Deuteronomy

1

¹ These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
² It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by the way that leads to Mount Seir.
³ And in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that Jehovah had commanded him for them,
⁴ After he had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who dwelt in Ashtaroth and in Edrei.
⁵ Across the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses set himself to expound this law, saying,
⁶ Jehovah our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.
⁷ Turn and set out, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland, and in the Negev and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
⁸ See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which Jehovah swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to them and to their seed after them.
⁹ And I spoke to you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you alone.
¹⁰ Jehovah your God has multiplied you, and now today you are as the stars of heaven in multitude.
¹¹ Jehovah, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousandfold ones like you and bless you as He has promised you!
¹² How can I alone bear the trouble and burden of you and your strife?
¹³ Choose for yourselves men who are wise and prudent and well attested, according to your tribes, and I will make them your leaders.
¹⁴ And you answered me and said, The thing that you have said to do is good.
¹⁵ So I took the leaders of your tribes, men who were wise and well attested, and I made them leaders over you, captains over thousands and captains over hundreds and captains over fifties and captains over tens and officials for your tribes.
¹⁶ And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the sojourner with him.
¹⁷ You shall not respect persons in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear the face of man, for 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 we went through all that great and awesome wilderness, which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Jehovah our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
²⁰ And I said to you, You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which Jehovah our God is giving us.
²¹ See, Jehovah your God has set the land before you; go up, possess it, as Jehovah the God of your fathers has spoken to you. Do not fear, neither be dismayed.
²² Then all of you came near to me and said, Let us send men before us that they may search out the land for us and bring back to us word concerning the way by which we should go up and the cities into which we should go.
²³ And the thing pleased me, so I took twelve men from among you, one for each tribe.
²⁴ And they turned and went up into the hill country, and they came to the Valley of Eshcol; and they spied out the land.
²⁵ And in their hands they took some of the fruit of the land, and they brought it down to us. And they brought word back to us and said, It is a good land which Jehovah our God is giving us.
²⁶ Yet you would not go up. Rather you rebelled against the word of Jehovah your God;
²⁷ And you murmured in your tents and said, Because Jehovah hates us, He has brought us out from the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites in order to destroy us.
²⁸ Where shall we go up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are big and fortified up to heaven; and furthermore we have seen the children of the Anakim there.
²⁹ Then I said to you, Do not be terrified, neither be afraid of them.
³⁰ Jehovah your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you according to all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
³¹ And in the wilderness, where you have seen that Jehovah your God carried you, as a man carries 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 in Jehovah your God,
³³ Who went before you in the way, to seek out for you a place for you to camp, in the fire by night to show you by which way you should go and in the cloud by day.
³⁴ And Jehovah heard the voice of your words, and He became furious and swore, saying,
³⁵ Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall by any means see the good land which I have sworn to give to your fathers,
³⁶ Except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it. And to him I will give the land on which he has trodden, and to his children, because he has fully followed Jehovah.
³⁷ With me also Jehovah was angry on your account, saying, You also shall not enter there;
³⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, who attends to you, he shall enter there. Strengthen him, for it is he who will cause Israel to inherit it.
³⁹ Moreover your little ones, who you said would be prey, and your children, who this day do not know good and evil, they shall enter there. And to them I will give it, and they will possess it.
⁴⁰ But as for you, turn and set out into the wilderness by the way that leads to the Red Sea.
⁴¹ Then you answered and said to me, We have sinned against Jehovah; we ourselves will go up and fight according to all that Jehovah our God has commanded us. And you girded yourselves, every man with his weapons of war, and thought it a light thing to go up to the hill country.
⁴² And Jehovah said to me, Say to them, You shall not go up and fight, for I am not among you, so that you are not struck down before your enemies.
⁴³ So I spoke to you, but you did not listen; rather, you rebelled against the word of Jehovah and went up presumptuously to the hill country.
⁴⁴ And the Amorites who dwell in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do; and they beat you back in Seir as far as Hormah.
⁴⁵ And you returned and wept before Jehovah; but Jehovah did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you.
⁴⁶ So you remained in Kadesh for many days, as many days as you remained.

2

¹ And we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way that leads to the Red Sea, as Jehovah spoke to me; and we circled Mount Seir for many days.
² Then Jehovah spoke to me, saying,
³ You have circled this mountain long enough; turn northward,
⁴ And command the people, saying, You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Take careful heed to yourselves therefore;
⁵ Do not engage them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as much as a footstep; for I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
⁶ You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also obtain water from them with money, that you may drink.
⁷ For Jehovah your God has blessed you in all your doings; He knows your journeying through this great wilderness. These forty years Jehovah your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing.
⁸ So we passed on from our brothers the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir, away from the way of the Arabah, away from Elath and from Ezion-geber; and we turned and passed on by the way that leads to the wilderness of Moab.
⁹ And Jehovah said to me, Do not harass Moab, nor engage them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession; for to the children of Lot I have given Ar as a possession.
¹⁰ (The Emim dwelt there before that, a people great and numerous and as tall as the Anakim;
¹¹ They were considered Rephaim, as were the Anakim, but the Moabites called them Emim.
¹² The Horites also dwelt in Seir before that, but the children of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them; and they dwelt there in their place, as Israel did with the land of their possession, which Jehovah gave to them.)
¹³ Now rise up and cross over the brook Zered. And we crossed over the brook Zered.
¹⁴ And the time that we spent in going from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, as Jehovah had sworn to them.
¹⁵ Moreover the hand of Jehovah was against them to purge them from the midst of the camp until they were consumed.
¹⁶ So when all the men of war were consumed from the midst of the people and dead,
¹⁷ Then Jehovah spoke to me, saying,
¹⁸ You are to pass through the territory of Moab, through Ar, today.
¹⁹ And when you come near to the children of Ammon, do not harass them, nor engage them, for I will not give any of the land of the children of Ammon to you as a possession; for I have given it to the children of Lot as a possession.
²⁰ (It was also considered a land of Rephaim; Rephaim formerly dwelt in it. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim,
²¹ A people great and numerous and as tall as the Anakim. Yet Jehovah destroyed them from before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt there in their place;
²² As He did for the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them. And they dispossessed them and have dwelt there in their place to this day.
²³ And the Avvim, who dwell in the villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and dwelt there in their place.)
²⁴ Rise up; set out and cross over the valley of the Arnon. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, the king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it, and engage him in battle.
²⁵ Today I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples under all heaven, who will hear the report of you and will tremble and quake because of you.
²⁶ Then I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon the king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying,
²⁷ Let me pass through your land. Only on the road I will go; I will not turn to the right or to the left.
²⁸ You will sell me food for money, that I may eat; and you will give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot —
²⁹ As the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites, who dwell in Ar, did for me — until I cross over the Jordan into the land which Jehovah our God is giving us.
³⁰ But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass through his land, for Jehovah your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate for the purpose of delivering him into your hand, as he is today.
³¹ And Jehovah said to me, See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land up before you. Begin to possess it that you may occupy his land.
³² Then Sihon came out to meet us, he and all his people, for battle at Jahaz.
³³ And Jehovah our God delivered him up before us, and we slew 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 no survivors.
³⁵ We took only the cattle as our plunder, as well as the spoil of the cities which we captured.
³⁶ From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and from the city which is in the valley, even to Gilead, there was not a town too high for us; Jehovah our God delivered them all up before us.
³⁷ But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok, nor the cities of the hill country, nor any place that Jehovah our God commanded us not to.

3

¹ Then we turned and went up on the way that leads to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us, he and all his people, for battle at Edrei.
² But Jehovah 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 was dwelling in Heshbon.
³ And Jehovah our God also gave Og the king of Bashan, as well as all his people, into our hand; and we slew them until there was no survivor left to him.
⁴ And we captured all his cities at that time; there was not a town that we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
⁵ All of these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural villages.
⁶ And we utterly destroyed them as we had done to Sihon the king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every city — men, women, and children.
⁷ But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we took as our plunder.
⁸ So at that time we took the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon
⁹ (The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir),
¹⁰ All the cities of the Plateau and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Salcah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
¹¹ (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bedstead, a bedstead of iron, is indeed now in Rabbah of the children of Ammon. Its length is nine cubits and its width four cubits, according to the cubit of a man.)
¹² So we possessed this land at that time. From Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead and its cities, I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites.
¹³ And the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob. (All that portion of Bashan is called the land of the Rephaim.
¹⁴ Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites; and he called it, that is, Bashan, after his own name, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.)
¹⁵ And to Machir I gave Gilead.
¹⁶ And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave the region from Gilead even as far as the valley of the Arnon, the middle of the valley being the border, as far as the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon;
¹⁷ And the Arabah, with the Jordan as a border, from Chinnereth even as far as the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah on the east.
¹⁸ And I charged you at that time, saying, Jehovah your God has given you this land that you may possess it; all the men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the children of Israel.
¹⁹ Only your wives and your little ones and your livestock — I know that you have vast livestock — shall remain in your cities, which I have given you,
²⁰ Until Jehovah gives rest to your brothers as He has to you, and they also possess the land which Jehovah your God is giving them across the Jordan, and you return, each man to his possession which I have given you.
²¹ And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, Yours are the eyes that have seen all that Jehovah your God has done to these two kings; so will Jehovah do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross over.
²² Do not fear them, for it is Jehovah your God who is fighting for you.
²³ And I pleaded with Jehovah at that time, saying,
²⁴ O Lord Jehovah, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do things like what You have done and things like Your mighty deeds?
²⁵ Let me please cross over and see the good land that is across the Jordan, this fine hill country and Lebanon.
²⁶ But Jehovah was infuriated with me on your account and did not listen to me. And Jehovah said to me, Enough! Speak no more to Me about this matter.
²⁷ Go up to the top of Pisgah; and lift up your eyes to the west and to the north and to the south and to the east; and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan.
²⁸ But charge Joshua, and strengthen and encourage him, for it is he who will cross over before this people and cause them to inherit the land which you will see.
²⁹ And we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

4

¹ And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the ordinances which I am teaching you to do, in order that you may live and go in and possess the land which Jehovah, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
² You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you.
³ Yours are the eyes that have seen that which Jehovah has done in Baal-peor; for all the men who went after Baal-peor, Jehovah your God has destroyed from your midst.
⁴ But you who joined yourselves to Jehovah your God are alive, all of you, today.
⁵ See, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as Jehovah my God commanded me, so that you would do them within the land which you are going in to possess.
⁶ Keep and do them therefore; for this will be your wisdom and prudence in the sight of the peoples who hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and prudent people.
⁷ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as Jehovah our God is 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 am setting before you today?
⁹ But be careful and guard your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; rather, make them known to your children and to your grandchildren.
¹⁰ Especially do not forget the day when you stood before Jehovah your God at Horeb, when Jehovah said to me, Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live upon the earth and may teach their children as much.
¹¹ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain; and the mountain was burning with fire up into the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and deep darkness there.
¹² And Jehovah spoke to you from the midst of the fire. The sound of words could you hear, but no form could you see; there was only a voice.
¹³ And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them upon two tablets of stone.
¹⁴ And Jehovah commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to do in the land which you are about to cross over into to possess.
¹⁵ So take careful heed to your souls, for you did not see any form at all on the day when Jehovah spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
¹⁶ So that you do not spoil yourselves and make for yourselves an idol, a form of any image, a figure of male or female,
¹⁷ A figure of any animal which is on the earth, a figure of any winged bird which flies in the sky,
¹⁸ A figure of anything that crawls on the ground, a figure of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
¹⁹ And take heed that, when you lift up your eyes to the sky and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you are not drawn away in worship to them and that you do not serve them, which Jehovah your God has assigned to all the peoples under all heaven.
²⁰ But Jehovah has taken you and brought you forth from the iron furnace, from Egypt, that you would be to Him a people for His inheritance, as you are this day.
²¹ But Jehovah was angry with me on your account and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan and that I would not enter the good land which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance.
²² For I am to die in this land; I am not to cross over the Jordan. But you are crossing over and you will possess this good land.
²³ Take heed to yourselves that you do not forget the covenant of Jehovah your God, which He has made with you, and make for yourselves an idol, the form of anything, which Jehovah your God has forbidden you to make.
²⁴ For Jehovah your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
²⁵ When you have brought forth children and grandchildren and have languished in the land, and you have spoiled yourselves by making an idol, the form of anything, and have done that which is evil in the sight of Jehovah your God so as to anger Him;
²⁶ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that surely you will soon perish from off the land into which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess; you will not extend your days upon it, but you will be utterly destroyed.
²⁷ And Jehovah will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to which Jehovah will drive you.
²⁸ And there you will serve gods which are the work of human hands, mere wood and stone, which do not see nor hear nor eat nor smell.
²⁹ And from there you will seek Jehovah your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
³⁰ When you are in distress and all these things happen to you, when you are in the last days, you will return to Jehovah your God and listen to His voice.
³¹ For Jehovah your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor let you perish nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.
³² For ask now regarding the former days, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, Has anything as great as this ever happened, or has anything like this ever been heard of?
³³ Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived?
³⁴ Has God ever ventured to go and take to Himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs and wonders, and by war and a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, like all that Jehovah your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
³⁵ You were shown these things that you might know that it is Jehovah who is God; there is no other besides Him.
³⁶ From heaven He let you hear His voice that He might discipline you, and upon the earth He showed you His great fire, and His words you heard from the midst of the fire.
³⁷ And because He loved your fathers, He chose their seed after them and brought you out by His presence, by His great power, from Egypt,
³⁸ Driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today.
³⁹ Know therefore today and bring it to heart that Jehovah is God in heaven above and upon the earth below; there is no other.
⁴⁰ Therefore keep His statutes and His commandments, which I am commanding you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, so that you may extend your days upon the land which Jehovah your God is giving you forever.
⁴¹ Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan toward the rising of the sun,
⁴² That the manslayer might flee there, who slays his neighbor without intent and did not hate him previously, and in fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
⁴³ Bezer in the wilderness, in the land of the Plateau, belonging to the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, belonging to the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, belonging to the Manassites.
⁴⁴ And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel;
⁴⁵ These are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they had gone out from Egypt,
⁴⁶ Across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel slew when they had gone out from Egypt.
⁴⁷ And they possessed his land and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were across the Jordan toward the rising of the sun,
⁴⁸ From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, even unto Mount Sirion, that is, Hermon,
⁴⁹ And all the Arabah across the Jordan on the east even to the sea of the Arabah at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.

5

¹ And Moses called all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking in your hearing today, and learn them and keep them, so that you may do them.
² Jehovah our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
³ Not with our fathers did Jehovah make this covenant, but with us, we who are all here alive today.
⁴ Face to face Jehovah spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire —
⁵ I was standing between Jehovah and you at that time to declare to you the word of Jehovah, for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up to the mountain — saying,
⁶ I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the slave house;
⁷ You shall have no other gods before Me.
⁸ You shall not make for yourself an idol, the form of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water beneath the earth.
⁹ You shall not bow down to them, and you shall not serve them; for I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
¹⁰ Yet showing lovingkindness to thousands of generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
¹¹ You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain, for Jehovah will not hold guiltless him who takes His name in vain.
¹² Keep the Sabbath day so as to sanctify it, as Jehovah your God has commanded you.
¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
¹⁴ But the seventh day is a Sabbath to Jehovah your God; you shall not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your ox nor your donkey nor any of your cattle nor the sojourner with you who is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as you do.
¹⁵ And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and that Jehovah your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; hence, Jehovah your God commanded you to hold the Sabbath day.
¹⁶ Honor your father and your mother, as Jehovah your God has commanded you, that your days may be extended and that it may be well with you upon the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.
¹⁷ You shall not kill;
¹⁸ Neither shall you commit adultery;
¹⁹ Neither shall you steal;
²⁰ Neither shall you testify as a vain witness against your neighbor;
²¹ Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife, nor shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
²² These words Jehovah spoke to all your congregation on the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness, with a great voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them upon two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
²³ And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain burned with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders,
²⁴ And said, Jehovah our God has just shown us His glory and His greatness, and His voice we have heard from the midst of the fire; today we have seen that God speaks with man and yet he lives.
²⁵ Therefore why should we die now? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of Jehovah our God any longer, we will die.
²⁶ For who is there among all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and has lived?
²⁷ You go near and hear all that Jehovah our God says; then you will speak to us all that Jehovah our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do.
²⁸ And Jehovah heard the sound of your words while you spoke to me; and Jehovah said to me, I have heard the sound of the words of this people which they have spoken to you; they have done well in all that they have spoken.
²⁹ Oh that this heart of theirs would be in them always to fear Me and keep all My commandments so that it may go well with them and with their children forever!
³⁰ Go, say to them, Return to your tents.
³¹ But you, stand here by Me that I may speak to you the whole commandment, and the statutes and the ordinances, which you will teach them to do in the land which I am giving them to possess.
³² Keep them therefore so that you may do them, even as Jehovah your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left.
³³ You shall walk in all the way that Jehovah your God has commanded you, so that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may extend your days in the land which you will possess.

6

¹ Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the ordinances, which Jehovah your God has commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land into which you are crossing over to possess;
² That you may fear Jehovah your God and keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I am commanding you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life; and that your days may be extended.
³ Therefore hear, O Israel, and be certain to do it, that it may go well with you and that you may be greatly increased, in a land flowing with milk and honey, even as Jehovah, the God of your fathers, promised you.
⁴ Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our God; Jehovah is one.
⁵ And you shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
⁶ And these words, which I command you today, shall be upon your heart;
⁷ And you shall repeat them to your children, and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you journey on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up;
⁸ And you shall bind them on your hand as a sign, 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 Jehovah your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you great and fine cities that you did not build,
¹¹ And houses full of every good thing that you did not fill, and hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, and you have eaten and are satisfied;
¹² Be careful that you do not forget Jehovah who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the slave house.
¹³ It is Jehovah your God whom you shall fear, and Him whom you shall serve; and it is by His name only that you shall swear.
¹⁴ You shall not go after other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you —
¹⁵ For Jehovah your God is a jealous God in the midst of you. Otherwise the anger of Jehovah your God will be kindled against you, and He will destroy you from off the face of the earth.
¹⁶ You shall not test Jehovah your God, as you tested Him at Massah.
¹⁷ You shall diligently keep the commandments of Jehovah your God and His testimonies and His statutes, which He has commanded you.
¹⁸ And you shall do that which is right and good in the sight of Jehovah so that it may go well with you and you may enter and possess the good land, concerning which Jehovah swore to your fathers
¹⁹ To drive out all your enemies from before you, as Jehovah has spoken.
²⁰ When your son asks you in the future, saying, What is the significance of the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances that Jehovah our God commanded you?
²¹ Then you will say to your son, We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
²² And Jehovah put forth before our eyes great and grievous signs and wonders in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his house.
²³ Then He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, that He might give us the land which He swore to our fathers.
²⁴ And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes so that we would fear Jehovah our God for our good always and He would preserve us alive, as we are this day.
²⁵ And it will be righteousness to us if we are certain to do all this commandment before Jehovah our God, as He commanded us.

7

¹ When Jehovah your God brings you into the land which you are about to enter to possess, and clears away many nations from before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you —
² And Jehovah your God delivers them up before you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor shall you show them any favor.
³ And you shall not make marriage alliances with them: Your daughters you shall not give to their sons, and their daughters you shall not take for your sons;
⁴ For they will draw your sons away from following after Me to serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will burn against you and He will quickly destroy you.
⁵ But you shall deal with them in this way: Their altars you shall tear down, their pillars you shall shatter, their Asherahs you shall hew down, and their idols you shall burn with fire.
⁶ For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God; it is you whom Jehovah your God has chosen from among all the peoples which are upon the face of the earth to be a people for His personal treasure.
⁷ It was not because you were more numerous than all the peoples that Jehovah has set His affection on you and has chosen you, for you were the fewest of all the peoples;
⁸ Rather, because Jehovah loved you and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, Jehovah has brought you out with a mighty hand and ransomed you from the slave house, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.
⁹ Know therefore that it is Jehovah your God who is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness to the thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments,
¹⁰ But repays directly those who hate Him by destroying them. He will not be slow toward him who hates Him; He will repay him directly.
¹¹ Therefore you shall keep the commandment, and the statutes and the ordinances, which I am commanding you today to do.
¹² And it will be that because you listen to these ordinances, and keep them and do them, Jehovah your God will keep with you the covenant and the lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers.
¹³ And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock, on the land which He swore to your fathers to give you.
¹⁴ You will be more blessed than all other peoples; there will not be any barren male or female among you or among your animals.
¹⁵ And Jehovah will remove every sickness from you, and none of the evil illnesses of Egypt, which you know about, will He put upon you; but He will give them to all who hate you.
¹⁶ And you shall devour all the peoples which Jehovah your God is giving you; your eye shall not pity them, nor 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 will I be able to dispossess them?
¹⁸ You shall not be afraid of them; you must remember what Jehovah your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
¹⁹ The great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders, and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm with which Jehovah your God brought you out; so will Jehovah your God do to all the peoples whom you are afraid of.
²⁰ Furthermore, Jehovah your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left and those who hide themselves from you are destroyed.
²¹ You shall not be terrified of them, for Jehovah your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.
²² And Jehovah your God will clear away these nations from before you little by little; you will not be able to consume them immediately, lest the beasts of the field multiply against you.
²³ But Jehovah your God will deliver them up before you and rout them utterly until they are destroyed.
²⁴ And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall destroy their name from under heaven; no man will be able to stand against you until you destroy them.
²⁵ The idols of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not desire the silver or gold upon them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to Jehovah your God.
²⁶ And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you become a cursed thing like it; you shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing.

8

¹ The whole commandment which I am commanding you today, you shall keep and do, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land which Jehovah swore to your fathers.
² And you shall remember all the way that Jehovah your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
³ And He humbled you and let you go hungry and fed you the manna, which you had never known nor your fathers had ever known, so that He might make you know that man lives not by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out from the mouth of Jehovah.
⁴ Your clothing did not wear out from upon you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.
⁵ Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Jehovah your God was disciplining you;
⁶ Therefore keep the commandments of Jehovah your God, walking in His ways and fearing Him.
⁷ For Jehovah your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of waterbrooks, of springs and of fountains, flowing forth in valleys and in mountains;
⁸ A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees with oil and of honey;
⁹ A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity; you will not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and from whose mountains you can mine copper.
¹⁰ And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Jehovah your God for the good land which He has given you.
¹¹ Be careful lest you forget Jehovah your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes, which I am commanding you today;
¹² Lest when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built fine houses and dwell in them,
¹³ And your herd and your flock have multiplied, and your silver and your gold have multiplied, and all that you have has multiplied,
¹⁴ Your heart be lifted up and you forget Jehovah your God, Him who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the slave house;
¹⁵ Who led you through the great and awesome wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; who brought forth water for you out of flint rock;
¹⁶ Who fed you manna in the wilderness, which your fathers had never known, that He might humble you and that He might test you in order to do good for you in the end;
¹⁷ And you say in your heart, My strength and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.
¹⁸ But you shall remember Jehovah your God, for it is He who gives you strength to gain wealth, so that He may establish His covenant, which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
¹⁹ And if you forget Jehovah your God at all and go after other gods and serve them and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish.
²⁰ Like the nations which Jehovah is about to destroy before your face, so you will perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.

9

¹ Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross over the Jordan this day in order to enter in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities that are big and fortified up to heaven,
² A people great and tall, the children of the Anakim, whom you know about and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the children of Anak?
³ Know therefore today that Jehovah your God is the One crossing over before you as a consuming fire; it is He who will destroy them, and it is He who will subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess them and destroy them quickly, as Jehovah has said to you.
⁴ Do not say in your heart when Jehovah your God drives them out from before you, Because of my righteousness, Jehovah has brought me in to possess this land. Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Jehovah is about to dispossess them from before you.
⁵ It is not because of your righteousness nor because of the uprightness of your heart that you are entering in to possess their land, but Jehovah your God is about to dispossess them from before you because of the wickedness of these nations and so that Jehovah may establish the word that He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
⁶ Know therefore that it is not because of your righteousness that Jehovah your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
⁷ Remember; do not forget that you made Jehovah your God furious in the wilderness; from the day that you came forth from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Jehovah.
⁸ And especially at Horeb you made Jehovah furious, and Jehovah was angry enough with you to destroy you.
⁹ When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant which Jehovah made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food nor drink water.
¹⁰ And Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God; and on them was what was according to all the words which Jehovah had spoken with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights, Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant.
¹² Then Jehovah said to me, Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people, whom you have brought out of Egypt, have spoiled themselves; they have turned aside quickly from the way that I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image.
¹³ Then Jehovah spoke to me, saying, I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people.
¹⁴ Let Me alone that I may destroy them and blot their name out from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.
¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two Tablets of the Covenant were in my two hands.
¹⁶ And I saw that you had indeed sinned against Jehovah your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way that Jehovah had commanded you.
¹⁷ And I took hold of the two tablets and cast them out of my two hands and shattered them before your eyes.
¹⁸ Then I threw myself down before Jehovah as at the beginning, forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food nor drink water, because of all your sin which you had sinned by doing that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah so as to anger Him.
¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and the burning wrath with which Jehovah was angry enough against you to destroy you. But Jehovah listened to me in that instance as well.
²⁰ And Jehovah was very angry with Aaron, enough to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that time.
²¹ Then I took your sin that you had made, the calf, and I burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust of it into the brook that came down from the mountain.
²² And at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you made Jehovah furious.
²³ And when Jehovah sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, you rebelled at the word of Jehovah your God and did not believe Him and did not listen to His voice.
²⁴ You have been rebellious against Jehovah since the day I came to know you.
²⁵ So I threw myself down before Jehovah for the forty days and the forty nights; I threw myself down thus, for Jehovah had said He would destroy you.
²⁶ And I prayed to Jehovah and said, O Lord Jehovah, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance, whom You have ransomed with Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look at the stubbornness of this people and at their wickedness and at their sin;
²⁸ Lest the inhabitants of the land from which You have brought us out say, Because Jehovah was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.
²⁹ But they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You have brought out with Your great strength and with Your outstretched arm.

10

¹ At that time Jehovah said to me, Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make yourself an ark of wood.
² And I will write upon the tablets the words which were on the first tablets, which you shattered; and you shall place them in the Ark.
³ So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut two tablets of stone like the first ones; and I went up to the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.
⁴ And He wrote upon the tablets as He had done the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which Jehovah spoke to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and Jehovah gave them to me.
⁵ Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and I placed the tablets in the Ark that I had made. And there they have been, as Jehovah commanded me.
⁶ (And the children of Israel set out from Beeroth Bene-jaakan for Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son served as priest in his place.
⁷ From there they set out for Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of waterbrooks.
⁸ At that time Jehovah separated the tribe of Levi to bear the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, to stand before Jehovah to minister to Him and bless in His name until this day.
⁹ Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brothers; Jehovah is his inheritance, as Jehovah your God promised him.)
¹⁰ And I stayed on the mountain, as I had the first time, forty days and forty nights. And Jehovah listened to me in that instance as well; Jehovah would not destroy you.
¹¹ And Jehovah said to me, Arise, take up the journey before the people so that they may enter and possess the land which I have sworn to their fathers to give them.
¹² And now, O Israel, what does Jehovah your God ask of you except that you fear Jehovah your God so that you would walk in all His ways and love Him and serve Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul;
¹³ So that you would keep the commandments of Jehovah and His statutes, which I am commanding you today, for your good.
¹⁴ Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to Jehovah your God, the earth and all that is in it.
¹⁵ But on your fathers Jehovah set His affection to love them and to choose their seed after them, that is, you above all the peoples, as it is this day.
¹⁶ Circumcise then the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stiff-necked any longer;
¹⁷ For it is Jehovah your God who is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who does not regard persons and does not take bribes;
¹⁸ He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and He loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.
¹⁹ Therefore love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
²⁰ You shall fear Jehovah your God; Him shall you serve and to Him shall you hold fast and by His name shall you swear.
²¹ He is your praise and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things for you, which your eyes have seen.
²² Your fathers went down into Egypt as seventy souls; and now Jehovah your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.

11

¹ Therefore you shall love Jehovah your God and keep His charge and His statutes and His ordinances and His commandments always.
² And realize today that I am speaking not with your sons, who do not know and who have not seen the discipline of Jehovah your God, His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretched arm;
³ And His signs and works, which He did in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and against all his land;
⁴ And what He did to Egypt’s forces, to their horses and to their chariots, when He caused the water of the Red Sea to flow over them while they were pursuing you; and Jehovah made them perish to this day;
⁵ And what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place;
⁶ And what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their households and their tents and all their substance that went with them, from the midst of all Israel.
⁷ But it is your eyes that have seen all the great work of Jehovah which He did.
⁸ Therefore you shall keep the whole commandment which I am commanding you today so that you may be strong and that you may go in and possess the land into which you are crossing over to possess,
⁹ And so that you may extend your days upon the ground which Jehovah swore to your fathers, to give to them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.
¹⁰ For the land which you are entering in to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you came forth, where you used to sow your seed and water by foot as in a vegetable garden.
¹¹ But the land into which you are crossing over to possess is a land of mountains and valleys; by virtue of heaven’s rain, it drinks in water.
¹² It is a land which Jehovah your God cares for; always the eyes of Jehovah your God are upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.
¹³ And if you are certain to listen to My commandments, which I am commanding you today, to love Jehovah your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
¹⁴ I will give rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the late rain, so that you may gather your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil.
¹⁵ And I will put grass in your field for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
¹⁶ Be careful lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and bow down to them,
¹⁷ And the anger of Jehovah burn against you and He shut up heaven, so that there is no rain and the earth does not yield its produce and you perish quickly from off the good land which Jehovah is giving you.
¹⁸ Therefore you shall lay these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them on your hand as a sign, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes;
¹⁹ And you shall teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit in your house and when you journey on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up;
²⁰ And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates;
²¹ That your days may be multiplied, as well as the days of your children, upon the land which Jehovah swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the days of heaven are above the earth.
²² For if you are certain to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love Jehovah your God, to walk in all His ways and hold fast to Him,
²³ Jehovah will dispossess all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
²⁴ Every place on which the sole of your foot treads will be yours; from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the farmost sea will be your territory.
²⁵ No man will be able to stand against you; Jehovah your God will put the dread and fear of you upon all the land on which you tread, as He has spoken to you.
²⁶ See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
²⁷ The blessing, if you listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you today;
²⁸ And the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God and you turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, to go after other gods whom you have not known.
²⁹ And when Jehovah your God brings you into the land which you are entering to possess, you shall put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal.
³⁰ Indeed they are across the Jordan beyond the western road in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the Arabah before Gilgal beside the terebinths of Moreh.
³¹ For you are about to cross over the Jordan to enter and possess the land which Jehovah your God is giving you; and you will possess it and dwell in it.
³² Therefore be certain to do all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

12

¹ These are the statutes and the ordinances that you shall be certain to do in the land which Jehovah, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth.
² You shall completely destroy all the places where the nations whom you will dispossess have served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every flourishing tree.
³ And you shall tear down their altars and crush their pillars; and their Asherahs you shall burn with fire, and the idols of their gods you shall cut down; and you shall destroy their name from that place.
⁴ You shall not do so to Jehovah your God.
⁵ But to the place which Jehovah your God will choose out of all your tribes to put His name, to His habitation, shall you seek, and there shall you go.
⁶ And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the heave offering of your hand and your vows and your freewill offerings and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock;
⁷ And there you shall eat before Jehovah your God, and you and your households shall rejoice in all your undertakings, in which Jehovah your God has blessed you.
⁸ You shall not do according to all that we do here today, each man doing all that is right in his own eyes;
⁹ For until now you have not come to the rest and to the inheritance that Jehovah your God is giving you.
¹⁰ But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies surrounding you so that you dwell securely;
¹¹ Then to the place where Jehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I am commanding you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the heave offering of your hand and all your choice vows which you vow to Jehovah.
¹² And you shall rejoice before Jehovah your God, you and your sons and daughters, and your male servants and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
¹³ Be careful that you do not offer up your burnt offerings in every place that you see;
¹⁴ But in the place which Jehovah will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer up your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
¹⁵ Yet you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, in all that your soul desires, according to the blessing of Jehovah your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat it as the gazelle and the deer are eaten.
¹⁶ However, you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water.
¹⁷ You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or of your new wine or of your fresh oil, nor the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vows which you vow or of your freewill offerings or of the heave offering of your hand;
¹⁸ But you shall eat them before Jehovah your God in the place which Jehovah your God will choose, you and your son and daughter, and your male servant and female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before Jehovah your God in all your undertakings.
¹⁹ Be careful that you do not forsake the Levite all your days upon the earth.
²⁰ When Jehovah your God enlarges your territory, as He has promised you, and you say, I will eat meat, because your soul desires to eat meat, you may eat meat according to all that your soul desires.
²¹ If the place where Jehovah your God will choose to put His name is too far away from you, you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock, which Jehovah has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates according to all that your soul desires;
²² Indeed, as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean may eat it alike.
²³ But make 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, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of Jehovah.
²⁶ But you shall take your holy things which you have and your vows, and go to the place which Jehovah will choose;
²⁷ And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of Jehovah your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of Jehovah your God, and you shall eat the flesh.
²⁸ Keep and listen to all these words which I am commanding you so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of Jehovah your God.
²⁹ When Jehovah your God cuts off the nations before you, which you are entering to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land,
³⁰ Be careful that you are not ensnared in following them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not seek after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, so that I also may do likewise?
³¹ You shall not do so for Jehovah your God, for every abomination to Jehovah, which He hates, they have done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burned with fire to their gods.
³² The whole thing that I am commanding you, you shall be certain to do; you shall not add to it, nor shall you take away from it.

13

¹ If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams stands up in your midst and gives you a sign or wonder,
² And the sign or the wonder occurs, about which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go after other gods whom 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 Jehovah your God is testing you in order to know whether you love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
⁴ You shall follow Jehovah your God; and you shall fear Him, keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and hold fast to Him.
⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has advocated apostasy from Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and ransomed you from the slave house, in order to force you out of the way in which Jehovah your God has commanded you to walk. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
⁶ If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is like your own soul to you entice you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods (which neither you nor your fathers have known,
⁷ Of the gods of the peoples who are surrounding you, those who are near you or those who are far from you, from one end of the earth to the other);
⁸ You shall not yield to him nor listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him; neither shall you spare him nor conceal him;
⁹ But you must slay him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
¹⁰ And you shall stone him with stones so that he dies, because he sought to force you away from Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the slave house.
¹¹ And all Israel will hear and will fear and will never do anything like this evil thing in your midst again.
¹² If you hear in one of your cities, which Jehovah your God is giving you to dwell in, someone saying that
¹³ Some worthless men have gone out from your midst and have forced the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods (which you have not known);
¹⁴ Then you shall investigate and examine carefully and inquire thoroughly. And if indeed the thing is true and certain — this abomination has been done in your midst —
¹⁵ You must slay the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it and all that is in it and its animals with the edge of the sword.
¹⁶ And all its spoil you shall gather at the middle of its open square, and you shall burn the city and all its spoil with fire wholly to Jehovah your God. And it shall be a mound only forever; it shall not be built again.
¹⁷ And nothing of what has been cursed shall cling to your hand, in order that Jehovah may turn from His burning anger and show you tenderness and be compassionate to you and multiply you as He swore to your fathers,
¹⁸ When you listen to the voice of Jehovah your God and keep all His commandments, which I am commanding you today, and do what is right in the sight of Jehovah your God.

14

¹ You are the children of Jehovah your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the dead.
² For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God, and Jehovah has chosen you to be a people for His personal treasure, from among all the peoples which are upon the face of the earth.
³ You shall not eat any abominable thing.
⁴ These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat;
⁵ The deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, the mountain sheep.
⁶ And every animal that has a divided hoof, that is, has its hoof split in two, and that chews the cud among the animals, that you may eat.
⁷ However, these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud or of those that have a cleft hoof: the camel, the hare, and the hyrax; because although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are unclean to you.
⁸ And the pig, because although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean to you. You shall not eat of their flesh, nor shall you touch their carcasses.
⁹ These you may eat of all that are in the water: Anything that has fins and scales you may eat,
¹⁰ But anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean to you.
¹¹ You may eat any clean bird.
¹² But these are what you shall not eat: the great vulture, the bearded vulture, and the black vulture;
¹³ The kite, the falcon, and the kite of every kind;
¹⁴ And all ravens of every kind;
¹⁵ The ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, and the hawk of every kind;
¹⁶ The little owl, the great owl, the white owl,
¹⁷ The pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant,
¹⁸ The stork, the heron of every kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.
¹⁹ And all flying insects are unclean to you; they shall not be eaten.
²⁰ You may eat any clean flying animal.
²¹ You shall not eat any carcass; to the sojourner who is within your gates you may give it that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
²² You must give a tenth of all the produce of your seed, which the field brings forth, year by year.
²³ And you shall eat before Jehovah your God, in the place where He will choose to cause His name to dwell, the tithe of your grain, of your new wine, and of your fresh oil and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear Jehovah your God always.
²⁴ But if the way is so far away from you that you are not able to carry your tithe, because the place where Jehovah your God will choose to set His name is too far away from you when Jehovah your God has blessed you,
²⁵ Then you shall exchange it for money and bind up the money in your hand, and you shall go to the place which Jehovah your God will choose.
²⁶ And you shall exchange the money for anything that your soul desires, for oxen, for sheep, for wine, for strong drink, or for anything that your soul would like; and you and your household shall eat there before Jehovah your God and rejoice.
²⁷ But you shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
²⁸ At the end of every three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce for that year and lay it within your gates;
²⁹ And the Levite shall come — for he has no portion nor inheritance with you — as well as the sojourner and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates; and they shall eat and be satisfied, so that Jehovah your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

15

¹ At the end of every seven years you shall issue a release.
² And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor shall release from his hand that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it from his neighbor or his brother, for Jehovah’s release has been proclaimed.
³ From the foreigner you may exact the debt; but whatever of yours your brother has, your hand shall release.
⁴ However, there shall not be any needy among you (for Jehovah will surely bless you in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess),
⁵ But only if you carefully listen to the voice of Jehovah your God and are certain to do all this commandment which I am commanding you today.
⁶ For Jehovah your God will bless you as He has promised you. And you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
⁷ If among you there is a needy one amidst your brothers within any of your gates in your land, which Jehovah your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart and you shall not close up your hand from your needy brother;
⁸ But you must open your hand to him, and you must lend enough for his need in whatever he lacks.
⁹ Be careful that there is not within your heart a base thought like this: The seventh year, the year of release, is near; and your eye be evil against your needy brother and you do not give him anything, and he cry against you to Jehovah, and it become sin to you.
¹⁰ You must give to him, and your heart shall not be displeased when you give to him; for on account of this matter Jehovah your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings.
¹¹ For the needy will not cease being in the land; therefore I am commanding you, saying, You must open your hand to your brother, to the poor one with you and to the needy one with you in your land.
¹² If your brother, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years; but in the seventh year you shall set him free.
¹³ And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed;
¹⁴ You must supply him richly from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your winepress; as Jehovah your God has blessed you, so shall you give to him.
¹⁵ And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and that Jehovah your God ransomed you; therefore I am commanding you this thing today.
¹⁶ And if he says to you, I will not go forth from you, because he loves you and your household, for it goes well with him to be with you;
¹⁷ Then you shall take an awl and run it through his ear and into the door, and he shall be your servant forever; and thus also shall you do to your female servant.
¹⁸ You shall not view it as a hardship when you set him free; for he served you for six years, saving you double the wages of a hired hand, and Jehovah your God will bless you in all that you do.
¹⁹ All firstborn males that are brought forth in your herd and in your flock you shall sanctify to Jehovah your God; you shall not do work with your firstborn ox, nor shall you shear your firstborn sheep.
²⁰ You and your household shall eat it before Jehovah your God year by year in the place which Jehovah will choose.
²¹ And if there is a blemish in it, lameness or blindness, any serious blemish, you shall not sacrifice it to Jehovah your God.
²² You shall eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it as the gazelle and the deer are eaten.
²³ However, you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth like water.

16

¹ Observe the month of Abib, and hold the Passover to Jehovah your God; for in the month of Abib Jehovah your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
² And you shall sacrifice the passover to Jehovah your God, from the flock and from the herd, in the place where Jehovah will choose to cause His name to dwell.
³ You shall not eat anything leavened with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for in alarmed haste you came out of the land of Egypt); in order that you may remember the day of your coming out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
⁴ And leaven shall not be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh which you sacrifice in the evening on the first day remain until morning.
⁵ You may not sacrifice the passover within any of your gates, which Jehovah your God is giving you;
⁶ Rather, in the place where Jehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell, you shall sacrifice the passover in the evening, as the sun sets, at the time that you came out of Egypt.
⁷ And you shall cook and eat it in the place which Jehovah your God will choose, and you shall turn in the morning and go to your tents.
⁸ Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. And on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to Jehovah your God; you shall not do any work.
⁹ You shall count off for yourself seven weeks. You shall begin to count the seven weeks from the time that you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.
¹⁰ And you shall hold the Feast of Weeks to Jehovah your God according to the sufficiency of the freewill offering of your hand, which you will give, as Jehovah your God blesses you.
¹¹ And you and your son and daughter, and your male servant and female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates and the sojourner and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst shall rejoice before Jehovah your God in the place where Jehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell.
¹² And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall keep and do these statutes.
¹³ You shall hold the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after your ingathering from your threshing floor and your winepress.
¹⁴ And you and your son and daughter, and your male servant and female servant, and the Levite and the sojourner and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates shall rejoice in your feast.
¹⁵ You shall keep the feast to Jehovah your God for seven days in the place which Jehovah will choose, for Jehovah your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your undertakings; therefore you shall be nothing but joyful.
¹⁶ Three times a year all your males shall appear before Jehovah your God in the place which He will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles. And they shall not appear before Jehovah empty-handed;
¹⁷ Each man shall give as he is able to give, according to the blessing of Jehovah your God, which He has given you.
¹⁸ You shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your cities which Jehovah your God is giving you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
¹⁹ You shall not distort justice; you shall not respect persons, nor shall you take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.
²⁰ Righteousness, and only righteousness, shall you pursue, in order that you may live and possess the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.
²¹ You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Jehovah your God, which you will make for yourself;
²² Nor shall you erect for yourself a pillar, something which Jehovah your God hates.

17

¹ You shall not sacrifice to Jehovah your God any ox or sheep in which there is a blemish, anything seriously wrong, for that is an abomination to Jehovah your God.
² If there is found in your midst, within any of your gates which Jehovah your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Jehovah your God by transgressing His covenant,
³ And has gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, that is, to the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded you to do;
⁴ And it is told to you and you hear of it; then you shall investigate thoroughly. And if indeed the thing is true and certain — this abomination has been done in Israel —
⁵ Then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing, to your gates, that very man or woman, and you shall stone them with stones so that they die.
⁶ At the word of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he who is to die be put to death; he shall not be put to death at the word of only 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. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
⁸ If a case is too complicated for you to judge between one kind of homicide and another, or between one kind of civil suit and another, or between one kind of assault and another, being disputed cases within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Jehovah your God will choose;
⁹ And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is presiding in those days and investigate the matter; and they shall declare to you the sentence of judgment.
¹⁰ And you shall do according to the word of the sentence that they declare to you from that place which Jehovah will choose; and you shall be certain to do according to all that they instruct you.
¹¹ You shall do according to the word of the instruction with which they instruct you and according to the judgment which they speak to you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left from the sentence that they declare to you.
¹² And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Jehovah your God, or to the judge, that man shall die. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from Israel.
¹³ And all the people will hear and will fear, and they will not act presumptuously anymore.
¹⁴ When you enter the land which Jehovah your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations which surround me;
¹⁵ You must set a king over you whom Jehovah your God will choose; from among your brothers you shall set a king over you; you may not put a foreigner, who is not your brother, over you.
¹⁶ However, he shall not amass horses to himself, and he shall not turn the people back to Egypt so that he may amass horses, since Jehovah has said to you, You shall never again return that way.
¹⁷ And he shall not amass wives to himself, so that his heart does not turn aside; nor shall he amass silver and gold to himself in great amounts.
¹⁸ And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write out for himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests.
¹⁹ And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them,
²⁰ So that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left; that he and his sons may extend their days over their kingdom in the midst of Israel.

18

¹ The Levitical priests and the whole tribe of Levi shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat Jehovah’s offerings by fire and His inheritance.
² Thus they shall have no inheritance in the midst of their brothers; Jehovah is their inheritance, as He has promised them.
³ And this shall be the priests’ rightful due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: They shall give the priest the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the stomach.
⁴ You shall give him the firstfruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your fresh oil, and the first shearing of your sheep;
⁵ For Jehovah your God has chosen him and his sons out of all your tribes to stand and minister in Jehovah’s name always.
⁶ And if a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he sojourns, and comes according to all his soul’s desire to the place which Jehovah will choose,
⁷ He shall minister in the name of Jehovah his God, like all his brothers, the Levites, who stand there before Jehovah.
⁸ They shall eat equal portions, besides the proceeds from the sale of his father’s estate.
⁹ When you enter the land which Jehovah your God is giving you, you shall not learn to do things according to the abominations of those nations.
¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through fire; anyone who performs divination, practices soothsaying, or interprets omens; or anyone who employs sorcery
¹¹ Or casts spells; or anyone who consults a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit or inquires of the dead;
¹² For everyone who does these things is an abomination to Jehovah; and on account of these abominations Jehovah your God is dispossessing them from before you.
¹³ You shall be blameless toward Jehovah your God.
¹⁴ For these nations whom you are dispossessing listen to those who practice soothsaying and to those who perform divination, but Jehovah your God has not allowed you to do so.
¹⁵ A Prophet will Jehovah your God raise up for you from your midst, from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to Him.
¹⁶ This is according to all that you asked of Jehovah your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear any more of the voice of Jehovah my God, and let me not see this great fire any longer, lest I die.
¹⁷ And Jehovah said to me, They have done well in what they have spoken.
¹⁸ A Prophet will I raise up for them from the midst of their brothers like you; and I will put My words in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command Him.
¹⁹ And the man who will not listen to My words which He will speak in My name, I Myself will require it from him.
²⁰ But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
²¹ And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?
²² When a prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the thing does not happen nor come about, that is the thing which Jehovah has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

19

¹ When Jehovah your God cuts off the nations whose land Jehovah your God is giving you and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,
² You shall set apart three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which Jehovah your God is giving you to possess.
³ You shall survey the distances for yourself and divide into three parts the territory of your land, which Jehovah your God will give you as an inheritance, so that every manslayer may flee there.
⁴ And this shall be the case of the manslayer who flees there and lives: He who slays his neighbor without intent and did not hate him previously —
⁵ As when a man goes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and his hand goes to cut the tree with an axe, and the iron axehead slips off the handle and hits his neighbor so that he dies — he shall flee to one of these cities and live;
⁶ Lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart rages, and he overtake him because the distance is long and slay him; though he is not worthy of death, for he did not hate him previously.
⁷ Therefore I am commanding you, saying, You shall set apart three cities for yourself.
⁸ And if Jehovah your God enlarges your territory, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers;
⁹ If you are certain to do all this commandment which I am commanding you today, to love Jehovah your God and to walk in His ways always; then you shall add three more cities for yourself, besides these three,
¹⁰ That innocent blood may not be shed in the midst of your land, which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, and guilt for blood be upon you.
¹¹ But if a man hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him, and he rises up against him and slays him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities;
¹² Then the elders of his city shall send men and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, so that he may die.
¹³ Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from Israel that it may go well with you.
¹⁴ You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which your ancestors have set, in your inheritance, which you will inherit in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you to possess.
¹⁵ One witness only shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin which he has committed; at the word of two witnesses or at the word of three witnesses shall a matter be established.
¹⁶ If a malicious witness rises up against a man to testify against him of wrongdoing,
¹⁷ The two men who have the dispute shall stand before Jehovah, before the priests and the judges who are serving in those days.
¹⁸ And the judges shall investigate thoroughly; and if indeed the witness is a false witness, if he has testified falsely against his brother,
¹⁹ You shall do to him as he intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
²⁰ And those who remain will hear and will fear and will never again do anything like this evil thing in your midst.
²¹ And your eye shall not pity: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.

20

¹ When you go forth into battle against your enemies, and you see horse and chariot, a people more numerous than you, you shall not fear them; for Jehovah your God is with you, He who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
² And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people,
³ And he shall say to them, Hear, O Israel! You are drawing near to the battle against your enemies today. Do not let your heart fail; do not be afraid or alarmed or terrified of them.
⁴ For it is Jehovah your God who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.
⁵ And the officers shall speak to the people, saying, Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.
⁶ Is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not partaken of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man partake of it.
⁷ Is there any man who has gotten engaged to a woman and has not taken her to himself? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her to himself.
⁸ And the officers shall speak further to the people and say, Is there any man who is afraid and whose heart fails? Let him go and return to his house, so that the heart of his brothers does not melt like his heart.
⁹ And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, they shall appoint commanders of the armies at the head of the people.
¹⁰ When you draw near to a city to fight against it, you shall proclaim peace to it.
¹¹ And if it responds with peace to you and opens its gates to you, all the people found within it shall become your forced labor; and they shall serve you.
¹² But if it does not make peace with you, but rather engages in battle with you, you shall besiege it.
¹³ And when Jehovah your God delivers it into your hand, you shall slay every male in it with the edge of the sword.
¹⁴ But the women and the little ones and the beasts and all that is in the city, that is, all its spoil, you shall take as your plunder; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which Jehovah your God has given you.
¹⁵ Thus shall you do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not among the cities of these nations.
¹⁶ But of the cities of these peoples which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not allow anything that breathes to live;
¹⁷ But you must utterly destroy them: the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, just as Jehovah your God has commanded you,
¹⁸ So that they do not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they do for their gods and you sin against Jehovah your God.
¹⁹ When you besiege a city for many days, battling against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them; for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?
²⁰ However, a tree that you know is not a tree for food, you shall destroy and cut down, so that you may build a siegework against the city, which engages you in battle, until it falls.

21

¹ If a slain man is found lying in the field in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you to possess, it not being known who slew him,
² Then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities that surround the slain man.
³ And the city that is nearest the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd which has not been worked and has not drawn the yoke;
⁴ And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a river valley that flows continually, which has not been plowed or sown, and break the neck of the heifer there in the river valley.
⁵ And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall draw near; for Jehovah your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of Jehovah, and by their word shall every dispute and every assault be settled.
⁶ And all the elders of that city that is nearest the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the river valley.
⁷ And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it done.
⁸ Cover Your people Israel, whom You have ransomed, O Jehovah, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel. And the guilt of the blood shall be covered from them.
⁹ Thus you shall utterly remove the guilt of the innocent blood from your midst, for you do what is right in the sight of Jehovah.
¹⁰ When you go out to fight against your enemies and Jehovah your God delivers them into your hands and you take them captive,
¹¹ And you see a beautiful woman among the captives and desire her and would take her to yourself as a wife;
¹² You shall bring her within your house, and she shall shave her head, trim her nails,
¹³ And take her clothes of captivity away from her. And she shall dwell in your house and mourn her father and mother for a full month. And afterward you shall go in unto her and be her husband, and she shall be a wife to you.
¹⁴ And if after a time you do not delight in her, you shall let her go wherever she wishes. But you must not sell her for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave, because you have humbled her.
¹⁵ If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other despised, and both the beloved and the despised have borne him sons; and if the firstborn son is of the despised woman;
¹⁶ Then in the day when he gives what he has to his sons as his inheritance, he may not make the son of the beloved woman the firstborn instead of the son of the despised one, who is the firstborn.
¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the despised woman, giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his vigor; the right of the firstborn is his.
¹⁸ If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, one who does not listen to the voice of his father nor to the voice of his mother; and though they chastise him, he does not listen to them;
¹⁹ Then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him forth to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place.
²⁰ And they shall say to the elders of his city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.
²¹ Then all the men of his city shall stone him with stones so that he dies. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear and will fear.
²² And if in a man there is a sin, a cause worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree;
²³ His corpse shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you must bury him on that day. For he who is hanged is accursed of God, and you shall not defile your land, which Jehovah your God gives you as an inheritance.

22

¹ You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep straying and neglect them; you must return them to your brother.
² And if your brother is not nearby you, or if you do not know who he is, you shall bring it to your house. And it shall be with you until your brother demands it; then you shall return it to him.
³ And thus shall you do with his donkey; and thus shall you do with his clothing; and thus shall you do with any of your brother’s lost things, which he has lost and you have found. You may not neglect them.
⁴ You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen by the way and neglect them; you must lift them up with him.
⁵ A woman shall not put on a man’s clothing, nor shall a man wear a woman’s garment; for everyone who does these things is an abomination to Jehovah your God.
⁶ If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest in the way, in any tree or on the ground, and in it are young birds or eggs, and the mother sitting upon the young birds or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.
⁷ You must let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you and that you may extend your days.
⁸ When you build a new house, you shall make a low wall around the edge of your roof so that you do not put the guilt of blood on your house if someone falls from it.
⁹ You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the full produce, the seed which you sow, be forfeited to the sanctuary, as well as the increase of the vineyard.
¹⁰ You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
¹¹ You shall not wear clothing of mixed materials, of wool and linen together.
¹² You shall make twisted cords upon the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.
¹³ If a man takes a wife and goes in unto her, and later despises her,
¹⁴ And charges her with shameful deeds and spreads an evil report about her, and says, I took this woman, and when I drew near to her, I did not find her to be a virgin;
¹⁵ Then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring forth the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.
¹⁶ And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he despised her;
¹⁷ And now he charges her with shameful deeds, saying, I did not find your daughter to be a virgin. But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.
¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him;
¹⁹ And they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, for he spread an evil report against a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he may not send her away all his days.
²⁰ But if this claim is true — the girl was not found to be a virgin —
²¹ They shall bring the girl out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones so that she dies; for she has done folly in Israel by committing fornication in her father’s house. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
²² If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, both of them shall die, the man who was lying with the woman and the woman. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from Israel.
²³ If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her;
²⁴ You shall bring both of them out to the gate of that city and stone them with stones so that they die, the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
²⁵ But if the man finds the engaged girl in the field, and the man overpowers her and lies with her, only the man who was lying with her shall die.
²⁶ But to the girl you shall not do anything; there is no sin worthy of death with the girl; for as it is when a man rises up against his neighbor and slays him, so is this matter.
²⁷ For he found her in the field; the engaged girl cried out and there was no one to save her.
²⁸ If a man finds a girl who is a virgin and is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found;
²⁹ The man who was lying with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the girl’s father. And she shall be his wife, because he humbled her; he may not send her away all his days.
³⁰ A man shall not take his father’s wife, so that he does not uncover the skirt of his father’s garment.

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¹ He who has been wounded in the testicles or has the male organ cut off shall not enter the congregation of Jehovah.
² An illegitimate child shall not enter the congregation of Jehovah; even to the tenth generation, no descendant of his shall enter the congregation of Jehovah.
³ An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Jehovah; even to the tenth generation, no descendant of theirs shall enter the congregation of Jehovah forever;
⁴ Because they did not come to meet you with bread and water in the way when you were coming out of Egypt, and because they hired Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia against you, to curse you.
⁵ But Jehovah your God would not listen to Balaam, and Jehovah your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, for Jehovah your God loved you.
⁶ You shall not seek peace with them nor prosperity with them all your days forever.
⁷ You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a sojourner in his land.
⁸ The children of the third generation who have been begotten of them may enter the congregation of Jehovah.
⁹ When you as a camp go forth against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.
¹⁰ If there is among you a man who becomes unclean because of an accident in the night, he shall go outside the camp; he shall not enter into the midst of the camp.
¹¹ But when evening approaches, he shall bathe in water; and when the sun goes down, he shall enter into the midst of the camp.
¹² And you shall have an assigned place outside the camp, and there you shall go out;
¹³ And you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you relieve yourself outside the camp, you shall dig with it and turn to cover your excrement.
¹⁴ For Jehovah your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and deliver up your enemies before you; therefore your camp shall be holy, and He must not see any indecent thing among you, lest He turn back from going after you.
¹⁵ You shall not deliver to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you;
¹⁶ He shall dwell with you, even in your midst, in the place which he chooses among your towns, wherever he pleases; you shall not oppress him.
¹⁷ There shall not be a cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a cult prostitute among the sons of Israel.
¹⁸ You shall not bring the payment for a harlot or the price for a dog into the house of Jehovah your God for any vow, for both of them are an abomination to Jehovah your God.
¹⁹ You shall not make your brother pay interest, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything on which one pays interest.
²⁰ You may make a foreigner pay interest; but you shall not make your brother pay interest, in order that Jehovah your God may bless you in all your undertakings upon the land which you are entering to possess.
²¹ When you vow a vow to Jehovah your God, you shall not delay in paying it; for Jehovah your God would certainly require it of you, and it will become sin in you.
²² But if you refrain from vowing, it will not become sin in you.
²³ What proceeds out of your lips you shall keep and do, as you have vowed to Jehovah your God voluntarily, which you have promised with your mouth.
²⁴ When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes as your soul desires, until you are satisfied; but you shall not put any into a vessel of yours.
²⁵ When you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck some ears with your hand; but you shall not wield a sickle upon your neighbor’s standing grain.

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¹ When a man takes a woman and marries her, if she does not find favor in his sight, 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 away from his house;
² And she goes forth from his house and goes to be another man’s;
³ And the latter husband despises her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her away from his house; or if the latter husband, who has taken her as his wife, dies;
⁴ Then the former husband, who sent her away, may not return to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled. For that is an abomination before Jehovah, and you shall not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance.
⁵ When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army, nor shall he be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home for one year, and he shall make his wife happy, whom he has taken.
⁶ One shall not take a handmill or an upper millstone as a pledge, for he takes the livelihood as a pledge.
⁷ If a man is found kidnapping someone from among his brothers of the children of Israel and deals with him as a slave or sells him, then that kidnapper shall die. Thus you shall utterly remove the evil from your midst.
⁸ Be careful in a case of leprosy to carefully keep and do all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I commanded them, so shall you be certain to do.
⁹ Remember what Jehovah your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt.
¹⁰ When you lend anything to your neighbor, you shall not enter his house in order to take his pledge.
¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you are lending shall bring the pledge out to you.
¹² And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge;
¹³ You must return his pledge to him when the sun goes down, so that he may sleep in his mantle and bless you; and it will be righteousness to you before Jehovah your God.
¹⁴ You shall not oppress a poor and needy hired servant among your brothers or among the sojourners with you, who are in your land within your gates.
¹⁵ On the day he earns it, you shall give him his wages, and the sun shall not go down upon it (for he is poor and his life depends on it); lest he cry against you to Jehovah and it become sin in you.
¹⁶ Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
¹⁷ You shall not distort justice due a sojourner or an orphan, nor shall you take a widow’s garment as a pledge.
¹⁸ But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that Jehovah your God ransomed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.
¹⁹ When you reap your harvest in your field and you forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not turn back to gather it; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, in order that Jehovah your God may bless you in all your undertakings.
²⁰ When you beat down the fruit of your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow.
²¹ When you cut the grapes from your vineyard, you shall not glean afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow.
²² And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

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¹ If there is a dispute between men, and they approach the court, and the judges judge them, they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.
² And if the wicked man is worthy of beating, the judge shall make him lie down and have him beaten before him as is sufficient for his wickedness, by number.
³ Forty blows he may give him; he shall not exceed, lest, in exceeding, he beat him beyond these with many blows and your brother be degraded before your eyes.
⁴ You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain.
⁵ If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies, and he has no son, the wife of the deceased man shall not become the wife of a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in unto her and take her as his wife, and he shall do the duty of a husband’s brother for her.
⁶ And the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his deceased brother, so that his name is not blotted out of Israel.
⁷ And if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, My husband’s brother refuses to raise up a name in Israel to his brother; he is not willing to do the duty of a husband’s brother for me.
⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, I do not desire to take her;
⁹ Then his brother’s wife shall draw near to him in the sight of the elders and remove his sandal from off his foot, and she shall spit in his face and respond and say, Thus shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.
¹⁰ And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him whose sandal has been removed.
¹¹ When two men fight together, a man and his brother, and the wife of the one comes near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and she puts forth her hand and takes hold of his private parts;
¹² Then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.
¹³ You shall not have in your bag differing weights, one heavy and one light.
¹⁴ You shall not have in your house differing measures, one large and one small.
¹⁵ A full and righteous weight you shall have, and a full and righteous measure you shall have, in order that your days may be extended upon the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.
¹⁶ For everyone who does these things, everyone who does unrighteousness, is an abomination to Jehovah your God.
¹⁷ Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt,
¹⁸ That he met you on the way and struck you at the rear, struck all those who were worn out at your rear, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.
¹⁹ Therefore when Jehovah your God gives you rest from all your enemies surrounding you, in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.

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¹ And when you enter the land which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it,
² You shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you shall bring from your land, which Jehovah your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where Jehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell.
³ And you shall go to the priest who is serving in those days and say to him, I declare to Jehovah your God today that I have entered the land which Jehovah swore to our fathers to give us.
⁴ And the priest shall take the basket from your hand and place it before the altar of Jehovah your God.
⁵ And you shall respond and say before Jehovah your God, A perishing Aramaean was my father; and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a great and mighty and numerous nation.
⁶ And the Egyptians ill-treated us and afflicted us and put hard work upon us;
⁷ But we cried out to Jehovah, the God of our fathers, and Jehovah heard our voice, and saw our affliction and our labor and our oppression.
⁸ And Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and by great terror and by signs and wonders.
⁹ And He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
¹⁰ And now I have just brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which You, O Jehovah, have given me. And you shall place it before Jehovah your God and bow down before Jehovah your God.
¹¹ And you and the Levite and the sojourner in your midst shall rejoice in all the good which Jehovah your God has given to you and to your household.
¹² When you have finished giving all the tithes of your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, that they may eat within your gates and be satisfied.
¹³ And you shall say before Jehovah your God, I have removed what is holy from out of my house, and I have also given it to the Levite and the sojourner, to the orphan and the widow, according to Your whole commandment, which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed any of Your commandments and I have not forgotten them.
¹⁴ I have not eaten any of it in my sorrow, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I given any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of Jehovah my God; I have done according to all that You have commanded me.
¹⁵ Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the ground which You have given us, as You swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.
¹⁶ This day Jehovah your God is commanding you to do these statutes and ordinances; therefore you shall keep them and do them with all your heart and with all your soul.
¹⁷ It is Jehovah whom you have today declared to be your God and that you will walk in His ways and keep His statutes and His commandments and His ordinances, and will listen to His voice.
¹⁸ And it is Jehovah who has today declared you to be a people for His personal treasure, even as He promised you; and that you will keep all His commandments;
¹⁹ And that He will set you high above all the nations which He has made, for praise and for a name and for honor; and that you will be a holy people to Jehovah your God, as He has spoken.

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¹ And Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying, Keep the whole commandment which I am commanding you today.
² And in the day when you cross over the Jordan into the land which Jehovah your God is giving you, you shall erect for yourself large stones; and you shall coat them with plaster.
³ And you shall write upon them all the words of this law when you cross over, in order that you may enter the land which Jehovah your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Jehovah, the God of your fathers, promised to you.
⁴ And when you cross over the Jordan, you shall erect these stones, concerning which I am commanding you today, on Mount Ebal; and you shall coat them with plaster.
⁵ And you shall build there an altar to Jehovah your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool upon them;
⁶ With unhewn stones you shall build the altar of Jehovah your God. Then you shall offer up burnt offerings upon it to Jehovah your God;
⁷ And you shall sacrifice peace offerings and eat there, and you shall rejoice before Jehovah your God.
⁸ Then you shall write upon the stones all the words of this law very clearly.
⁹ And Moses, with the Levitical priests, spoke to all Israel, saying, Be silent and hear, O Israel; this day you have become the people of Jehovah your God.
¹⁰ Therefore you shall listen to the voice of Jehovah your God, and do His commandments and His statutes, which I am commanding you today.
¹¹ And Moses commanded the people on that day, saying,
¹² These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you cross over the Jordan: Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin;
¹³ And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal for cursing: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
¹⁴ And the Levites shall respond and say to all the men of Israel with a loud voice,
¹⁵ Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination to Jehovah, the work of the craftsman’s hands, and puts it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
¹⁶ Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
¹⁷ Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker. And all the people shall say, Amen.
¹⁸ Cursed is he who leads astray a blind man on the way. And all the people shall say, Amen.
¹⁹ Cursed is he who distorts justice due a sojourner, an orphan, or a widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²⁰ Cursed is he who lies with his father’s wife, for he uncovers the skirt of his father’s garment. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²¹ Cursed is he who lies with any animal. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²² Cursed is he who lies with his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²³ Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²⁴ Cursed is he who slays his neighbor secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²⁵ Cursed is he who takes payment to slay someone of innocent blood. And all the people shall say, Amen.
²⁶ Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

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¹ And if you listen diligently to the voice of Jehovah your God and are certain to do all His commandments, which I am commanding you today, Jehovah your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth;
² And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.
³ Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
⁴ Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your animals, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock.
⁵ Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
⁶ Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
⁷ Jehovah will cause your enemies, who rise up against you, to be struck down before you; on one road they will come out against you, but on seven roads they will flee before you.
⁸ Jehovah will command the blessing upon you in your storehouses and in all your undertakings; and He will bless you in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.
⁹ Jehovah will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of Jehovah your God and walk in His ways.
¹⁰ And all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by Jehovah’s name, and they will be afraid of you.
¹¹ And Jehovah will give you an excess of prosperity in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your animals and in the fruit of your ground, upon the ground which Jehovah swore to your fathers to give you.
¹² Jehovah will open up to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give rain for your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings. And you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.
¹³ And Jehovah will make you the head and not the tail, and you will tend only upward, and you will not tend downward, if you will listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you today to keep and to do.
¹⁴ And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
¹⁵ But if you do not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God and are not certain to do all His commandments and His statutes, which I am commanding you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
¹⁶ Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
¹⁷ Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
¹⁸ Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the offspring 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 Jehovah will send to you cursing, discomfiture, and rebuke in all your undertakings which you do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your practices through which you have abandoned Me.
²¹ Jehovah will make a plague cling to you until He has consumed you from off the land which you are entering to possess.
²² Jehovah will strike you with consuming disease and fever and inflammation, and with burning heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; and these will pursue you until you perish.
²³ And your sky, which is above your head, will be bronze, and the land, which is under you, iron.
²⁴ Jehovah will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down upon you until you are destroyed.
²⁵ Jehovah will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; on one road you will go out against them, but on seven roads you will flee before them. And you will be a source of shuddering to all the kingdoms of the earth.
²⁶ And your corpse will become food for all the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away.
²⁷ Jehovah will strike you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, scabs, and itching, of which you cannot be healed.
²⁸ Jehovah will strike you with madness, blindness, and bewilderment of heart;
²⁹ And you will be groping at noonday just as the blind man gropes in darkness; and you will not succeed in your ventures, but will only be oppressed and plundered always; and no one will save you.
³⁰ You will get engaged to a woman, but another man will ravish her; you will build a house, but you will not dwell in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not partake of it.
³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered in your sight, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be torn away from before you, but it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, but no one will rescue them for you.
³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while your eyes look on and fail from longing after them all the day, but you will be powerless.
³³ A people whom you have not known will eat the fruit of your ground and all your hard-earned produce, and you will be only oppressed and crushed always.
³⁴ And you will go mad because of the sight before your eyes which you will see.
³⁵ Jehovah will strike you on the knees and legs with terrible boils, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
³⁶ Jehovah will bring you and your king, whom you will have set over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have not known; and there you will serve other gods, mere wood and stone.
³⁷ And you will become a source of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to whom Jehovah will drive you.
³⁸ You will put out much seed in the field, but you will harvest little; for the locust will consume it.
³⁹ You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will not drink the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worm will devour them.
⁴⁰ You will have olive trees in all your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives will drop off.
⁴¹ You will beget sons and daughters, but they will not remain with you; for they will go into captivity.
⁴² The locust will take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground.
⁴³ The sojourner who is in your midst will rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower.
⁴⁴ He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him; he will be the head and you will be the tail.
⁴⁵ And all these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes, which He commanded you;
⁴⁶ And they will be with you and with your seed as a sign and wonder forever.
⁴⁷ Because you did not serve Jehovah your God with rejoicing and gladness of heart on account of the abundance of all things,
⁴⁸ You will serve your enemies, whom Jehovah will send out against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
⁴⁹ Jehovah will bring against you a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, like the eagle that swoops down, a nation whose tongue you will not understand,
⁵⁰ A nation of fierce countenance, who will not regard an old man’s person nor show favor to the young man.
⁵¹ And they will eat the fruit of your animals and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed; they will not leave for you grain, new wine, or fresh oil, the offspring of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they cause you to perish.
⁵² And they will besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land; and they will besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which Jehovah your God has given you.
⁵³ And you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom Jehovah your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.
⁵⁴ The man who is delicately bred and luxurious among you, he will begrudge his brother, the wife of his bosom, and the remnant of his children whom he has left,
⁵⁵ Not giving to one of them any of the flesh of his children whom he will eat; because nothing is left with him in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you in all your towns.
⁵⁶ The delicately bred and luxurious woman among you, who does not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground because of her luxuriousness and delicacy, she will begrudge the husband of her bosom and her son and daughter
⁵⁷ The child who comes forth from her and her children whom she will bear; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and distress with which your enemy will distress you in your towns.
⁵⁸ If you are not certain to do all the words of this law written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name — Jehovah your God —
⁵⁹ Jehovah will make your plagues and the plagues of your seed extraordinary, great and persistent plagues, and malignant and persistent sicknesses.
⁶⁰ And He will put upon you again all the illnesses of Egypt, which you were afraid of, and they will cling to you.
⁶¹ Also, every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, Jehovah will raise up upon you until you are destroyed.
⁶² And you will be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude; for you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.
⁶³ And as Jehovah exulted over you to do you good and to multiply you, so will Jehovah exult over you to make you perish and to destroy you; and you will be torn off the land which you are entering to possess.
⁶⁴ And Jehovah will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will serve other gods whom you and your fathers have not known, mere wood and stone.
⁶⁵ And among those nations you will have no rest, nor will there be a resting place for the sole of your foot; but Jehovah will give you there a quivering heart and eyes failing with longing and a languishing soul.
⁶⁶ And your life will be hung in suspense before you, and you will dread night and day; and you will have no assurance of your life.
⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, Oh that it were evening! and in the evening you will say, Oh that it were morning! because of your heart’s dread with which you will dread and because of the sight before your eyes which you will see.
⁶⁸ And Jehovah will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way concerning which I said to you, You shall never again see it. And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies, as male slaves and as female slaves, but no one will buy you.

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¹ These are the words of the covenant which Jehovah commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that He made with them at Horeb.
² And Moses called to all Israel and said to them, You have seen all that Jehovah did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land,
³ The great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders.
⁴ But Jehovah has not given you a heart to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear until this day.
⁵ And I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothing did not wear out from upon you, nor did your sandal wear out from upon your foot;
⁶ You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink; that you might know that I am Jehovah your God.
⁷ And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, and we slew them;
⁸ And we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites.
⁹ Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them in order that you may prosper in all that you do.
¹⁰ You are standing today, all of you, before Jehovah your God, your leaders of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel,
¹¹ Your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner with you, who is in the midst of your camp, from the man who chops your wood to the man who draws your water,
¹² In order to enter into a covenant with Jehovah your God and into His oath, which Jehovah your God is making with you today,
¹³ So that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, even as He has spoken to you and even as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
¹⁴ However not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath;
¹⁵ But I make it with him who is here today standing with us before Jehovah our God and with him who is not here with us today.
¹⁶ For you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we passed through the midst of the nations whom you passed through,
¹⁷ And you saw their detestable images and their idols, mere wood and stone, silver and gold, which were with them.
¹⁸ Beware that there is not among you any man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away, even today, from Jehovah our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; that there is not among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood;
¹⁹ And that when he hears the words of this oath, he blesses himself in his heart, saying, I will have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart; to the ruin of the moist with the dry.
²⁰ Jehovah will not be willing to pardon him; but rather the anger of Jehovah and His jealousy will fume against that man, and all the oath that is written in this book will settle on him, and Jehovah will blot out his name from under heaven.
²¹ And Jehovah will separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel according to all the oaths of the covenant written in this book of the law.
²² And the following generation, your children who will rise up after you and the foreigner who will come from a distant land, will say, when they see the plagues of that land and its diseases with which Jehovah has made it sick;
²³ And that all its land is sulfur and salt, a burning waste; that it is not sown, nor does it sprout, nor does any vegetation come up in it; that it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Jehovah overthrew in His anger and burning wrath —
²⁴ Indeed all the nations will say, Why has Jehovah done this to this land? Why the burning of this great anger?
²⁵ And they will say, It is because they forsook the covenant of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out from the land of Egypt;
²⁶ And they went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods whom they had not known and He had not allotted to them.
²⁷ And the anger of Jehovah burned against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book;
²⁸ And Jehovah plucked them off their land in anger and in burning wrath and in great indignation, and sent them to another land, as they are this day.
²⁹ The things that are hidden belong to Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed, to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

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¹ And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you; and you bring them to heart while among all the nations to whom Jehovah your God will drive you;
² And you and your children return to Jehovah your God and listen to His voice, according to all that I am commanding you today, with all your heart and with all your soul;
³ Then Jehovah your God will turn your captivity and be compassionate to you, and He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom Jehovah your God has scattered you.
⁴ If any of you have been driven out to the ends of heaven, from there will Jehovah your God gather you and from there will He take you.
⁵ And Jehovah your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it; and He will do good for you and will multiply you more than He did your fathers.
⁶ And Jehovah your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, so that you will love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
⁷ And Jehovah your God will put all these oaths upon your enemies and upon them who hate you and who have persecuted you.
⁸ And you will turn and listen to the voice of Jehovah, and you will do all His commandments, which I am commanding you today.
⁹ And Jehovah your God will give you an excess of prosperity in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your animals and in the fruit of your ground, for Jehovah will again exult over you for good as He exulted over your fathers;
¹⁰ If you listen to the voice of Jehovah your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes written in this book of the law; if you turn back to Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
¹¹ For this commandment which I am commanding you today, it is not too difficult for you, nor is it distant.
¹² It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us to make us hear it and do it?
¹³ Nor is it across the sea that you should say, Who will go across the sea for us and bring it to us to make us hear it and do it?
¹⁴ But the word is very near to you, even in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
¹⁵ See, I have put before you today life and good, and death and evil.
¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you today, to love Jehovah your God and walk in His ways and keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, then you will live and multiply, and Jehovah your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to possess.
¹⁷ But if your heart turns and you do not listen, but rather you are drawn away in worship to other gods and serve them,
¹⁸ I declare to you today that you shall surely perish; your days will not be extended upon the land into which you are crossing over the Jordan to go and possess.
¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life that you and your seed may live,
²⁰ In loving Jehovah your God by listening to His voice and holding fast to Him; for He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell upon the land which Jehovah swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

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¹ When Moses finished speaking these words to all Israel,
² He said to them, I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I can no longer go out and come in, and Jehovah has said to me, You shall not cross over this Jordan.
³ It is Jehovah your God who is crossing over before you; it is He who will destroy these nations from before you, and you will dispossess them. Joshua is the one who is crossing over before you, as Jehovah has spoken.
⁴ And Jehovah will do to them even as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land when He destroyed them.
⁵ And Jehovah will deliver them up before you, and you will do to them according to the whole commandment, which I have commanded you.
⁶ Be strong and take courage; do not fear, neither be terrified of them, for it is Jehovah your God who goes with you; He will not fail you nor forsake you.
⁷ And Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and take courage, for you will go with this people into the land which Jehovah swore to their fathers to give them; and you will cause them to inherit it.
⁸ But it is Jehovah who is going before you. He will be with you; He will not fail you nor forsake you. Do not fear, neither be dismayed.
⁹ And Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bear the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, and to all the elders of Israel.
¹⁰ And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time of the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles,
¹¹ When all Israel comes to appear before Jehovah your God in the place which He will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
¹² Gather the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner with you, who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear Jehovah your God and be certain to do all the words of this law,
¹³ And that their children, who have not known these things, may hear and learn to fear Jehovah your God all the days that you live upon the land into which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.
¹⁴ And Jehovah said to Moses, Now your days draw near for you to die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting that I may charge him. So Moses went with Joshua, and they presented themselves in the Tent of Meeting.
¹⁵ And Jehovah appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud; and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the tent.
¹⁶ And Jehovah said to Moses, You are now about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will rise up and go as harlots after the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are entering; and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I made with them.
¹⁷ And My anger will burn 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 befall them, so that they will say in that day, Is it not because our God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us?
¹⁸ And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, for they turned to other gods.
¹⁹ And now write for yourselves this song and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouth that I may have this song as a witness against the children of Israel.
²⁰ For I will bring them into the land which I swore to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they will eat and become satisfied and grow fat, and they will turn to other gods and serve them and despise Me and break My covenant.
²¹ And when many evils and troubles befall them, this song will respond as a witness before them, because it will not be forgotten in the mouth of their seed; for I know their intention, which they are making even today before I bring them into the land which I have sworn to them.
²² So Moses wrote this song on that day and taught it to the children of Israel.
²³ And He charged Joshua the son of Nun and said, Be strong and take courage, for you will bring the children of Israel into the land which I have sworn to them; and I will be with you.
²⁴ And when Moses finished writing the words of this law in a book until they were completed,
²⁵ Moses charged the Levites who bear the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, saying,
²⁶ Take this book of the law and place it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah your God, that it may be there as a witness against you.
²⁷ For I know your rebelliousness and your stiff neck: See, while I am yet here alive with you today, you have been rebelling against Jehovah; so how much more after my death!
²⁸ Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak in their hearing these words and that I may call heaven and earth to witness against them;
²⁹ For I know that after my death you will utterly spoil yourselves and turn away from the way that I have commanded you; and evil will come upon you in the last days, for you will do what is evil in the sight of Jehovah so as to provoke Him to anger by your undertakings.
³⁰ And Moses spoke in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were completed.

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¹ Give ear, O heaven, and let me speak; / And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
² Let my teaching drop like the rain; / Let my speech distill like the dew, / Like raindrops upon tender grass, / And like abundant showers upon herbage.
³ For the name of Jehovah will I declare. / Ascribe greatness to our God!
⁴ The Rock — perfect is His work, / For all His ways are justice: / A God of faithfulness and without injustice; / Righteous and upright is He.
⁵ Corruptly have they dealt with Him — their blemish is not His sons — / A twisted and crooked generation are they.
⁶ Do you repay Jehovah with this, / Foolish and unwise people? / Is He not your Father who bought you? / Was it not He who made you and established you?
⁷ Remember the days of long ago; / Consider the years of generation upon generation; / Ask your father, and he will inform you; / Your elders, and they will tell you.
⁸ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, / When He divided the sons of man, / He set the borders of the peoples / According to the number of Israel’s children.
⁹ For Jehovah’s portion is His people; / Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.
¹⁰ He found him in a land of wilderness, / And in a howling desert waste; / He encircled him, cared for him with all attention; / He guarded him like the pupil of His eye.
¹¹ As the eagle rouses his nest, / Hovers over his young, / Spreads his wings, takes them, / And bears them up upon his pinions;
¹² So Jehovah alone led him, / And there was no strange 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 a crag, / And oil out of flint rock:
¹⁴ Curd of cows and milk of sheep, / With fat of lambs, / And rams, the offspring of Bashan, and goats, / With the choicest wheat; / And the blood of the grape you drank as fermenting wine.
¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked — / You have become fat, you have grown thick, you have gorged yourself — / And forsook God, who made him, / And treated the Rock of his salvation disdainfully.
¹⁶ They made Him jealous with strange gods; / With abominations they provoked Him to anger.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, to those who were no god, / To gods they did not know, / To new ones who had recently come up, / Before whom your fathers had not shuddered.
¹⁸ You have neglected the Rock who begot you / And have forgotten the God who travailed with you.
¹⁹ And Jehovah saw and held them in contempt, / Because of anger provoked by His sons and daughters.
²⁰ And He said, I will hide My face from them; / I will see what their latter end will be. / For they are a generation of perversions, / Children in whom is no faithfulness.
²¹ They have made Me jealous with a non-God; / They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities. / Hence I will make them jealous with a non-people; / With a foolish nation I will provoke them to anger.
²² For a fire is kindled in My anger / And burns unto nethermost Sheol. / And it devours the earth and its produce / And sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.
²³ I will heap evils on them; / I will use up My arrows against them.
²⁴ They shall be sucked up by famine, / And eaten up by fire bolt / And bitter destruction; / And I will send the teeth of beasts against them, / With the venom of those that crawl in the dust.
²⁵ The sword shall bereave outside, / And inside, terror; / Taking both the young man and the virgin, / The suckling with the gray-haired man.
²⁶ I would have said, I will scatter them, / I will cause the memory of them to cease from among men;
²⁷ Except I dreaded the vexation from the enemy; / Lest their adversaries misjudge; / Lest they say, Our hand is exalted, / And it is not Jehovah who has wrought all this.
²⁸ For they are a nation destitute of counsel, / And there is no understanding in them.
²⁹ If they had been wise, they would have comprehended this, / They would have perceived their latter end.
³⁰ How shall one chase a thousand, / And two put ten thousand to flight, / Were it not that their Rock sold them, / And Jehovah delivered them up?
³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock; / And of this our enemies are judges.
³² For their vine is from Sodom’s vine, / And from Gomorrah’s fields; / Their grapes are the grapes of poison; / Clusters of bitterness have they.
³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents / And the cruel poison of cobras.
³⁴ Is this not laid up in store with Me, / Sealed up in My treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is Mine and so is retribution, / For the time when their foot slips; / Because the day of their calamity has drawn near, / And the things destined to happen to them hasten.
³⁶ For Jehovah will execute judgment for His people, / And He will have compassion on His servants, / When He sees that their support is gone, / And that neither fettered nor free remain.
³⁷ And He will say, Where are their gods, / The rock they sought refuge in,
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 a shelter over you.
³⁹ See now that I, I am He, / And there is no god with Me.It is I who kill, and I make alive; / I wound, and it is I who heal; / And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.
⁴⁰ For I lift up My hand to heaven / And say, As I live forever:
⁴¹ If I sharpen My flashing sword, / And My hand takes hold of judgment, / I will repay My adversaries with vengeance, / And those who hate Me will I recompense.
⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood, / And My sword will devour flesh — / With the blood of the slain and of the captives, / The flesh of the long-haired leaders of the enemy.
⁴³ Shout joyously, you nations, with His people, / Because He will avenge the blood of His servants, / And He will repay His adversaries with vengeance / And will cover the guilt of His land and of His people.
⁴⁴ And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea the son of Nun.
⁴⁵ And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel.
⁴⁶ And he said to them, Set your heart on all these words which I am testifying to you today. You shall command them to your children that they may be certain to do all the words of this law.
⁴⁷ For it is not a matter too vain for you, because it is your life; and by this matter you will extend your days upon the land into which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.
⁴⁸ And Jehovah spoke to Moses that same day, saying,
⁴⁹ Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, which faces Jericho, and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel as a possession;
⁵⁰ And die in the mountain to which you are going up, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people;
⁵¹ Because you were unfaithful to Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you did not sanctify Me among the children of Israel.
⁵² But from a distance you shall see the land, yet you shall not go there into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.

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¹ And this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death.
² And he said, / Jehovah came from Sinai, / And He dawned upon them from Seir; / He shined forth from Mount Paran, / And He approached from the myriads of holy ones; / From His right hand a fiery law went out to them.
³ Indeed, He loves the people. / All His saints were in Your hand, / And they sat down at Your feet; / Everyone receives of Your words.
⁴ Moses commanded us a law, / A possession of the congregation of Jacob.
⁵ And He was King in Jeshurun, / When the heads of the people gathered themselves, / The tribes of Israel together.
⁶ May Reuben live and not die, / Nor his men be few.
⁷ And this is the blessing concerning Judah; and he said,Hear, O Jehovah, the voice of Judah, / And bring him to his people. / With his hands he contended for them; / And may You be a help against his adversaries.
⁸ And concerning Levi he said,May Your Thummim and Urim be with Your faithful man, / Whom You tested at Massah, / With whom You contended at the waters of Meribah —
⁹ He who said of his father and mother, / I do not regard him; / And his brothers he did not acknowledge, / And his children he did not recognize; / For they have kept Your speaking / And have guarded Your covenant.
¹⁰ They shall show Jacob Your ordinances, / And Israel Your law; / They shall put incense before Your nostrils / And whole burnt offerings upon Your altar.
¹¹ Bless, O Jehovah, his might, / And the work of his hands accept; / Wound thoroughly the loins of those who rise up against him / And of those who hate him, that they may not rise up again.
¹² Concerning Benjamin he said,The beloved of Jehovah shall dwell securely beside Him; / Jehovah shall cover over him all the day, / And He shall dwell between his shoulders.
¹³ And concerning Joseph he said,May his land be blessed of Jehovah / With the choicest things of heaven, with the dew / And with the deep waters that couch beneath;
¹⁴ With the choicest of the crops of the sun, / And with the choicest of the yield of the moons;
¹⁵ With the top of the ancient mountains, / And with the choicest things of the eternal hills;
¹⁶ With the choicest things of the earth, and the fullness thereof, / And the favor of Him who dwelt in the thornbush. / May they come upon the head of Joseph, / And upon the top of the head of him who is separated among his brothers.
¹⁷ Like his firstborn ox, he has majesty; / And his horns are the horns of the wild ox; / With them he shall drive peoples / To the ends of the earth together. / Those are the ten thousands of Ephraim; / And those the thousands of Manasseh.
¹⁸ And concerning Zebulun he said,Rejoice, Zebulun, for your going forth, / And Issachar, for your tents!
¹⁹ They shall call peoples to the mountain; / There they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness; / For they shall suck the abundance of the seas / And the hidden treasures of the sand.
²⁰ And concerning Gad he said,Blessed be He who enlarges Gad. / He dwells as a lioness, / And tears off the arm, yea, even the top of the head.
²¹ And he provided the first part for himself, / For there the portion of a lawgiver is reserved; / And he came with the heads of the people; / He executed the righteousness of Jehovah / And His judgments with Israel.
²² And concerning Dan he said,Dan is a lion’s whelp / That leaps forth from Bashan.
²³ And concerning Naphtali he said,O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, / And full of the blessing of Jehovah: / Possess the sea and the south.
²⁴ And concerning Asher he said,Blessed be Asher above the sons. / May he be the one favored of his brothers, / And the one dipping his foot in oil.
²⁵ Your doorbolts shall be iron and copper; / And as your days are, so shall your strength be.
²⁶ There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, / Who rides through the heavens as your help / And in His majesty through the skies.
²⁷ The God of old is your habitation, / And underneath are eternal arms. / And He drove out the enemy before you / And said, Destroy!
²⁸ So Israel dwelt securely, / The fountain of Jacob in solitude, / On a land of grain and new wine; / And the heavens over him drop their dew.
²⁹ Happy are you, O Israel; who is like you? / A people saved by Jehovah, / The shield of your help / And He who is the sword of your majesty! / So your enemies shall come cringing to you, / And you shall tread upon their high places.

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¹ Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which faces Jericho. And Jehovah showed him all the land: Gilead as far as Dan;
² And all of Naphtali; and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; and all the land of Judah as far as the sea beyond it;
³ And the Negev; and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.
⁴ And Jehovah said to him, This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not go over there.
⁵ So Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab according to the word of Jehovah.
⁶ And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial site to this day.
⁷ And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor had his freshness left him.
⁸ And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days; thus, the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were completed.
⁹ And Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the children of Israel listened to him and did as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
¹⁰ And there has not arisen a prophet since then in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face,
¹¹ For all the signs and the wonders which Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land,
¹² And for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses did in the sight of all Israel.