.
40: You shall have olive trees throughout all your
territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for
your olives shall drop off.
41: You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall
not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.
42: All your trees and the fruit of your ground the
locust shall possess.
43: The sojourner who is among you shall mount above you
higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower.
44: He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him;
he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
45: All 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.
46: They shall be upon you as a sign and a wonder, and
upon your descendants for ever.
47: "Because you did not serve the LORD your God
with joyfulness and gladness of heart, by reason of the
abundance of all things,
48: therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD
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.
49: The LORD 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,
50: a nation of stern countenance, who shall not regard
the person of the old or show favor to the young,
51: and 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.
52: They 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 LORD your God has
given you.
53: And you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the
flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has
given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your
enemies shall distress you.
54: The 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;
55: so 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.
56: The 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,
57: her 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 awful name, the LORD your God,
59: then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring
extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and
sicknesses grievous and lasting.
60: And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of
Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cleave to you.
61: Every 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.
62: Whereas 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.
63: And 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.
64: And 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.
65: And 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;
66: your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and
day you shall be in dread, and have no assurance of your life.
67: In 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.
68: And 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."
Chapter 29
1: These are
the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make
with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the
covenant which he had made with them at Horeb.
2: And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:
"You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in
the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all
his land,
3: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and
those great wonders;
4: but to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to
understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.
5: I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your
clothes have not worn out upon you, and your sandals have not
worn off your feet;
6: you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine
or strong drink; that you may know that I am the LORD your God.
7: And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of
Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle,
but we defeated them;
8: we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to
the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the
Manas'sites.
9: Therefore be careful to do the words of this covenant,
that you may prosper in all that you do.
10: "You stand this day all of you before the LORD
your God; the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your
officers, all the men of Israel,
11: your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who
is in your camp, both he who hews your wood and he who draws
your water,
12: that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the
LORD your God, which the LORD your God makes with you this day;
13: that 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.
14: Nor is it with you only that I make this sworn
covenant,
15: but with him who is not here with us this day as well
as with him who stands here with us this day before the LORD 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;
17: and you have seen their detestable things, their
idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among
them.
18: Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or
family or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD
our God to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there be
among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit,
19: one 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.
20: The LORD would not pardon him, but rather the anger
of the LORD and his jealousy would smoke against that man, and
the curses written in this book would settle upon him, and the
LORD would blot out his name from under heaven.
21: And the LORD 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.
22: And 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 LORD has made it sick --
23: the 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 LORD overthrew in his anger and wrath --
24: yea, all the nations would say, `Why has the LORD
done thus to this land? What means the heat of this great
anger?'
25: Then men would say, `It is because they forsook the
covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made
with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,
26: and went and served other gods and worshiped them,
gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to
them;
27: therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against
this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book;
28: and the LORD 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.
Chapter 30
1: "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,
2: and 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;
3: then 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.
4: If 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;
5: and 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.
6: And 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.
7: And the LORD your God will put all these curses upon
your foes and enemies who persecuted you.
8: And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and
keep all his commandments which I command you this day.
9: The 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,
10: if 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.
11: "For this commandment which I command you this
day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
12: It 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?'
13: Neither 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?'
14: But 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.
16: If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God
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.
17: But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear,
but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,
18: I 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.
19: I 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,
20: loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and
cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days,
that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."
Chapter 31
1: So Moses
continued to speak these words to all Israel.
2: And 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.'
3: The 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.
4: And the LORD will do to them as he did to Sihon and
Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he
destroyed them.
5: And the LORD will give them over to you, and you shall
do to them according to all the commandment which I have
commanded you.
6: Be 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."
7: Then 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 LORD has
sworn to their fathers to give them; and you shall put them in
possession of it.
8: It is the LORD who goes before you; he will be with
you, he will not fail you or forsake you; do not fear or be
dismayed."
9: And 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.
10: And Moses commanded them, "At the end of every
seven years, at the set time of the year of release, at the
feast of booths,
11: when 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.
12: Assemble 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,
13: and 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."
14: And 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.
15: And the LORD appeared in the tent in a pillar of
cloud; and the pillar of cloud stood by the door of the tent.
16: And 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.
17: Then 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?'
18: And 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.
19: Now therefore write this song, and teach it to the
people of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be
a witness for me against the people of Israel.
20: For 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.
21: And 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."
22: So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it
to the people of Israel.
23: And 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."
24: When Moses had finished writing the words of this law
in a book, to the very end,
25: Moses 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.
27: For 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!
28: Assemble 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.
29: For 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."
30: Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they
were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel:
Chapter 32
1: "Give
ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the
words of my mouth.
2: May 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.
3: For 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.
5: They have dealt corruptly with him, they are no longer
his children because of their blemish; they are a perverse and
crooked generation.
6: Do you thus requite the LORD, you foolish and
senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who
made you and established you?
7: Remember the days of old, consider the years of many
generations; ask your father, and he will show you; your elders,
and they will tell you.
8: When 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
God.
9: For 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.
11: Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters
over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing
them on its pinions,
12: the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no foreign
god with him.
13: He 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.
14: Curds 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.
16: They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with
abominable practices they provoked him to anger.
17: They 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.
18: You were unmindful of the Rock that begot 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.
20: And 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.
21: They 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.
22: For 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;
24: they 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.
25: In 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.
26: I would have said, "I will scatter them afar, I
will make the remembrance of them cease from among men,"
27: had 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.
29: If they were wise, they would understand this, they
would discern their latter end!
30: How 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?
31: For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies
themselves being judges.
32: For 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;
33: their 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?
35: Vengeance 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.
36: For 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.
37: Then he will say, `Where are their gods, the rock in
which they took refuge,
38: who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the
wine of their 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.
40: For I lift up my hand to heaven, and swear, As I live
for ever,
41: if I whet my glittering sword, and my hand takes hold
on judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will
requite those who hate me.
42: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword
shall devour flesh -- with the blood of the slain and the
captives, from the long-haired 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."
44: Moses came and recited all the words of this song in
the hearing of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.
45: And when Moses had finished speaking all these words
to all Israel,
46: he 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.
47: For 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."
48: And the LORD 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 people of Israel for a
possession;
50: and 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;
51: because you broke faith with me in the midst of the
people of Israel at the waters of Mer'i-bath-ka'desh, in the
wilderness of Zin; because you did not revere me as holy in the
midst of the people of Israel.
52: For you shall see the land before you; but you shall
not go there, into the land which I give to the people of
Israel."
Chapter 33
1: This is the
blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of
Israel before his death.
2: He said, "The LORD came from Sinai, and dawned
from Se'ir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran, he came
from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his
right hand.
3: Yea, he loved his people; all those consecrated to him
were in his hand; so they followed in thy steps, receiving
direction from thee,
4: when Moses commanded us a law, as a possession for the
assembly of Jacob.
5: Thus 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."
7: And this he said of Judah: "Hear, O LORD, the
voice of Judah, and bring him in to his people. With thy hands
contend for him, and be a help against his adversaries."
8: And of Levi he said, "Give to Levi thy Thummim,
and thy Urim to thy godly one, whom thou didst test at Massah,
with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Mer'ibah;
9: who said of his father and mother, `I regard them
not'; he disowned his brothers, and ignored his children. For
they observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.
10: They shall teach Jacob thy ordinances, and Israel thy
law; they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt
offering upon thy altar.
11: Bless, O LORD, his substance, and accept the work of
his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries, of those that
hate him, that they rise not again."
12: Of 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."
13: And of Joseph he said, "Blessed by the LORD be
his land, with the choicest gifts of heaven above, and of the
deep that couches beneath,
14: with the choicest fruits of the sun, and the rich
yield of the months,
15: with the finest produce of the ancient mountains, and
the abundance of the everlasting hills,
16: with the 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.
17: His 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."
18: And of Zeb'ulun he said, "Rejoice, Zeb'ulun, in
your going out; and Is'sachar, in your tents.
19: They 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."
20: And of Gad he said, "Blessed be he who enlarges
Gad! Gad couches like a lion, he tears the arm, and the crown of
the head.
21: He 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."
22: And of Dan he said, "Dan is a lion's whelp, that
leaps forth from Bashan."
23: And of Naph'tali he said, "O Naph'tali,
satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the LORD,
possess the lake and the south."
24: And 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.
25: Your 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.
27: The eternal God is your dwelling place, and
underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy
before you, and said, Destroy.
28: So Israel dwelt in safety, the fountain of Jacob
alone, in a land of grain and wine; yea, his heavens drop down
dew.
29: Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people
saved by the LORD, the shield of your help, and the sword of
your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you; and you
shall tread upon their high places."
Chapter 34
1: And 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,
2: all Naph'tali, the land of E'phraim and Manas'seh, all
the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea,
3: the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the valley of
Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zo'ar.
4: And 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."
5: So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the
land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD,
6: and 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.
7: Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died;
his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
8: And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains
of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for
Moses were ended.
9: And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of
wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the people of
Israel obeyed him, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses.
10: And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel
like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
11: none like him for all the signs and the wonders which
the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to
all his servants and to all his land,
12: and for all the mighty power and all the great and
terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel. |