These {are} the words that Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and between Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Di Zahab.
In this book are speeches that Moses said to all the Israelites. He spoke to them after they had set up their tents east of the Jordan River. They were in the desert plain along the Jordan near a place named Suph. Suph is between the desert of Paran {on one side of the Jordan River} and the towns of Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab {on the other side of the river}.
({It is} 11 days from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.)
It usually takes 11 days to walk from Mount Horeb to Kadesh Barnea. People go by way of Mount Seir.
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And it happened, in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on {day} one of the month, Moses spoke to the sons of Israel according to all that Yahweh commanded him concerning them,
Forty years had passed since the Israelites had left Egypt, and it was the first day of the eleventh month. Moses told the Israelite people everything that Yahweh had commanded him to tell them.
after he defeated Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth, in Edrei.
He did this after they had defeated Sihon and Og. Sihon, the king of the Amorite people, lived in the city of Heshbon. Og, the king of the region of Bashan, ruled in the towns of Ashtaroth and Edrei.
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Across the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began explaining this law, saying,
The people were in Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River. There, Moses explained to them God’s instructions, saying,
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“Yahweh our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘Too long you have stayed in this mountain.
“Yahweh our God said to our ancestors at Mount Horeb, ‘You have stayed for a very long time at the base of this mountain.
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Turn and journey yourselves and go {to} the hill {country} of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah {and} in the hill {country} and in the lowland and in the Negev and by the shore of the sea, {to} the land of the Canaanites and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river of Euphrates.
Now you must continue traveling. Go to the hilly area where the Amorite people live and go to the nearby areas. These areas include the plain along the Jordan, the hilly area, the smaller hills in the west, the wilderness in the south, the coast of the Great Sea, the land of Canaan, the Lebanon mountains, and northeast to the great Euphrates River.
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Look, I have given the land to your faces. Go and possess the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their seed after them.’
Know that I will give that land to you. I, Yahweh, promised the land to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I promised that I would give it to them and to their descendants. So go and occupy it.’
And I said to you at that time, saying, ‘I am not able to carry you by myself.
I said to your ancestors during that time, ‘I am not able to govern all of you by myself.
Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you {are} today as the stars of the heavens in number.
Yahweh our God has caused us Israelites to become numerous. Today we are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
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Yahweh, the God of your fathers, may he add to you, as you {are}, a thousand times, and may he bless you, just as he spoke to you!
I pray that Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors worshiped, will cause us to become a great many times more numerous than we are now. I pray that he will bless us just as he promised to do.
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How will I carry by myself your loads and your burdens and your disputes?
But I cannot solve all of your problems by myself.
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Nominate for yourselves wise and understanding and well-known men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.’
So choose some men from your tribes who are wise and who have good sense and whom people respect. Then I will assign them to be your leaders.’
And you answered me and said, ‘The thing that you have spoken {is} good to do.’
Your parents replied, ‘We agree with what you have suggested.’
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And I took the heads of your tribes, wise and well-known men, and gave them {as} heads over you, leaders of thousands and leaders of hundreds and leaders of fifties and leaders of tens and officials for your tribes.
So I took the wise men, those whom people respected and whom your families chose from your tribes, and I appointed them to be your leaders. I appointed some to lead groups of 1, 000 people, some to lead groups of 100 people, some to lead groups of 50 people, and some to lead groups of 10 people. I also appointed other officers from throughout your tribes.
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And I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Listen in between your brothers, and you should judge righteously between a man and between his brother, and between his foreigner.
Then, I instructed your leaders, ‘Listen when your people are quarreling. Consider each case fairly, including cases where Israelites quarrel with each other. Also consider cases where an Israelite quarrels with someone from another land who lives among you.
Do not recognize a face in the judgment; you shall hear as the small and the great alike. Do not be afraid from the face of a man, for the judgment, it {belongs} to God. And the matter which is too difficult for you, you shall bring to me, and I shall hear it.’
You must not favor one person more than another. You must treat unimportant people and important people equally. You must not worry about what anyone will think, because you will decide matters as God wants you to decide them. If you are not sure what to decide when people are quarreling, tell me, and I will decide.’
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And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.
At that time I also told you other things that you should do.
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And we journeyed from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw on the way to the hill {country} of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.
Then, just as Yahweh our God told us to do, we left Horeb. We went through a huge and dangerous wilderness. The wilderness was on the road to the hilly area where the Amorite people live. We arrived at Kadesh Barnea.
And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill {country} of the Amorites, which Yahweh our God is giving to us.
I said to your parents, ‘You have now come to the hilly area where the Amorite people live. This is part of the area that Yahweh our God is giving to us.
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Look, Yahweh your God has given the land to your face; go up, take possession, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. You shall not be afraid, and you shall not be discouraged.’
Know that Yahweh our God is giving this land to us. So go and occupy it as he commanded. Yahweh is the God whom your ancestors worshiped. Do not be at all afraid.’
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And you drew near to me, all of you, and you said, ‘Let us send men to our faces, and they shall spy out the land for us, and return to us a word {about} the way which we will go up into and the cities which we will come to.’
But your fathers all came to me and said, ‘We should first send some men ahead of us to explore the land. Then, they can return and tell us which will be the best road to go there and what kind of towns are there.’
And the word was good in my eyes, and I took from you 12 men, one man per tribe.
I thought that what they had planned was good, so I chose 12 men, one man from each tribe.
And they turned and went up into the hill {country}, and they came to the Valley of Eshkol, and scouted it.
They went into the hilly area as far as the Valley of Eshkol, and they explored the area.
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And they took with their hands from the fruit of the land and brought {it} down to us. And they returned to us a word and said, ‘Good {is} the land that Yahweh our God is giving to us.’
They picked some of the fruit that they found there and brought it to us. They reported that the land that Yahweh our God was giving to us was very good.
But you were not willing to go up, and you rebelled {against} the mouth of Yahweh your God.
But your parents refused to go and conquer that land. They rebelled against what Yahweh our God had commanded them to do.
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And you grumbled in your tents and said, ‘In the hatred of Yahweh against us he brought us from the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
Your parents stayed in their tents and complained. They said, ‘Yahweh hates us, so he has brought us here from Egypt to allow the Amorite people to destroy us.
Where {can} we go up? Our brothers have caused our heart to melt, saying, “The people {are} greater and taller than us, {with} cities great and fortified to the heavens; and also, we have seen the sons of the Anakites there.”’
We do not want to go there. The men whom we sent there have caused us to become very afraid. They have told us that the people there are stronger and bigger than we are. They said that there are very high walls around their towns. They also said that they saw giants there that are descendants of Anak.’
And I said to you, ‘Do not tremble, and do not be afraid of them.
Then I said to your fathers, ‘Do not be even a little bit afraid of those people!
Yahweh your God, who walks to your faces, he will fight for you like everything that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
Yahweh our God will go before you. He will fight for you just as you saw him do for you in Egypt
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and in the wilderness, where you have seen how Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
and in the wilderness. You saw how he brought you safely here, just like a man holds and protects his son.’
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But in this word you did not believe Yahweh your God,
Your parents would not trust Yahweh our God, even though I reminded them of what Yahweh had done.
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the one who went to your faces on the way to seek out a place for you to make your camp, in fire {by} night to show you the way that you should go in it, and in a cloud {by} day.
He always went ahead of them while they traveled in the desert. He showed them places to set up their tents. He directed them with the fire during the night and with the cloud during the day.
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And Yahweh heard the sound of your words and was angry. And he swore, saying,
Yahweh heard your parents complaining, and he became angry. He solemnly declared,
‘Not {one} man of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers
‘Only Caleb son of Jephunneh will enter the land. He has obeyed me completely. So I will give to him and to his descendants some of the land that he explored. None of the rest of these evil people will ever live in that good land that I solemnly promised to give to your ancestors.’
(vv35-36)
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except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; he, he shall see it. And to him I will give the land that he has stepped on, and to his sons, because {he is} wholly after Yahweh.’
‘Only Caleb son of Jephunneh will enter the land. He has obeyed me completely. So I will give to him and to his descendants some of the land that he explored. None of the rest of these evil people will ever live in that good land that I solemnly promised to give to your ancestors.’
(vv35-36)
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Also Yahweh was angry with me because of you, saying, ‘You also will not go in there;
But because of what your fathers did, Yahweh was also angry with me. He said to me, ‘You also will not enter that land.
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Joshua, the son of Nun, who stands to your face, he will go in there; encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.
Joshua son of Nun, who is your helper, will enter it. Support him, because he will enable the Israelite people to occupy that land.’
And your children that you said would be plunder, and your sons who today do not know good or evil, they will go in there. And to them I will give it, and they will possess it.
Yahweh continued to declare, ‘You said that your enemies would capture your children, {but this did not happen}. Your children are very young, so they do not yet know what is good and what is evil. However, they are the ones who will enter that land. I will give them the land, and they will occupy it.
But you, turn yourselves and journey into the wilderness on the way to the Sea of Reeds.’
As for you, turn around and go back into the desert, toward the Sea of Reeds.’
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And you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against Yahweh. We, we shall go up and fight, according to all that Yahweh our God has commanded us.’ And {every} man girded on his weapons of war and regarded it as easy to go up to the hill {country}.
Then your fathers replied, ‘We have sinned by disobeying Yahweh. We promise now that we will go and attack the people who live in that land, just as Yahweh our God has told us to do.’ Then each of their men equipped himself with weapons. They thought that it would be easy to invade the hill country.
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And Yahweh said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, and you will not be defeated to the face of your enemies, because I will not be among you.”’
But Yahweh said to me, ‘Tell them not to go there and attack those people, because I will not help them. If they go, their enemy will certainly defeat them.’
And I spoke to you, but you did not listen. And you rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh, and you were arrogant and went up to the hill {country}.
So I said that to your fathers, but they did not obey what I said. They again rebelled against what Yahweh commanded them to do. Their soldiers proudly marched up into that hilly area.
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And the Amorites, who lived in that hill {country}, came out against you and chased you like the bees do and caused you to scatter in Seir as far as Hormah.
Then the men of the Amorite people who lived in that region came out of their towns. They attacked those soldiers. They chased our soldiers like a swarm of bees would chase a person. The Amorites pursued your ancestors’ soldiers south from the area of Seir and defeated them at the city of Hormah.
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And you returned and wept to the face of Yahweh; but Yahweh did not hear your voice, and he did not listen to you.
So your fathers went back to Kadesh Barnea and cried out to request Yahweh to help them, but he did not pay any attention to them.
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So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you stayed {there}.
So we stayed there at Kadesh Barnea for a long time.
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And we turned and journeyed into the wilderness on the way to the Sea of Reeds, as Yahweh had spoken to me. And we went around Mount Seir many days.
Then we turned around and went through the desert toward the Sea of Reeds as Yahweh told us to do. We wandered near Mount Seir for a long time.
And Yahweh spoke to me, saying,
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‘Too long you have been going around this mountain. Turn yourselves northward.
‘You have been wandering around this hilly area for a long enough time. Now turn and travel toward the north.
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And command the people, saying, “You will be crossing the border of your brothers, the sons of Esau, who live in Seir. And they will be afraid of you. And you shall be exceedingly on guard.
And tell the people that they are about to travel near the land that belongs to the descendants of Esau, {who are also descendants of Isaac}, as you are. They live in the hilly area near Mount Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.
You shall not fight them, for I will not give to you from their land, {even} as {little} as a step of the sole of a foot, for I have given Mount Seir to Esau {as} a possession.
Do not start to fight against them, because I am not going to give you even a tiny bit of their land. That is because I have given Mount Seir to the descendants of Esau.
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You will buy food from them with silver, and you will eat. And also, you will purchase water from them with silver, and you will drink.”’
{When you travel near their land}, buy food and water from them.’
For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He has known your walking through this great wilderness. These 40 years Yahweh your God {has been} with you. You have not lacked a thing.
Remember that Yahweh our God has blessed you in everything that you have done. He knows {what has happened to you} while you have wandered in this huge desert. Yahweh our God has protected you during those 40 years, and as a result you have had everything that you needed.
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And we passed by beyond our brothers, the sons of Esau who live in Seir, from the Arabah road, from Elath and from Ezion Geber. And we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.
So we continued to travel. We avoided going through the hilly area of Seir where the descendants of Esau, who are also descendants of Isaac, live. We turned from the road {that goes along} the plain of the Jordan valley, and {comes up} from the city of Elath and the city of Ezion Geber. We traveled along the wilderness road of the kingdom of Moab.
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And Yahweh said to me, ‘You shall not trouble Moab, and you shall not fight against them {in} battle, for I will not give to you from its land a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot, {as} a possession.’”
Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not bother the people of Moab by starting to fight against them, because I am not going to give you any of their land. The reason is that they are descendants of Lot. I gave them the city of Ar, {their capital, and the other areas in that country}.’”
(The Emites lived there previously, a people great and numerous and tall as the Anakites.
(There were people called the Emites that formerly lived there. They were as populous and tall as the descendants of Anak.
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They {are} also considered Raphaites, like the Anakites; but the Moabites call them Emites.
People also call both the Emites and the Anakites, Raphaites. The people of Moab call them Emites.
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And the Horites lived in Seir previously, and the sons of Esau dispossessed them. And they destroyed them from their faces and lived in their place, like Israel did to the land of his possession that Yahweh gave to them.)
The Horite people also formerly lived in the area of Seir, but the descendants of Esau expelled them. They killed them and settled in their land, just as the Israelite people later expelled their enemies from the land that Yahweh gave to them.)
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“‘Now, for yourselves, rise up and cross the wadi of Zered.’ And we crossed the wadi of Zered.
“Then we crossed Zered Gorge, as Yahweh told us to do.
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And the days which we came from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the wadi of Zered {were} 38 years, until all the generation of the men of war were finished from among the camp, as Yahweh had sworn to them.
It had been 38 years from the time we first left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed Zered Gorge. During those years, all the fighting men of that generation of Israelites died, as Yahweh had solemnly said would happen.
And also, the hand of Yahweh was against them, to destroy them from among the camp until they came to an end.
Furthermore, Yahweh opposed them, so he caused them to die.
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And it happened, when all the men of war came to an end, dying from among the people,
After all the men who had been old enough to fight had died,
then Yahweh spoke to me, saying,
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‘You are passing over today the border of Moab, Ar.
‘Today you must travel through the region of Moab, near Ar, their city.
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And you will approach on the other side of the sons of Ammon. You shall not trouble them, and you shall not fight them, for I will not give to you from the land of the sons of Ammon {as} a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot {as} a possession.’”
When you come near the border of the land where the descendants of Ammon live, do not bother them or start to fight against them. The reason is that they are also descendants of Lot, so I am not going to give you any of the land that I have given to them.’”
(Also, {it} is regarded as a land of the Raphaites. The Raphaites lived there previously, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummites,
(People also call that region the land of the Raphaites, who formerly lived there. The Ammonite people call them the Zamzummites.
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a people great and numerous and tall as the Anakites. But Yahweh destroyed them from their faces, and they dispossessed them and lived in their place,
They were as populous and tall as the Anakite people. But Yahweh caused them to die when the Ammonite people expelled them and settled in their land.
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just as he did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from their faces, and they dispossessed them and have lived in their place until this day.
Yahweh had done the same thing for the descendants of Esau living in the hilly area of Seir. Yahweh eliminated the Horite people on behalf of the descendants of Esau who took over their land and who still live there.
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And the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and lived in their place.)
As for the Avvite people, they lived in towns as far {south} as Gaza. The Caphtorite people from the island of Caphtor killed the Avvite people and settled in their land.)
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“‘Rise up, journey, and pass through the wadi of Arnon. Look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess {it}, and fight against him in battle.
“After we had gone through the region of Moab, Yahweh said to us, ‘Now cross the Arnon River valley. Know that I will help you to defeat the army of Sihon. Sihon is the king of the Amorites who live in the city of Heshbon. So attack their army and start to take their land from them.
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This day I will begin to put the fear of you and the terror of you on the faces of the peoples under all the heavens, that they might hear a report of you and might quake and tremble from your face.’
Today I will begin to cause everyone, everywhere to be afraid of you. Everyone who hears about you will be very afraid of you.’
And I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon, king of Heshbon, {with} words of peace, saying,
Then I sent messengers to go from where we were in the Desert of Kedemoth to King Sihon at Heshbon. {I told them to give him} this peaceful message,
‘I will pass through your land on the road. On the road I will go. I will not turn right or left.
‘Please allow us to travel through your land. {We promise that} we will stay on the road. We will not turn off to the right or to the left.
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You will sell me food for silver, and I will eat. And give to me water for silver, and I will drink. Only let me pass through on my feet
We will pay you for food and water. We want only to walk through your land
as the sons of Esau who live in Seir, and the Moabites who live in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land that Yahweh our God is giving to us.’
until we cross the Jordan River into the land that Yahweh our God is giving to us. Do for us just as the descendants of Esau who live in the area of Seir and the Moabite people who live in the city of Ar did {for us when they allowed us to go through their land.}’
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But Sihon, king of Heshbon, was not willing to let us pass by him, for Yahweh your God had hardened his spirit and strengthened his heart in order to give him into your hand, as this day.
But King Sihon of Heshbon would not allow us to go through his country. That is because Yahweh our God caused him to be stubborn so that Yahweh could cause us to defeat his army and take his land, in which we still live.
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And Yahweh said to me, ‘Look, I have begun giving to your face Sihon and his land. Begin, possess, to possess his land.’
Yahweh said to me, ‘Know that I am starting to allow you to defeat Sihon’s army and to take the people’s land from them. So enter it now until you occupy it fully!’
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And Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to the battle at Jahaz.
Then Sihon and his soldiers marched out to fight against us at the town of Jahaz.
And Yahweh our God gave him to our faces, and we struck him down and his son and all his people.
But Yahweh our God caused us to defeat them. We killed Sihon, his son, and all his soldiers.
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And we captured all his cities at that time and devoted every city, men and the women and the children; we left no survivor.
We captured and destroyed all of King Sihon’s cities. {We killed} the men, women, and children. We did not allow any of them to remain alive.
We only plundered the cattle for ourselves, and the spoil of the cities that we had captured.
However, we did take the livestock and valuable things from the cities that we captured.
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From Aroer, which {is} on the lip of the wadi of Arnon, and {from} the city that {is} in the valley, and as far as Gilead, there was not a city that {was} too high for us. Yahweh our God gave the whole to our faces.
Yahweh our God enabled us to capture all their towns from the city of Aroer in the south, which is at the edge of the Arnon River valley, to the region of Gilead in the north. Some of their cities had walls around them, but we were still able to capture them.
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{It was} only to the land of the sons of Ammon that you did not approach, all the hand of the wadi of Jabbok, and the cities of the hill {country}, and all Yahweh our God had commanded.
But we did not go near the area where the descendants of Ammon live, the banks of the Jabbok River, the towns of the hilly area, or any other place where Yahweh our God told us not to go.
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And we turned and went up the road of the Bashan. And Og, the king of the Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to the battle {at} Edrei.
Then we turned north and went toward the region of Bashan. Og, the king of that area, and all his soldiers marched south to fight against us at the city of Edrei.
And Yahweh said to me, ‘You shall not fear him; for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand. And you will do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’
Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not be afraid of him, because I will cause your army to defeat him and all his army. I will also cause you to capture all their land. Do to him what you did to Sihon, the king of the Amorite people, who ruled in the city of Heshbon.’
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And Yahweh our God also gave Og, the king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands. And we struck him down until not a survivor of his remained.
So Yahweh our God caused us to defeat King Og and his soldiers. We killed them all. We did not allow any of them to remain alive.
And we captured all his cities at that time. There was not a city of 60 cities that we did not take from them, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
There were 60 cities in that region of Argob, in King Og’s kingdom of Bashan, but we captured all of them.
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All these {were} inaccessible cities {with} high walls {and} gates and bars, besides very many unwalled villages.
All those cities had high walls around them with gates and bars. We also captured many villages that did not have walls around them.
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And we devoted them, as we did to Sihon, king of Heshbon, devoting every city, men, the women, and the children.
We completely destroyed those cities, just as we had done in the area that King Sihon ruled. We killed all the men, women, and children.
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But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we plundered for ourselves.
But from those cities we took for ourselves all the livestock and valuable things.
And we took at that time the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who {were} across the Jordan, from the wadi of Arnon to Mount Hermon”
So at that time we took all the land from those two kings of the Amorite people. We took the land east of the Jordan River, from the Arnon River in the south to Mount Hermon in the north.”
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(the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir),
(The people of Sidon city call that mountain Sirion. The Amorite people call it Senir.)
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“all the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, as far as Salekah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.”
“We captured all the towns on the plateau and all the region of Gilead. We also captured all of Bashan as far east as the cities of Salekah and Edrei, which also belonged to Og’s kingdom.”
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(For only Og, king of Bashan, had remained from the remnant of the Raphaites. Behold, his couch {was} a couch of iron. {Is} it not in Rabbah, of the sons of Ammon? {It was} nine cubits long and four cubits wide, by the cubit of man.)
(Og was the last king who was a descendant of the Raphaite people. His bed was iron. It was four meters long and two meters wide, according to the standard measurement. It was in the city of Rabbah in the region of the Ammonites.)
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“And we took in possession this land at that time, from Aroer, that {is} by the wadi of Arnon, and half the hill {country} of Gilead, and its cities, I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites.
“From the land that we captured at that time, I allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad the land north of the city of Aroer near the Arnon River. I also allotted to them some of the hilly areas of Gilead, along with the nearby cities.
And the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half of the tribe of Manasseh.” (All the region of Argob, to all Bashan. The same is called the land of the Raphaites.
The other part of Gilead and all of Bashan, which was the region of Argob that King Og had ruled, I allotted to half of the tribe of Manasseh.” (People call the entire region of Bashan the land of the Raphaites.
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Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites. And he called it, Bashan, by his name, Havvoth Jair, to this day.)
Jair, a man from the tribe of Manasseh, conquered all of Bashan as far north as the border of the Geshur and Maacath territories. He gave his own name to the villages there. {People still call them} the villages of Jair.)
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“And to Machir I gave Gilead.
“The northern part of the Gilead region I allotted to the Machir clan, {who are descendants of the tribe of Manasseh}.
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And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead and as far as the wadi of Arnon, the middle of the wadi {as} a border, and as far as the wadi of Jabbok, the border of the sons of Ammon,
I allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad the southern part of Gilead, extending south to the Arnon River. The middle of the river is the southern boundary. The northern boundary is the Jabbok River, which is part of the border of the region where the Ammonites live.
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and the Arabah, and the Jordan {as} a border, from Chinnereth and to the Sea of the Arabah” (the Salt Sea) “under the slopes of the Pisgah eastward.
The border extends from the plain along the east side of the Jordan valley, from the Chinnereth Sea in the north to the Sea of the Arabah” (people also call it the Salt Sea) “in the south and to the slopes of Mount Pisgah on the east.
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And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘Yahweh your God has given to you this land to possess it. The girded ones, all sons of bravery, will cross over to the faces of your brothers, the sons of Israel.
At that time, I told you three tribes, ‘Yahweh our God is giving you this land east of the Jordan River. So now, your soldiers must cross the Jordan River ahead of the men from the other Israelite tribes. {Help them to conquer the land}.
Only your women and your children, and your cattle (I know that you have much cattle), will stay in your cities that I have given to you
But your wives and children and your very numerous cattle must stay in the towns that I have allotted to you.
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until Yahweh causes your brothers, as you, to have rest. And they will possess, they also, the land that Yahweh your God is giving to them across the Jordan. And you will return, {every} man, to his inheritance that I have given to you.’
{Your men must help} your fellow Israelites until Yahweh enables them to live there peacefully. Help them until they also capture all of the land that Yahweh our God is giving to them, which is on the west side of the Jordan River, just as he did for you {here on the east side of the river}. After that, you all may return to this land that I have allotted to you.’
And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings. Thus Yahweh will do to all the kingdoms that you will be passing through there.
And I told Joshua, ‘You have seen everything that Yahweh our God did to those two kings, Sihon and Og. He will do the same thing to the people who are now in the land that you will be entering.
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Do not fear them, for Yahweh your God, he, he {is} the one fighting for you.’
Do not be afraid of those people, because Yahweh our God is the one who will fight on your behalf.’
And I sought compassion from Yahweh at that time, saying,
At that time, I earnestly prayed,
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‘My Lord Yahweh, you, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand. What god {is} in heaven or on earth that does works as your works and as your mighty deeds?
‘Yahweh my Lord, you are the one who has {merely} begun to show me how very great you are and that you can do powerful things. There is certainly no god in heaven or on earth who can do the powerful things that you have done.
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Let me cross, please, and see the good land that {is} across the Jordan, that good hill {country}, and Lebanon.’
So please allow me to cross the Jordan River. Let me see the good land on the west side, the good hilly area, and the mountains in Lebanon.’
But Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and he did not listen to me. And Yahweh said to me, ‘Enough for you—you shall not continue speaking to me again on this matter.
But Yahweh was angry with me because of what your parents had done. He would not pay attention to me. Instead, he said, ‘That is enough {talk} from you! Do not talk to me about that again!
Go up the head of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward. And look with your eyes, for you will not cross this Jordan.
Climb up to the top of Mount Pisgah. Then look toward the west, east, north, and south. Look at it all carefully because you will not cross the Jordan River {to see the land from there}.
And instruct Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he, he will cross over to the faces of this people, and he, he will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.’
But tell Joshua what he must do. Encourage him because he is the one who will lead the people across the river. He is the one who will lead them to occupy the land that you will see {from the top of the mountain}.’
And we stayed in the valley opposite Beth Peor.
So we remained in the {Jordan River} valley close to the town of Beth Peor.
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And now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances that I will teach you to do so that you will live and go in and possess the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving to you.
Now, you Israelite people, obey all the rules and regulations that I will teach you. If you do that, you will remain alive. You will be able to enter and occupy the land that Yahweh, the God whom your ancestors worshiped, is giving to you.
Do not add onto the word that I command you, and do not take from them, keeping the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you.
Do not change the words of my commands to you. Obey all the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving to you.
Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did in Baal Peor; for all the men who walked after the Baal of Peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from your midst.
You have seen what Yahweh did at Baal Peor, for example, when he destroyed all the people who worshiped {the god} Baal there.
And you who clung to Yahweh your God {are} alive, all of you, today.
However, all of you who faithfully continued to worship Yahweh our God are still alive today.
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Look, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as Yahweh my God had commanded me, to do so in the midst of the land which you are going into to possess it.
Never forget that I have taught you all the rules and regulations, just as Yahweh our God told me to do. He wants you to obey them {when you are living} in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
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And you shall keep and do {them}, for it {is} your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and may say, ‘Surely this great nation {is} a wise and understanding people.’
Obey them faithfully because, if you do that, you will show the people of other nations that you are very wise. When they hear about all these rules, they will say, ‘The people of this great nation of Israel are certainly very wise!’
For which great nation {is there} that has a god near to it, as Yahweh our God {is} whenever we call on him?
Even if other nations are great, there is none of them that has a god who cares for them as Yahweh our God cares for us!
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And, which great nation {is there} that has statutes and ordinances {as} righteous as all this law that I am giving to your faces today?
And there is no other nation, even if it is a great nation, which has laws that are as just as the laws that I am speaking to you today.
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Only guard yourself and guard your soul strongly, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they retreat from your heart all the days of your life. But make them known to your sons and to the sons of your sons.
But be very careful! Do not forget what you have seen God do. Remember those things as long as you are alive. Tell them to your children and your grandchildren.
{The} day that you stood to the face of Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, ‘Assemble for me the people, and I will make them hear my words, that they will learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and may teach their sons.’
Tell them about the day that your parents stood in the presence of Yahweh our God at Mount Horeb, when he said to me, ‘Gather the people together in order that they can hear what I say. I want them to learn to respect me and honor me as long as they are alive. I want them to teach their children to do the same.’
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And you approached and stood under the mountain. And the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the heavens, {with} darkness, cloud, and gloom.
Tell your children that your parents came near to the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with a fire that went up to the sky, and Yahweh covered the mountain with darkness, clouds, and smoke.
And Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, and you saw no form, only a voice.
Then Yahweh spoke to your parents out of the middle of the fire. Your parents only heard him speak, but they did not see him.
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And he declared to you his covenant that he commanded you to do, the Ten Words. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone.
And he declared to them his covenant that he wants you also to obey. He gave them the Ten Commandments. He wrote those on two stone tablets.
And Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments for your doing of them in the land which you are going over to possess it.
Yahweh told me to teach all the rules and regulations to you in order that you would obey them. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
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And strongly guard your souls, for you did not see any form on {the} day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
On the day that Yahweh spoke to your parents from the fire at Mount Horeb, they did not see him. So be very careful!
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lest you act corruptly, and make for yourselves an idol of the form of any image, a likeness of male or female,
Do not sin by making for yourselves any carved figure! Do not make anything that resembles the likeness of anything: man, woman,
a likeness of any animal that {is} on the earth, a likeness of any winged bird that flies in the heavens,
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a likeness of any creeping thing on the ground, a likeness of any fish that {is} in the water under the earth.
any reptile, or any fish.
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And lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the multitude of the heavens, and be seduced and bow down to them and serve them, those which Yahweh your God has allotted for all the peoples under all the heavens.
Do not look up toward the sky and desire to worship anything that you see there, the sun or the moon or the stars. Yahweh our God has given those to {help} all people everywhere.
And Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the furnace of iron, from Egypt, to be a people of his inheritance, as this day.
Yahweh has brought your families out of Egypt, where they were suffering as though they were in a blazing furnace. That is so that they would be people who belong to him, which is what you are today.
And Yahweh was angry with me on account of your words. And he swore I would not cross the Jordan, and I would not go in to the good land that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance.
But Yahweh was angry with me because of what your parents did. He declared that I would never enter the land that he is giving to you.
But I will die in this land. I will not cross the Jordan, but you will cross over and possess that good land.
He swore that I would die here in this land and never cross the Jordan River. But you will go across it, and you will occupy that land.
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Guard yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he cut with you, and make for yourselves an idol {in} a form of anything that Yahweh your God has commanded you.
Be sure that you do not forget the covenant that Yahweh our God made with you, and do not make a carved figure in the likeness of anything about which he has forbidden you.
For Yahweh your God {is} a devouring fire, he {is} a jealous God.
This is because Yahweh your God wants everyone to worship him alone. He will destroy anyone who worships idols.
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If you beget sons, and sons of sons, and you grow old in the land, and you act corruptly and make an idol {in} a form of anything, and do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, to cause him to be angry,
After you have been in the land of Canaan for a long time and you have children and grandchildren, do not sin by making a carved figure that represents anything. Yahweh says that is evil, and if you do that, you will cause him to become angry.
I will make the heavens and the earth witness against you today, that perishing, you will perish quickly from the land to which you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong {your} days on it, but being destroyed, you will be destroyed.
Today I am requesting everyone who is in heaven and earth to watch what you are doing. But {if you disobey what I am telling you}, you will soon all die in the land that you will be crossing the Jordan River to occupy. You will not live very long there, because Yahweh will completely get rid of many of you.
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And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left men of {small} number in the nations, where Yahweh will drive you there.
Yahweh will force the rest of you to go and live among the people of many other nations. Only a few of you will survive there.
And there you will serve gods, the work of the hands of man, wood and stone, which do not see and do not hear and do not eat and do not smell.
When you are in those nations, you will worship gods that humans have made from wood and stone. {They will be gods} that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell {anything}.
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And from there you will search for Yahweh your God, and you will find {him} when you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
But while you are there, you will try to know Yahweh your God. If you try with all that you are to know him, he will answer you.
When {there is} trouble for you, and you find all these things in the later days, then you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice.
In the future, when people mistreat you {there} and all those {bad} things happen to you, you will again worship only Yahweh and obey him.
For Yahweh your God {is} a merciful God; he will not fail you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your fathers that he swore to them.
Yahweh is a God who acts mercifully. {If you obey him}, he will not abandon you, cause you to die, or forget the agreement that he solemnly made with your ancestors.
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But ask, please, about previous days, which were to your face, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from one end of the heavens and to the other end of the heavens, whether there has been a great thing as this, or {anything} like it been heard.
Now please think about the past, about the time before you were alive, about all the time since God first created people here on the earth. You could search everywhere. Certainly, nothing has ever happened that is as great {as what Yahweh did for the Israelite people}.
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Did a people hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you, you have heard, and live?
Certainly no group has ever remained alive after they heard their God speak to them from the middle of a fire as you yourselves have heard.
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Or has God attempted to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of {another} nation, by trials, by signs and by wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as everything that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Certainly God has never before tried to take a huge group of people from one nation {to another location} as he did for us when he brought us out of Egypt. We saw Yahweh our God use his power when he performed miracles, sent plagues, terrified people, and fought the Egyptians for us.
You, you have been shown, to know that Yahweh, he is the God; there is no other besides him.
Yahweh showed all these things especially to you in order that you would know that only he is truly God and that there is no other God.
From the heavens he caused you to hear his voice, to instruct you. And on the earth he caused you to see his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire.
He allowed your parents to hear him speak from heaven in order that he could discipline them. Here on the earth, he allowed them to see his great fire. He spoke to them from the middle of the fire.
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And because he loved your fathers, then he chose his seed after him and brought you out from Egypt with his face, with his great power
Because he loved our ancestors, he chose you Israelites, who are their descendants. By his great power, he brought us out of Egypt.
to drive out from your faces nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give to you their land {as} an inheritance, as this day.
{As they traveled}, he expelled the people of nations that were greater and more powerful than we were. This is so that we could capture and live in their land, as we are about to do today.
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And you shall know today, and you shall return {it} to your heart, that Yahweh, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. There is none else.
So today you should think about the fact that Yahweh is God, that {he rules} in heaven and also on the earth, and that there is no other god.
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And you shall keep his statutes and his commandments that I command you today, that it will go well for you and for your sons after you, and so that you may prolong {your} days in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you all of the days.”
Obey all the rules and regulations that I am giving to you today. This is so that things will go well for you and your descendants and so that you will live a long time in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, so {it will belong to you} forever.”
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Then Moses selected three cities on the side of the Jordan toward the rising of {the} sun,
Then Moses chose three cities that are on the east side of the Jordan River.
for a manslayer to flee there, who killed his neighbor without knowing and he did not hate him previously before; and he shall flee to one of these cities, and he shall live:
If someone accidentally killed another person, a person who had not been his enemy previously, he could escape to one of those cities. He would be safe there {because the people there would protect him}.
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Bezer in the wilderness in the land of the plain for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
For the tribe of Reuben, Moses chose the city of Bezer in the wilderness. For the tribe of Gad, he chose the city of Ramoth in the region of Gilead. For the tribe of Manasseh, he chose the city of Golan in the region of Bashan.
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And this {is} the law that Moses placed to the faces of the sons of Israel.
Moses gave God’s instructions to the Israelite people.
These {are} the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments that Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out from Egypt,
They included all the instructions, rules, and regulations that Moses told the Israelite people after they had come out of Egypt,
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across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel had struck down when they came out from Egypt.
when they were in the valley east of the Jordan River. They were across from the town of Beth Peor, in the land Sihon, the king of the Amorite people, who lived in the city of Heshbon, had {previously} ruled. Moses and the other Israelites had defeated his army when they came out of Egypt.
They took his land as a possession, and the land of Og, king of Bashan—two kings of the Amorites who {were} on the side of the Jordan {toward} the rising of {the} sun—
They captured Sihon’s land and the land that Og, the king of the region of Bashan, had ruled. Those were the two kings who ruled the Amorite people in the area east of the Jordan River.
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from Aroer, that {is} on the lip of the wadi of Arnon, and as far as Mount Sion (that {is} Hermon),
Their land extended from the city of Aroer in the south along the edge of the valley of Arnon, as far north as Mount Sion, which people also call Mount Hermon.
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and all the Arabah eastward across the Jordan, to the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of the Pisgah.
It also included all the area in the plain east of the Jordan River, extending to the Sea of the Arabah and east to the slopes of Mount Pisgah.
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Then Moses called to all Israel and said to them,
“Hear, Israel, the statutes and the ordinances that I will speak in your ears today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.
Moses summoned all the people of Israel and said to them, “You Israelite people, listen to all the rules that I am commanding you today. Learn them and be sure to obey them.
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Yahweh our God cut a covenant with us at Horeb.
When we were at Mount Horeb, Yahweh our God made a covenant with us.
Yahweh did not cut this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those of us here today, all who are living.
But this covenant was not only for our ancestors; he made it also for us who are alive now.
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Yahweh spoke with you face to face on the mountain, from the midst of the fire,
Yahweh personally spoke with us on that mountain, from the middle of the fire.
(I stood between Yahweh and between you at that time, to reveal to you the word of Yahweh. For you were afraid of the face of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain), saying,
On that day, I stood between Yahweh and your parents in order to tell them what he said. That was because they were afraid of the fire, and they did not want to climb up the mountain. This is what Yahweh said,
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‘I {am} Yahweh your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
‘I am Yahweh your God, the one you worship. I am the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt. I am the one who freed you from being slaves there.
There shall not be for you other gods above my face.
Do not worship any god other than me.
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Do not make for yourself a carved figure of any likeness that {is} in heaven above or that {is} in the earth beneath or that {is} in the water under the earth.
Do not carve yourself a figure that looks like anything in the sky or that is on the ground or that is in the water under the ground.
You shall not bow down to them, and you shall not serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, {am} a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the sons, and on the third and on the fourth of the haters of me,
Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am Yahweh your God. I demand that you worship me only! I will punish the descendants of those who hate me. I will punish their descendants for three, even four {generations}.
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But I show covenant faithfulness to thousands, to lovers of me and to keepers of my commandments.
However, I will faithfully love forever all of those who love me and obey my commandments.
Do not lift up the name of Yahweh your God with emptiness, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished he who lifts up his name with emptiness.
{I am} Yahweh your God, so do not use my name for the wrong purpose. This is because I will certainly punish those who use my name for wrong purposes.
Keeping the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as Yahweh your God commanded you.
Remember that the seventh day of every week belongs to me. This is according to what I, Yahweh your God, am commanding you.
Six days you may labor and do all your work.
There are six days each week for you to do all your labor.
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But the seventh day {is} a Sabbath for Yahweh your God. Do not do any work—you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or a foreigner who {is} within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant can rest like you.
But the seventh day is a day of rest, a day dedicated to me, Yahweh your God. On that day you must not do any work. Neither you nor your sons, your daughters, your male or female slaves, your livestock, and not even foreigners who are living in your country may work.
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And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, Yahweh your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Remember that your families were slaves in Egypt. I, Yahweh your God, brought you out of there by my very great power. As a result, I am commanding that all of you must rest on the seventh day of each week.
Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God has commanded you, so that your days may lengthen and so that it may go well with you on the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
Honor your father and your mother, just like I, Yahweh your God, am commanding you. Do this in order that you may live a long time in the land that I, Yahweh your God, will give you. Also do this in order that things will go well for you there.
And do not commit adultery.
Do not commit adultery with anyone.
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And do not testify against your neighbor false testimony.
Do not tell lies about someone in court.
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And do not desire the wife of your neighbor, and you shall not covet the house of your neighbor, his field, and his male servant and his female servant, his ox and his donkey and anything that {is} of your neighbor.’
Do not covet someone else’s wife, someone else’s house, someone else’s field, someone else’s male or female slave, someone else’s livestock, someone else’s donkeys, or anything else that another person owns.’
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These words Yahweh spoke {in} a great voice to all your assembly on the mountain in the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the gloom, and he did not add {more}. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
Those are the commandments that Yahweh commanded your families when they were at {the bottom of} the mountain. Yahweh spoke with a very loud voice from the middle of the fire, and there were dark clouds {around the mountain}. He spoke only those Ten Commandments. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
And it happened, when you heard the voice in the midst of the darkness, and the mountain was burning with fire, then you approached me—all the heads of your tribes and your elders.
Your parents heard Yahweh’s voice when he spoke to them out of the darkness, while there was a big fire burning on the mountain. After that, their leaders came to me.
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And you said, ‘Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. This day we have seen that God speaks to man, yet he lives.
{One of} them said, ‘Listen to us! Yahweh our God showed us that he is very glorious and great when we heard him speak from the fire. Today we have realized that it is possible for us human beings to continue to live even though God has spoken to us.
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And now, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we continue anymore to hear the voice of Yahweh our God, and we will die.
But we are afraid that we will die. We are afraid that this immense fire will burn us all up if we go on hearing Yahweh’s voice.
For who {is there of} all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speak from the midst of the fire like us and has lived?
We are the only people on earth who have remained alive after hearing the all-powerful God speak to them from a fire!
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You approach and listen to everything that Yahweh our God says and speak to us everything that Yahweh our God says to you, and we will listen and obey.’
{So Moses}, you go {up the mountain} and listen to everything that Yahweh our God says. Then {come back} and tell us everything that he has said, and we will listen to what he has said and obey it.’
And Yahweh heard the sound of your words when you spoke to me. And Yahweh said to me, ‘I have heard the sound of the words of this people that they spoke to you. All that they have spoken is good.
Yahweh heard your leaders say that. {When I went back up the mountain}, Yahweh said to me, ‘I have heard what your leaders have said. What they have said is right.
Who will give and have this heart in them, to fear me and keep all my commandments all the days, so that it will be well for them and for their sons forever?
I surely wish that they would always have awesome respect for me and obey all my commandments. I desire their worship so that things may go well for them and for their descendants forever.
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Go say to them, “Return yourselves to your tents.”
So go {down} and tell them to return to their tents.
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But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandment and the statutes and the ordinances that you will teach them, and they will do in the land that I am giving to them to possess it.’
But {then,} you {come back up} here and stand near me. I will give you all the rules and decrees that I {want them to obey}. Then you can teach them to the people so that they will obey them when they are in the land that I am giving to them.’
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And you shall keep {them}, doing as Yahweh your God has commanded you. Do not turn aside, right or left.
Be sure that you do everything that Yahweh our God has commanded us to do. Be sure to obey his commandments.
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In all the ways that Yahweh your God has commanded you, you shall walk so that you might live, and goodness {might be} for you, and you might prolong {your} days in the land that you will possess.
Conduct your lives as Yahweh our God has commanded us to do. This is so that you may live a long time. Also, this is so that things may go well for you {when you are living} in the land that you will occupy.
And these {are} the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that Yahweh your God has commanded to teach you to do in the land which you are going over to possess it
These are the commandments, rules, and decrees that Yahweh our God commanded me to teach to you. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
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so that you will fear Yahweh your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments that I am commanding you and your son and the son of your son, all the days of your life, and so that your days will be prolonged.
He wants you to honor him. He wants you and your descendants to always obey all these rules and regulations that I am giving to you. This is so that you may live for a long time.
And you shall listen, Israel, and carefully do, that it will go well for you, and that you will greatly multiply, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers spoke to you, {in} a land flowing with milk and honey.
So, you Israelite people, listen to them carefully and obey them. If you do that, things will go well with you. Also, you will become a very numerous nation when you are {living} in that very fertile land. That is what Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors worshiped, promised would happen.
Hear, Israel: Yahweh {is} our God; Yahweh {is} one.
You Israelite people, listen! Only Yahweh is our God.
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And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
You must love him with all your inner being and with all that you feel and in every way that you can.
And these words that I am commanding you today will be on your heart.
Remember these commands that I am giving to you today.
And you shall diligently teach them to your sons and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
Teach them to your children again and again. Talk about them {at every opportunity,} such as when you are in your houses and when you are walking outside. Talk about them also when you are resting and when you are working.
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And you shall tie them as a sign on your hand. And they will be as frontlets between your eyes.
{Write copies of them} and tie them to your arms and foreheads {to help you to remember them}.
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And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your city gates.
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And it will happen that Yahweh your God will bring you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to you, {with} large and good cities that you did not build,
Yahweh our God solemnly promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you a land that already has in it large and prosperous cities that you did not build.
and houses full of every good thing that you did not gather, and hewn cisterns that you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And you will eat and be satisfied.
He said that the houses in those cities will already be full of many good things that someone else put there. There will be wells that someone else dug. There will be vineyards and olive trees that someone else planted. So when Yahweh brings you into that land, and you have all that you want to eat,
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Guard yourselves, lest you forget Yahweh who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
be sure to remember Yahweh, who rescued you from being slaves in Egypt {and gave all these things to you}.
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Yahweh your God you shall fear and him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
You must deeply respect Yahweh our God, and you must worship him alone. When you make a solemn oath, say that he should punish you if you do not do what you have promised.
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Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who surround you,
You must not worship any other gods, the gods that the peoples who live near you worship.
for Yahweh your God in your midst {is} a jealous God, lest the nose of Yahweh your God burn against you, and he destroy you from the face of the earth.
This is because Yahweh our God, who has a special relationship with you will not accept people who worship anyone or anything other than him. So if you worship any other god, Yahweh will be very angry with you, and he will destroy you completely.
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Do not test Yahweh your God as you tested {him} at Massah.
Do not do sinful things to find out whether Yahweh will punish you or not, as your parents did at Massah.
Keeping, you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and his testimonies and his statutes that he has commanded you.
Be sure that you always obey all the laws, the weighty instructions, and the regulations that he has given to you.
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And you shall do the right and the good in the eyes of Yahweh, so that it may be well for you, and you may go in and possess the good land that Yahweh swore to your fathers,
Do what Yahweh says is right and good. If you do that, things will go well with you. You will be able to enter and occupy the good land that Yahweh solemnly promised to give to our ancestors.
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to thrust away all your enemies from your faces, as Yahweh has spoken.
He will do that by driving out your enemies from that land, just as he promised to do.
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When your son asks you tomorrow, saying, ‘What the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances that Yahweh our God commanded you?’
In the future, your children will ask you, ‘Why did Yahweh our God command us to obey all these rules and decrees?’
Then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. And Yahweh brought us out from Egypt with a mighty hand.
Then you will tell them, ‘Our families were slaves of the king in Egypt. Yahweh brought them out of Egypt by his great power.
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And Yahweh gave signs and wonders, great and terrible, on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes.
They saw him do many kinds of miracles and terrifying things to the people of Egypt and to the king and his officials.
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And he brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give to us the land that he swore to our fathers.
He rescued our families from Egypt and brought them here to give them this land. This is just as he solemnly promised our ancestors that he would do.
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And Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God for good to us all of the days, to keep us alive as this day.
And he commanded us to obey all these laws and to honor him. This is so that things will always go well with us and so that he will protect our nation, as he is doing now.
And it will be righteousness to us, if we keep doing all these commandments to the face of Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.’
Yahweh our God will approve of us if we carefully obey everything that he has commanded us to do.’
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When Yahweh your God brings you into the land which you are going to there to possess it, then he will drive out many nations from your face, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you,
Yahweh our God will take you into the land that you will soon enter and occupy. As you advance, he will expel these people groups that are more powerful and more numerous than you are. They are the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
and Yahweh your God will give them to your face, and you shall strike them down, devoting, you shall devote them. Do not cut with them a covenant, and do not show them favor.
When Yahweh our God enables you to defeat them, you must kill them all. You must make no agreement with them, and you must not act mercifully toward them.
And do not arrange marriages with them. Do not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son.
You must not marry any of them. You must not allow your daughters to marry any of their sons or allow your sons to marry any of their daughters.
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For they will turn away your son from after me, and they will serve other gods. And the nose of Yahweh will burn against you, and he will destroy you quickly.
If you did that, those people would persuade your children to stop worshiping Yahweh and to worship other gods. If that happens, Yahweh will be very angry with you, and he will destroy you very quickly.
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Thus you shall do to them: You shall break down their altars and smash their pillars and cut their Asherah poles to pieces and burn their idols in the fire.
This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars, break apart the stone pillars {that they have dedicated to their gods}, cut down the poles {that they use when they worship the goddess Asherah}, and burn their molded idols.
For you are a sacred nation for Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his possession, above all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
You must do that because you are a group of people who belong only to Yahweh our God. He has chosen you from all the peoples in the world to be his own special people.
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Yahweh loved you and chose you, not {that} you were more numerous over all the nations, for you {were} the fewest of all the peoples,
It was not because you were more numerous than any other people group that Yahweh chose you. In fact, you are one of the smallest people groups on the earth.
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but Yahweh loves you, and he kept the oath that he had sworn to your fathers. Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Instead, it is because Yahweh loved you and because he wanted to do what he solemnly promised to your ancestors. That is why he rescued you by his great power from slavery in Egypt and from Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.
And you shall know that Yahweh your God, he {is} God, the faithful God, who keeps covenants and faithfulness for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments,
So remember that Yahweh is our God. He is faithful to us. He will do what he agreed to do. He will faithfully love forever people who love him and who obey his commandments.
and he repays those who hate him to his face, to destroy him. He will not delay with him who hates him; he will repay him to his face.
But as for those who hate him, he will pay them back. He will punish them and quickly destroy them.
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And you shall keep the commandments and the statutes and the ordinances that I command you today, to do them.
So you must be sure to obey all the commandments, rules, and decrees that I am giving to you today.
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And it will be, on account of you listening to these regulations and keeping and doing them, then Yahweh your God will keep for you the covenant and the faithfulness that he swore to your fathers.
If you pay attention to these decrees and always obey them, Yahweh our God will do what he has agreed to do for you. He will also faithfully love you, which is what he solemnly promised to your ancestors that he would do.
And he will love you and bless you and multiply you. And he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flocks, on the land that he swore to your fathers to give to you.
He will love you and bless you. He will enable you to have many children. He will bless your fields. As a result, you will have plenty of grain and {grapes to make} wine and plenty of olive oil. You will have many cattle and sheep. He will do all these things for you in the land that he promised to your ancestors that he would give to you.
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You will be blessed more than all the peoples. There will not be a barren male or a barren female among you or among your cattle.
He will bless you more than he will bless any other people group. All of you will be able to have children. All of your livestock will be able to produce offspring.
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And Yahweh will take away from you all sickness. And all of the evil diseases of Egypt that you have known, he will not put them on you, and he will set them on all those who hate you.
And Yahweh will protect you from all illnesses. He will not make you become sick with any of the dreadful diseases that {our ancestors} knew about in Egypt. But, he will make all your enemies sick with them.
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And you shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give to you; your eye shall not pity them. And do not serve their gods, for it will be a snare for you.
You must destroy all the peoples that Yahweh our God enables you to conquer. Do not act mercifully toward any of them and do not worship their gods. If you do that, it would be like falling into a trap {from which you will never be able to escape}.
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If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?’—
Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people groups are more numerous than we are. We will never be able to drive them out.’
do not be afraid of them. Remembering, you shall remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
Do not be afraid of them. Instead, think about what Yahweh our God did to the king of Egypt and to all the people whom he {ruled}.
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the great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which Yahweh your God brought you out. Thus Yahweh your God will do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid of their faces.
Remember the terrible plagues that your parents saw him inflict on the people of Egypt. Remember the various kinds of miracles that God did in order to bring your families out {of Egypt}. Yahweh our God will do the same kind of things to the peoples that you are afraid of now.
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And also, Yahweh your God will send the hornet against them until those who are left and who hide themselves perish from your face.
Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified. He will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.
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Do not be frightened from their faces, for Yahweh your God {is} among you, a great and fearsome God.
Do not be afraid of those people, because Yahweh our God will be with you. He is a great God. He is the one that people are afraid of.
And Yahweh your God will drive out those nations from your face little {by} little. You will not be able to finish them quickly, lest the animals of the field multiply against you.
He will gradually expel those people groups. You should not {try to} expel all of them at one time. If you did that, the number of wild animals would quickly increase, {and you would not be able to get rid of them}.
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And Yahweh your God will give them to your faces. And he will confuse them {with} great confusion, until they are destroyed.
Instead, Yahweh will enable you to defeat your enemies {one people group at a time}. He will cause them to panic until you have destroyed them.
And he will give their kings into your hand, and you will cause their name to perish from under the heavens. No man will stand against your face, until you have destroyed them.
He will enable you to defeat their kings. After you kill them, people will forget them. No people group will be able to stop you. You will destroy all of them.
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You shall burn idols of their gods in fire, do not covet silver and gold on them and take {it} for yourself, lest you become trapped by it, for it {is} an abomination to Yahweh your God.
You must burn the carved figures {that represent} their gods. Do not desire to take the silver or gold {decorations} that are on those idols. If you take them for yourselves, they will be like a trap {to cause you to disobey God}. Yahweh hates every part of those idols.
And do not bring an abomination to your house and you become a devoted thing like it. Detesting, you shall detest it, and abhorring, you shall abhor it, for it {is} a devoted thing.
You must not bring any of those disgusting idols into your houses, because if you do that, God will curse you just as he curses them. You must hate and despise those idols, because they are things that Yahweh has cursed, and he promises to destroy them.
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You shall keep doing all the commands that I am commanding you today so that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers.
You must faithfully obey all the commandments that I am giving you today. If you do that, you will live a long time and you will become very numerous. Your people will occupy the land that Yahweh solemnly promised your ancestors {that he would give to you}.
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And you shall remember all the way that Yahweh your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness so that he might humble you, to test you to know what {was} in your heart, if you would keep his commandments {or} not.
And think about how Yahweh our God led us as we traveled through the desert during these past 40 years. He {caused you to have many problems}. This was to cause you to realize that you needed to trust him and not trust in yourselves. He also wanted to test you, to find out what you intended to do, whether you would obey his commandments or not.
And he humbled you and caused you to hunger and fed you manna, which you had not known and your fathers had not known, so that he might make you know that man does not live upon bread alone, but upon everything coming out of the mouth of Yahweh the man lives.
So he caused you to have problems. He allowed you to become hungry. Then he gave you manna, {food from heaven}, food that you and your parents had never eaten before. He did that to teach you that people need food {for their bodies}, but {they also need food for their spirits. This comes from paying attention to} everything that Yahweh says.
Your clothing did not wear out from upon you, and your feet did not swell up these 40 years.
During those 40 years, our clothes did not wear out. Also, our feet did not swell {from walking through the desert}.
And you shall know with your heart that, as a man instructs his son, Yahweh your God instructs you.
Remember that Yahweh our God corrects us and punishes us, like parents correct their children.
And you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways and to fear him.
So obey the commandments of Yahweh our God. Conduct your lives as he wants you to do and honor him.
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For Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, fountains, and springs coming out in valleys and in hills;
He is about to bring you into a good land. It has streams that flow down from the hills and flow out of springs in the valleys.
a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey;
It is a land on which wheat and barley grow. It has vineyards, fig trees, and pomegranates. It is a land where there are olive trees and honey.
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a land where you will eat bread in it not with poverty, you will not lack anything in it; a land where its stones {are} iron, and from the hills you may dig copper.
It is a land where there will be plenty of food for you. You will have everything you need. It is a land which has iron {ore} in its rocks and from which you can dig copper {ore} from its hills.
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And you will eat and be full, and you will bless Yahweh your God for the good land that he has given to you.
{Every day} you will eat until your stomachs are full. You will thank Yahweh our God for the fertile land that he has given you.
Guard yourself, lest you forget Yahweh your God by failing to keep his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes that I am commanding you today,
But {when that happens}, be sure not to forget Yahweh our God by disobeying his commandments, rules, and regulations that I am giving to you today.
lest you eat and are satisfied, and you build good houses and live {in them},
Do this even when your stomachs are full {every day}, and when you have built good houses and are living in them.
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and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply for you, and all that you have multiplies,
One day the number of your cattle and sheep will greatly increase. You will accumulate a large amount of silver and gold. The amount of all your other possessions will also greatly increase.
and your heart is lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
Even then, be sure that you do not become proud and forget Yahweh our God. He rescued your parents from being slaves in Egypt and brought them out from there.
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He led you in the great and terrible wilderness, fiery serpent and scorpion and thirsty ground where there was no water, he brought out water for you from the rock of flint.
Remember that he guided them while they traveled through that huge and terrible desert. There were poisonous snakes and scorpions there. Remember that the ground was very dry and there was no water. In spite of that, he caused water to flow for them out of solid rock.
He fed you manna in the wilderness that your fathers had not known so that he might humble you and so that he might test you, to do you good in your end.
Remember that in that desert he gave your families manna to eat. Manna was food that they had never eaten before. He did this so they would realize that they needed to trust him and not themselves. He wanted to test them to find out if they would obey him. This is so that he could do many good things for them {when those difficulties ended}.
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And you will say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand made for me this wealth.’
Be sure that you do not think to yourselves that you have acquired all these things by your own power and ability.
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And you shall remember Yahweh your God, for he is the one who gives to you power to make wealth so that he may establish his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as this day.
Remember that it is Yahweh our God who has enabled you to become rich. He does this because he faithfully does what he solemnly promised our ancestors that he would do.
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And it will happen, if forgetting, you forget Yahweh your God and walk after other gods and serve them and bow down to them, I testify against you today that perishing, you will perish.
Today I solemnly warn you: If you forget Yahweh our God and start to worship and serve other gods, then he will certainly destroy you.
Like the nations that Yahweh is causing to perish from your faces, thus you will perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
If you do not obey Yahweh our God, then he will certainly destroy you just like he will destroy the people groups against which you will fight.
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Hear, Israel! You are crossing the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, {with} cities great and fortified to the heavens,
You people of Israel, listen to me! You will soon cross the Jordan River. In the land that you will enter, there are people groups that are more numerous and more powerful than you are. In that land, there are large cities that have very high walls {around them}. The walls are so high that they {seem to} extend up to the sky. You will take possession of the land that these people groups occupy.
a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakites, whom you, you know, and you, you have heard, ‘Who can stand to the faces of the sons of Anak?’
The people in the land are strong and tall. Some of them are descendants of the Anakites. You have encountered them, and you certainly have heard people say that no one can defeat the descendants of Anak.
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And you shall know today that Yahweh your God, he is the one who goes over to your face, a devouring fire; he, he will destroy them, and he, he will subdue them to your face. And you will drive them out and exterminate them quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.
I want you to know that Yahweh our God will go ahead of you. He will be like a raging fire. He will be the one defeating and destroying them in front of you. As a result, you will quickly be able to drive out some of them and kill the others. This is just as Yahweh promised that you would do.
You shall not say in your heart, when Yahweh your God has thrust them out from to your face, saying, ‘In my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land,’ but in the wickedness of these nations, Yahweh is driving them out from your face.
After Yahweh our God has expelled them before you, do not say to yourselves, ‘It is because we are righteous that Yahweh has enabled us to capture this land.’ Rather, it is because the people in that land are wicked that Yahweh will drive them out for you.
Not in your righteousness or in the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but in the wickedness of these nations, Yahweh your God is driving them out from your face, and so that Yahweh may establish the word that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
{Again}, it is not because you are righteous or do things that are righteous that you will inhabit that land. It is because those people groups are very wicked that Yahweh our God will expel them as you advance. It is also because he intends to do what he solemnly promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would do.
And you shall know that not in your righteousness is Yahweh your God giving to you this good land to possess, for you {are} a people stiff of neck.
I want you to know that it is not because you are righteous that Yahweh our God is giving you this good land. I say this because you are a very stubborn people.
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Remember, you shall not forget how you provoked Yahweh your God to anger in the wilderness; from the day that you went out from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.
Never forget what your parents did in the desert that caused Yahweh our God to become angry. From the day that we left Egypt until the day that we arrived here, you have continually rebelled against him.
And at Horeb you provoked Yahweh to anger, and Yahweh was angry with you to destroy you.
Even at Mount Horeb your parents caused Yahweh to become angry. Because he was very angry, he was ready to get rid of {all of} them.
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When I went up to the mountain to take the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh cut with you, and I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights, bread I did not eat and water I did not drink.
I climbed the mountain to receive from him the stone tablets on which he had written the Ten Commandments. I stayed there 40 days and nights. During that time I did not eat or drink anything.
And Yahweh gave to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God. And on them {was} according to all the words that Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets on which he had written {the commandments} with his own fingers. They were the words that he had spoken to your parents from the fire on that mountain. This was when they gathered together {at the bottom of the mountain}.
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And it happened, at the end of 40 days and 40 nights, Yahweh gave to me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
At the end of those 40 days and nights, Yahweh gave me those two stone tablets on which he had written those commandments.
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And Yahweh said to me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people, whom you brought out from Egypt, have become corrupted. They have quickly turned aside from the path that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast figure.’
But then he said to me, ‘Go down the mountain immediately! This is because {the people whom you are leading}, the people whom you led out of Egypt, have committed a terrible sin! They have very quickly done what I commanded them not to do. They have made for themselves a metal figure {of a calf to worship}.’
And Yahweh said to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it {is} a people stiff of neck.
Then Yahweh said to me, ‘I have been watching these people. I see that they are very stubborn.
Release from me, and I will destroy them and wipe out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
Let me alone. I am going to destroy all of them, with the result that no one anywhere will remember their names. Then I will enable you to become {the ancestor} of a nation that will be more powerful and numerous than them.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
And I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with the fire. And the two tablets of the covenant {were} in my two hands.
So I turned and went down the mountain. In my hands I carried the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were {written}. Fire was burning all over the mountain.
And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made for yourselves a cast-image calf. You had quickly turned aside from the path that Yahweh had commanded you.
I looked, and I was shocked to see that your parents had committed a great sin against Yahweh. They very quickly had begun to do what Yahweh our God had commanded them not to do. They had {requested Aaron} to make for them a metal figure of a calf {to worship}.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And I seized the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands. And I broke them before your eyes.
I lifted up those two stone tablets and threw them {on the ground}. They broke into pieces. I did this while they were watching.
And I prostrated myself to the face of Yahweh as before, 40 days and 40 nights. Bread I did not eat and water I did not drink, because of all your sin that you had committed, in doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.
Then I prostrated myself on the ground in Yahweh’s presence as I had done before. I did not eat or drink anything for 40 days and nights. I did that because your parents had sinned against Yahweh and caused him to become very angry.
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For I was afraid from the face of the nose and the heat with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. And Yahweh listened to me also that time.
I was afraid that because Yahweh was very angry with them, he would get rid of all of them. {But again I prayed that he would not do that}, and again he listened to me {and answered my prayer}.
And Yahweh was very angry against Aaron, to destroy him. And I interceded also for the sake of Aaron at that time.
Yahweh was also very angry with Aaron {for making that golden calf}. Yahweh was ready to kill him. But at the same time I prayed for Aaron also, {and Yahweh answered my prayer}.
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And I took your sin, the calf that you had made, and burned it in the fire and crushed it and ground well, until crushed to dust. And I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain.
Your parents had sinned {by requesting Aaron} to make {a metal figure of} a calf. So I took that figure and I melted it in a fire. Then, I crushed it and ground it into very tiny pieces. Then I threw those tiny pieces into the stream that flowed down the mountain.
And at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you were provoking Yahweh to anger,
Your parents also caused Yahweh to become very angry {by what they did at places that they named} Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth Hattaavah.
and when Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given to you,’ and you rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh your God, and you did not believe him, and you did not listen to his voice.
And when we were at Kadesh Barnea, Yahweh said to your parents, ‘Go and capture the land that I am about to give to you!’ But they rebelled against him. They did not trust him, and they did not obey what he told them to do.
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You have been rebellious against Yahweh from {the} day I knew you.
Your parents rebelled against Yahweh from the first day that I knew them {in Egypt}.
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And I prostrated myself to the face of Yahweh 40 days and 40 nights, and I prostrated myself because Yahweh had said to destroy you.
So, as I said, I lay on the ground in Yahweh’s presence for 40 days and nights because Yahweh had said that he would get rid of your ancestors.
And I prayed to Yahweh and said, ‘My Lord Yahweh, do not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness, which you have brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand.
And I prayed to Yahweh, saying, ‘Lord Yahweh, these people belong to you. Do not destroy them. They are people whom you rescued and brought out of Egypt by your very great power.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not turn to the stiffness of this people and to their wickedness and to their sin,
Do not forget {what you promised} to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ignore how stubborn and wicked these people have been, and the sin that they have committed.
lest the land where you brought us out from should say, “From Yahweh not being able to bring them into the land that he spoke to them, or from his hatred of them he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.”
If you destroy them, the people of Egypt will {hear about it}. They will say that you were not able to bring them into the land that you promised to give to them. They will say that you took them into the desert only to kill them there because you hated them.
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And they {are} your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’
{Remember} that they are your people. You chose them to belong to you. You brought them out {from Egypt} by your very great power.’
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At that time Yahweh said to me, ‘Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain, and make for yourself a box of wood.
Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Cut two stone tablets like the first ones and make a wooden chest to put them in. Then {bring the tablets} up to me on this mountain.
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And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you will put them in the box.’
I will write on those tablets the same words that I wrote on the first tablets, the ones that you broke. Then you can put them in the chest.’
And I made a box of acacia wood, and I carved two tablets of stone like the first, and I went up the mountain, and the two tablets {were} in my hand.
So I made a chest. I used wood from an acacia tree to make it. I cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain carrying the tablets.
And he wrote on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Words which Yahweh had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And Yahweh gave them to me.
There Yahweh wrote on the tablets the {same} Ten Commandments {that he had written on the first tablets}. They are the commandments that he had spoken to your parents from the midst of the fire on the mountain. This was when they had gathered {at the bottom of the mountain}. Then Yahweh gave the tablets to me.
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And I turned and descended from the mountain and put the tablets in the box that I had made. And there they are, as Yahweh commanded me.”
{Carrying the tablets}, I went down the mountain. Then, just as he had commanded, I put them in the chest that I had made and they are still there.”
(And the sons of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And Eleazar, his son, was priest in his place.
(Then, from Beeroth Bene Jaakan, the Israelite people traveled to Moserah. There Aaron died and people buried him. His son Eleazar took his place and became the great priest.
From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.
From there, the Israelites traveled to Gudgodah. From there, they traveled to Jotbathah, which was a place that had many streams.
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At that time Yahweh separated the tribe of Levi to carry the box of the covenant of Yahweh, to stand to the face of Yahweh to serve him, and to bless in his name, until this day.
At that time, Yahweh chose the tribe of Levi to carry the sacred chest {that had the stone tablets}, stand in Yahweh’s presence {in the sacred tent}, offer sacrifices, and pray for Yahweh to bless {the people}. They are still doing those things at the present time.
Therefore, Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brothers. Yahweh, he is his inheritance, as Yahweh your God spoke to him.)
That is the reason that the tribe of Levi did not receive any land like the other tribes did. What they received was the honor of being Yahweh’s {priests}. This is according to what he said they should do.)
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“And I, I stood on the mountain as the first days, 40 days and 40 nights. And Yahweh listened to me that time also. Yahweh was not willing to destroy you.
{Moses continued to speak,} “As for me, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and nights, just like I did the first time. {I prayed,} and Yahweh answered my prayers again. He said that he would not destroy your families.
And Yahweh said to me, ‘Get up, go on {your} journey to the faces of the people. And they will go in and possess the land that I swore to their fathers to give to them.’
Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Continue your journey and lead the people to occupy the land. This is the land that I solemnly promised your ancestors that I would give to you.’
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And now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask from you except to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his paths and to love him and to worship Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
Now, you Israelite people, I will tell you what Yahweh our God says that you do. He requires you to honor him, to conduct your lives as he wants you to, to love him, and to serve him with all that you desire and all that you feel,
to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes, which I am commanding you today for your good?
and to obey all of his commandments which I am giving to you today. This is for your benefit.
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Behold, to Yahweh your God belong the heavens and the heaven of heavens, the earth, and all that {is} in it.
Be aware that Yahweh our God owns even the sky and everything that is in it. He also owns the earth and everything that is on it.
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Only Yahweh took pleasure in your fathers to love them, and he chose you, their seed, after them, from all of the peoples, as this day.
But {although he owns all those things}, Yahweh also loved our ancestors. From all the peoples {on the earth} he chose us, their descendants, and we are still his people.
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And you shall circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and do not stiffen your necks anymore.
You must humble yourself and obey Yahweh’s covenant. Stop being stubborn!
For Yahweh your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty one and the fearsome one, who does not lift up a face and does not take a bribe.
Yahweh our God is greater than all gods, and he is greater than all rulers. He is very powerful. He is impartial, and he does not accept bribes.
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He makes a judgment {for} the fatherless and widow, and he loves a foreigner, giving to him bread and clothing.
He makes sure that people treat orphans and widows fairly. He loves even foreigners who live among us Israelite people. He gives them food and clothes.
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And you shall love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
So you must love those foreigners too. This is because you were once foreigners when you were living in Egypt.
Yahweh your God you shall fear, him you shall serve, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear.
You must deeply respect Yahweh our God, and you must worship him alone. Be faithful to him. When you make a solemn oath, say that he should punish you if you do not do what you have promised.
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He {is} your praise, and he {is} your God, who has done for you these great and fearsome things, which your eyes have seen.
He is the one whom you must praise. He is our God. We have seen the great and awesome things that he has done for us.
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Your fathers went down into Egypt as 70 souls. And now, Yahweh your God has made you like the stars of the heavens in number.
When our ancestors, {Jacob and his family}, went down to Egypt, there were only 70 of them. But now Yahweh our God has caused us to be as numerous as the stars in the sky.
And you shall love Yahweh your God and keep his charge and his statutes and his ordinances and his commandments all of the days.
{Because of all that} Yahweh your God {has done for you}, you must love him. Also, you must continually obey all his rules, decrees, and commandments.
And know today that {it was} not your sons, who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of Yahweh your God—his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm,
Remember that {it was you and your parents,} not your children, who experienced all of the things that Yahweh did to teach you. So I am telling you today to think about everything he did that shows how very great and very powerful he is.
and his signs and his deeds that he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to all his land,
Remember the many different miracles that he performed in Egypt. Think about what he did to the king of Egypt and everything there.
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and what he did to the army of Egypt, to its horses and to its chariots, how he caused the water of the Sea of Reeds to flow over their faces in their pursuit after you, and Yahweh has destroyed them to this day,
Your children did not see Yahweh destroy the army of Egypt, their horses, or their chariots. Your children did not see how Yahweh caused the Sea of Reeds to flood and drown the army of Egypt as they were coming after their ancestors. Yahweh continues to make Egypt’s army weak even to this day.
and what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place,
Your children did not see how Yahweh took care of their families in the desert before they all came to this place.
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and what he had done to Dathan and to Abiram, the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and their tents and every living thing that {was} in their steps, in the midst of all Israel—
Your children did not see what Yahweh did to the rebels, Dathan and Abiram, the two sons of Eliab from the tribe of Reuben. While all of your families were watching, the earth split open, and they fell into the opening and disappeared. Their families, their tents, their servants, and their animals also disappeared with them.
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but your eyes have seen all the great work of Yahweh that he did.
You and your parents have seen all these miracles that Yahweh performed.
And you shall keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today so that you may be strong and go in and possess the land to which you are going over to possess it
So obey all the commandments that I am giving you today. This is so that you will be strong and able to enter and occupy the land after crossing the river.
and so that you may prolong days in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.
This is also so that you will live for a long time in that land. That land is the land that Yahweh solemnly promised your ancestors that he would give to them and to their descendants. The land is very fertile.
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For the land, where you are going in to possess, is not like the land of Egypt, from where you came, where you sowed your seed and watered with your foot, as {for} a garden of herbs.
It is not like the land of Egypt, where your ancestors lived. In Egypt, they struggled to plant seeds and water the plants.
And the land which you are going over to possess it, {is} a land of hills and valleys, drinks water of the rain of the heavens,
But the land that you are about to enter is a land where there are many hills and valleys. In that land there is plenty of rain.
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a land where Yahweh your God cares for it. The eyes of Yahweh your God {are} always upon it, from the beginning of the year and to the end of the year.
Yahweh takes care of that land. He watches over it every day, from the beginning of each year to the end of each year.
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And it will happen, if listening, you will listen to my commandments that I am commanding you today, to love Yahweh your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
Today I am commanding you to love Yahweh our God and to serve him with your entire inner being. If you do that,
then, ‘I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, and you will gather your grain and your new wine and your oil.
each year he will send rain on your land at the right times. As a result, you will have grain and grapes to make wine and olives to make olive oil.
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And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.’
And he will cause grass to grow in your fields for your livestock to eat. You will have all the food that you want.
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Guard yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and bow down to them.
I warn you to be careful. Otherwise, you might stop worshiping Yahweh and worship false gods.
And the nose of Yahweh will burn against you. And he will restrain the heavens and there will be no rain, and the land will not give its fruit, and you will perish quickly from off the good land that Yahweh is giving to you.
If that happens, Yahweh will become very angry with you. He will prevent any rain from falling. As a result, the crops will not grow. You will soon die {from hunger} in the good land that Yahweh is about to give to you.
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And you shall place these words of mine on your heart and on your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they will be as frontlets between your eyes.
So, keep thinking about what Yahweh has commanded you. {Write copies of them} and tie them to your arms and foreheads {to help you to remember them}.
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And you shall teach them to your sons, speaking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
Teach them to your children again and again. Talk about them {at every opportunity,} such as when you are in your houses and when you are walking outside. Talk about them also when you are resting and when you are working.
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And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your city gates.
so that your days and the days of your sons will be multiplied in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to them as the days of the heavens over the earth.
Do this so that you and your descendants will live for a very long time in the land. It is the land that Yahweh promised to our ancestors that he would give to them. That land will belong to you and your descendants forever.
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For if keeping, you will keep all these commandments that I am commanding you to do them, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him,
Faithfully obey what I am commanding you to do. Love Yahweh our God, conduct your lives as he wants you to, and be faithful to him. If you do this,
then Yahweh will drive out all these nations from to your faces, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves.
then Yahweh will drive out all the people groups {in that land} as you advance. These are people groups that are more numerous and more powerful than you are.
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Every place where the sole of your foot will tread upon will be yours; from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, and to the western sea will be your border.
Everywhere you go, the land will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north. It will extend from the Euphrates River in the east to the great sea in the west.
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No man will be able to stand from your faces. Yahweh your God will give the fear of you and the terror of you upon the face of all the land that you tread on, as he has spoken to you.
Yahweh our God will cause all the people in that land to be very afraid of you. No people group will be able to stop you. It will be just as he promised.
Look, I am giving to your faces today a blessing and a curse:
Be aware that today I am telling you that Yahweh will either bless you or he will curse you.
the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you today,
If you obey the commandments of Yahweh our God that I am giving to you today, he will bless you.
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and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God and turn aside from the way that I command you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
But if you do not obey them, stop worshiping him and start worshiping other gods to whom you were never faithful before, he will curse you.
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And it will happen, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which you are going in to possess it, that you will set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
And when Yahweh brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, this is what you must do. {Some of} you {must stand} on top of Mount Gerizim and proclaim what will cause Yahweh to bless you. {The others must stand} on top of Mount Ebal and proclaim what will cause Yahweh to curse you.”
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{Are} they not across the Jordan, following the road of the sun setting, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?
(Those two mountains are west of the Jordan River, west of the plain along the Jordan River, in the land where the Canaanites live. They live close to the sacred trees near Gilgal.)
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For you are crossing over the Jordan to go in to possess the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, and you will possess it and live in it.
“You will soon cross the Jordan River to occupy the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you. When you start to live in that land,
And you will keep doing all the statutes and the ordinances that I set to your faces today.
be sure to obey all the rules and decrees that I am giving to you today.
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These {are} the statutes and the ordinances that you shall keep doing in the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess it, all the days that you live on the earth.
I will now tell you the rules and decrees that you must faithfully obey in the land. Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors worshiped, is giving to you the land to occupy. You must obey these laws all the time that you are alive.
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Destroying, you shall destroy all the places that the nations that you shall dispossess them served their gods there, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.
When you drive out those people groups, you must destroy all the places where they worshiped their gods. These places include places on the tops of mountains and hills and beside large trees.
And you shall break down their altars and shatter their stone pillars and burn their Asherah in the fire. And you shall cut down the carved figures of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.
Tear down their altars, demolish the stone pillars {that they have dedicated to their gods}, burn the poles {that they use when they worship the goddess Asherah}, and chop down their carved idols. This is so that no one will ever worship them in those places again.
You shall not do thus to Yahweh your God.
Do not worship Yahweh as {the people in Canaan worship their gods}.
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But to the place that Yahweh your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, you shall search for his dwelling, and there you shall go.
Instead, you must go to the place that Yahweh will choose for his presence to be. It will be in the area where one of your tribes will live. Look for his house, and go worship him there.
And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the contribution of your hand and your offerings for vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
That is the place where you must bring all of your offerings. These include the wholly burned sacrifice, other sacrifices, one tenth of all your produce and animals, special contributions, sacrifices for promises, unprompted sacrifices, and the firstborn animals from your cattle and sheep.
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And there you shall eat to the face of Yahweh your God and rejoice in all the sending out of your hand, you and your households, where Yahweh your God has blessed you.
There, in the presence of Yahweh our God, you and your families will eat the good things that you have worked to produce, and you will be happy, because he has blessed you {very much}.
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You shall not do as everything that we are doing here today, {every} man {doing} whatever {is} right in his eyes;
{When you are in that land,} you must not do some of the things that we have been doing. Until now, you have all been worshiping Yahweh the way you want to.
for until now you have not come to the rest and to the inheritance that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
This is because you have not yet arrived in the land that he will allow you to permanently possess. There, you will be able to live peacefully.
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And you will cross the Jordan and live in the land that Yahweh your God is causing you to inherit, and he will cause you to rest from all your surrounding enemies, and you will live safely.
After you cross the Jordan River, you will start to live in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you. He will protect you from all your enemies that will surround you. You will live peacefully.
And it will be that the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name stay there, there you will bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand and all your choice offerings for vows that you will vow to Yahweh.
Yahweh will choose one place where he wants you to worship him. That is the place to which you must bring all the offerings that I command you to bring. These include the wholly burned sacrifice, other sacrifices, one tenth of all your produce and animals, special contributions, and sacrifices for promises you make to Yahweh.
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And you will rejoice to the face of Yahweh your God—you and your sons and your daughters and your male servants and your female servants and the Levites who {are} within your gate, because he has no portion nor inheritance among you.
Celebrate there in the presence of Yahweh, with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns. Remember that the Levites will not have their own land, like you do.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Watch yourself lest you offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see;
Do not offer your wholly burnt sacrifice anywhere else.
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except at the place that Yahweh will choose in one of your tribes, there you will offer your burnt offerings, and there you will do everything that I command you.
Only offer them in the place that Yahweh will choose. The place will be in an area that belongs to one of your tribes. That is the only place where you may offer the wholly burnt sacrifice and do the other things that I am commanding you to do {when you worship him}.
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Only, you may kill and eat animals within all your gates, in all the desire of your soul, according to the blessing of Yahweh your God that he has given to you; the unclean and the clean may eat it, such as the gazelle and the deer.
However, you may kill and eat your animals wherever you live as much as you want. These animals are blessings from Yahweh your God. Impure and pure people may eat that meat, just like you would eat the meat of a gazelle or a deer.
Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water.
But do not eat the blood {of any animal}. Let the blood drain onto the ground {before you cook the meat}.
You are not allowed to eat within your gates from the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil and the firstborn of your herd or flock, and any of your vows that you vow and your freewill offerings and the contribution of your hand.
Do not eat any offering for Yahweh where you live. Do not eat the one tenth of your produce and animals that you are set aside for Yahweh. Do not eat any of the offerings for promises, unprompted offerings, or special contributions.
But you shall eat them to the face of Yahweh your God in the place that which Yahweh your God will choose—you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite who {is} within your gates; and you shall rejoice to the face of Yahweh your God in all the sending out of your hand.
Instead, you must eat those offerings in the presence of Yahweh in the place that he chooses. You must do this along with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns. You should rejoice in the presence of Yahweh in everything that you do.
Watch yourself lest you forsake the Levite all your days on your land.
Be sure that you take care of the Levites all during the time that you live in your land.
When Yahweh your God broadens your borders, as he has spoken to you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ due to the desire of your soul to eat meat, you may eat meat in all the desire of your soul.
In the future, Yahweh will give you more territory, as he has promised. At that time, if you want to eat meat in that new territory, you may eat as much as you want.
If the place that Yahweh your God chooses to put his name there is too far from you, then you may sacrifice from your herd and from your flock that Yahweh has given to you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, in all the desire of your soul.
If the place that Yahweh our God chooses for you to worship him is far from {where} you {live}, I will tell you what to do. You may kill and eat some of your animals where you live, as much as you want.
Surely as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you will eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it.
Impure and pure people may eat that meat, just like you would eat the meat of a gazelle or a deer.
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Only be strong, do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and do not eat the life with the meat.
But be sure that you do not eat the blood of any animal. This is because blood keeps humans and animals alive. You must not eat that which sustains life along with the meat.
Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Do not eat the blood. Instead, let it drain onto the ground.
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Do not eat it, so that it may go well for you and for your sons after you, when you will do right in the eyes of Yahweh.
If you obey this command and do what Yahweh says is right for you to do, you and your descendants will prosper.
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But your sacred things that you have and your vow offerings, you shall take and go to the place that Yahweh will choose.
But this is what you must do with your offerings and anything that you promise to give to Yahweh. You must take those things to the place that he will choose.
And you shall make your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of Yahweh your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of Yahweh your God, and you shall eat the meat.
There you will offer the animals for the wholly burned sacrifice on the altar. {You will also offer the fellowship sacrifice there. After you kill the animals, the priest} will take the blood from the animals and splatter it onto every side of the altar. {Then, the priests will receive their portion of the meat.} You may eat {the rest of} the meat.
Keep and listen to all these words that I command you so that it may go well for you and for your sons after you until forever, when you do the good and the right in the eyes of Yahweh your God.
Faithfully obey all these commands. If you do that, you and your descendants will prosper forever. This is because you will be doing what Yahweh our God says is right for you to do.
When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from your face, when you go in there to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and live in their land,
When you enter the land that you will occupy, Yahweh our God will destroy the people groups that live there as you advance.
watch yourself, lest you become trapped after them, after they are destroyed from your face, and lest you inquire for their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? And thus I also will do.’
After he does that, be sure that you do not worship the gods of those people groups. If you do, it will be like a trap that will catch you. Do not ask them how they worshiped their gods just so you can worship Yahweh in the same way.
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Do not do thus to Yahweh your God, for every abomination {to} Yahweh, which he hates, they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire for their gods.
Do not try to worship Yahweh our God as they have worshiped their gods. This is because they do disgusting things when they worship them. Yahweh hates those disgusting things. The worst thing that they do is that they burn their own children on altars for their gods.
Every word that I command you, keep doing it. Do not add on it and do not take away from it.
Be sure to obey all these commands. Do not add anything to these commands, and do not take anything away from them.
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If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises from among you, and he gives to you a sign or a wonder,
In the future, there could be people in your community who say that they are prophets. They may say that they are able to interpret the meaning of dreams or perform various kinds of miracles.
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and the sign or the wonder comes about, which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’ (which you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’
They will say those things to convince you to worship gods that you have never known about before. But even if what they predict happens,
do not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
then do not pay attention to what they say. This is because Yahweh our God will observe how you behave to find out if you love him with all your inner being.
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You shall walk after Yahweh your God and honor him and keep his commandments and listen to his voice, and you shall serve him and cling to him.
You must conduct your lives as Yahweh our God wants you to. You must honor him, do what he tells you to do, and be faithful to him.
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And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has spoken rebellion against Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, and who redeemed you from the house of slaves, to drive you out from the way in which Yahweh your God commanded you to walk. And you shall remove the evil from among you.
But you must execute anyone who tells you to disobey Yahweh our God. This includes anyone who says he is a prophet, or anyone who says that he can interpret dreams. This is because Yahweh himself rescued your families from being slaves in Egypt. Those people want to convince you to disobey what Yahweh has told you to do. Execute them to make sure no one in your community does those kinds of evil acts.
If your brother, the son of your mother or your son or your daughter or the wife of your bosom or your friend who {is} like your life, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (that you have not known, you nor your fathers,
Your brother, son, daughter, wife, or some close friend might privately urge you to disobey. They might urge you to worship other gods that you and your ancestors never knew about before.
from the gods of the peoples that surround you, near to you or far from you, from {one} end of the earth and to the {other} end of the earth)
They might urge you to worship gods that nearby or faraway peoples worship.
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do not yield to him and do not listen to him, and your eye shall not pity him, and do not spare nor hide him.
If any of them do that, then do not do what they suggest. Do not even listen to them. Do not act mercifully toward them, and do not keep secret what they have done.
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Instead, killing, you shall kill him. Your hand shall be the first on him to put him to death, and afterwards, the hand of all the people.
Execute them! Be the first one to {throw stones} at them to kill them. Then, everyone else must {throw stones at them}, too.
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And you shall stone him to death with stones because he seeks to drive you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
Kill such people by throwing stones at them. This is because they tell you to disobey Yahweh our God, who rescued your ancestors from being slaves in Egypt.
And all Israel will hear and fear and will not continue to do as the things of this wickedness among you.
When you have executed that person, all the Israelite people will hear what happened. They will become afraid, and none of them will do such an evil thing again.
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If you hear in one of your cities that Yahweh your God gives to you to live there, saying,
When you are living in one of the towns in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, you may hear
‘Men, sons of wickedness, have gone out from among you and have driven out the inhabitants of their city saying, “Let us go and serve other gods that you have not known,”’
that some worthless people among you are deceiving the people of their town. They might urge you to worship other gods.
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and you shall investigate and search out and ask thoroughly, and behold, the matter {is} an established truth, this abomination has been done in your midst,
Examine the facts about it thoroughly. Suppose you find out that it is true that such a disgraceful thing has happened.
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striking, you shall strike the dwellers of that city to the mouth of the sword, devoting it and all who {are} in it and its livestock to the mouth of the sword.
Then kill all the people in that town and kill all their livestock, too. Destroy the town completely.
And you shall gather all the spoil to the middle of its street and burn the city in fire, and all its spoil completely, for Yahweh your God. And it shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again.
Gather all the possessions that belonged to the people who lived there and pile them up in the city plaza. Then burn the town and everything in it. It will be like a burnt offering to Yahweh. The ruins must stay there forever. People must never rebuild that town.
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And in your hand you shall not cling to anything from the devoted thing, so that Yahweh will turn from the burning of his nose and give to you compassion and have compassion on you and make you increase, as he has sworn to your fathers,
You must not take for yourselves anything that Yahweh has said you must destroy. If you do what I say, Yahweh will stop being angry with you, and he will act mercifully toward you. He will cause you to have many children, which is what he promised our ancestors that he would do.
when you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep all his commandments that I am commanding you today, to do right in the eyes of Yahweh your God.
Yahweh our God will do all those things if you do what he is telling you to do, obey all the commandments that I am giving to you today, and do what Yahweh says is right for you to do.
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You {are} the sons of Yahweh your God. Do not cut yourselves, and do not make a baldness between your eyes for the dead,
We are people who belong to Yahweh our God. Do not gash yourselves or shave the hair on your foreheads when you grieve {like the other people groups do}.
for you {are} a nation set apart for Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his possession, over all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
We belong to Yahweh alone. Yahweh chose us from all the other people groups on the earth to be his special people.
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Do not eat any abominable thing.
Do not eat anything that Yahweh detests.
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These {are} the animals that you may eat: the ox, the sheep from the flock and the goat from the flock,
The animals whose meat you may eat are cattle, sheep, goats,
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the deer and the gazelle and the roebuck and the wild goat and ibex and the antelope and the mountain sheep.
all kinds of deer, gazelles, wild goats, and mountain sheep.
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And you may eat any animal among the animals parting the hoof or {with} a cleft splitting {into} two hooves, chewing the cud.
Those are animals that have split hooves and that also chew the cud.
Despite this, from chewers of the cud and from splitters of the hoof, the cloven-footed, you must not eat: the camel and the rabbit and the rock badger, because they cause the cud to go up and do not part the hoof, they {are} unclean to you.
But there are other animals that chew the cud that you must not eat. Those are camels, rabbits, and rock badgers. They chew the cud, but they do not have split hooves. So they are not acceptable for you to eat.
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And the pig, because he parts the hoof and {chews} not the cud, he {is} unclean to you. From their meat do not eat, and do not touch their carcasses.
Do not eat pigs. They are unacceptable for you to eat. They have split hooves, but they do not {chew} the cud. Do not eat the meat of those animals; do not even touch their dead bodies.
You may eat this from all that is in the water, all that has fins and scales you may eat.
You may eat any fish that has fins and scales.
And all that does not have fins and scales you must not eat; it {is} unclean to you.
But anything else that lives in the water that does not have fins and scales you must not eat. They are unacceptable for you to eat.
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All clean birds you may eat.
You may eat the flesh of any bird that is acceptable to Yahweh.
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And this {is} what you must not eat from them: the eagle, and the large vulture, and the black vulture,
But the birds that you may not eat are eagles, large or black vultures,
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the red kite, and the falcon, and the kite according to its kind,
red kites, falcons, or any kind of kite,
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and any ravenaccording to its kind,
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and the ostrich, and the owl, and the gull, and the hawk according to its kind,
ostriches, owls, sea gulls, any kind of hawk,
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the little owl, and the great owl, and the white owl,
little owls, great owls, white owls,
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and the pelican, and the carrion vulture, and the cormorant,
pelicans, carrion vultures, cormorants,
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and the stork, and the heron according to its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
storks, any kind of heron, hoopoes, or bats.
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And all winged, swarming things are unclean to you; they must not be eaten.
You must not eat any insect with wings and which swarm. They are unacceptable to Yahweh for you to eat.
You may eat all clean flying things.
But other insects with wings are acceptable to eat.
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You must not eat anything dying {of itself}; you may give it to the sojourner who {is} within your gates, and he may eat it or sell to a foreigner. For you {are} a nation sanctified to Yahweh your God.
You must not boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.
Do not eat any animal that has died naturally. You may allow foreigners who live among you to eat those things. You may also sell them to other foreigners. But you are a people group that belongs to Yahweh our God. You must not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother’s milk.
Tithing, you shall tithe all the produce of your seed that comes out of the field year {after} year.
Once each year you must set apart a tenth of all the crops that you gather from your fields.
And you shall eat to the face of Yahweh your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name stay there, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, and your oil and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you will learn to honor Yahweh your God all the days.
Take them to the place that Yahweh our God will choose for you to worship him. There you must eat the tenth of your grain, your wine, your olive oil, and the meat of the firstborn male animals of your cattle and your sheep. Do this in order that you may learn to always honor Yahweh. {He has blessed you by giving you these things.}
And if the journey is too long for you, that you are not able to carry it (because the place that Yahweh your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you), when Yahweh your God blesses you,
It could be that the place that Yahweh has chosen for you to worship him is very far from your home. As a result, you might not be able to take the tenth of your crops which are a blessing from Yahweh.
then you may give it in silver, and bind the silver in your hand, and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose it.
In that case, you must sell the tenth of your crops for money. Then, wrap the money carefully in a cloth and take it with you to the place of worship that Yahweh has chosen.
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And give the money for anything that your soul desires, for oxen or for sheep or for wine or for strong drink or for anything that your soul desires, and you shall eat there to the face of Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.
There, with that money, you may buy whatever you want to. It could be beef, lamb, wine, or fermented drinks. There, in the presence of Yahweh, you and your families should eat and drink those things and be happy.
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And the Levite who {is} within your gates, do not forsake him, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
But be sure to not neglect to help the descendants of Levi who live in your towns, because they will not own any land.
At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and you shall deposit {it} within your gates;
At the end of every three years, bring a tenth of all your crops that you have produced in that year and store it in your towns.
and the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow who {are} within your gates, will come and eat and be satisfied so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.
That food will be for the descendants of Levi, because they will not have their own land. That food will also be for the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. They may come {to where the food is stored} and take what they need. Do that in order that Yahweh our God will bless you in everything that you do.
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At the end of seven years, you shall make a remission.
At the end of {every} seven years, you must cancel all debts.
And this {is} the word of the remission: Every owner of debt shall release his hand that he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not oppress his neighbor and his brother, because the remission of Yahweh has been proclaimed.
Do it like this: Each of you who has lent money to a fellow Israelite must cancel that debt. You must not insist that he pay it back. You must do that because Yahweh has declared the cancelation of debts every seven years.
You may collect {from} a foreigner, and what is yours {with} your brother your hand shall release.
During that year you may require foreigners who live among you to pay what they owe you, but you must not demand that from any fellow Israelite.
However, there should be no poor among you (for blessing, Yahweh will bless you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance, to possess it),
Yahweh our God will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. If you obey Yahweh our God and obey all the commandments that I am giving to you today, then there will not be any poor people among you. (vv4-5)
if only listening, you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep doing all these commandments that I am commanding you today.
Yahweh our God will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. If you obey Yahweh our God and obey all the commandments that I am giving to you today, then there will not be any poor people among you. (vv4-5)
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For Yahweh your God will bless you, as he spoke to you; you will lend to many nations, and you, you will not borrow, and you will rule over many nations, and they will not rule over you.
Yahweh our God will bless you like he has promised to do. You will be able to lend money to people of other people groups, but, for your part, you will not need a loan from any of them. You will control many people groups, but they will not control you.
If there is poor among you, from one of your brothers, within one of your gates in your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, do not harden your heart, and do not shut your hand from your poor brother,
In the towns that Yahweh our God is giving to you, if it happens that there are any Israelites there who are poor, then do not be selfish and refuse to help them.
but opening, you shall open your hand to him and lending, you shall lend him enough {for} his need that he has need.
Instead, be generous and lend them the money that they need.
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Watch yourselves, lest there be a wicked matter in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, {is} near,’ and you do wrong in your eyes against your poor brother and do not give to him, and he calls out to Yahweh about you, and it would be sin for you.
When the year of canceling debts is near, do not think to yourself that {you should not lend anyone money because} they will not need to pay it back. It would be evil to withhold help from a needy fellow Israelite. If you do that, he could pray to Yahweh against you. Then {Yahweh will say that} you have sinned by not helping that person.
Giving, you shall give to him, and your heart shall not do evil in your giving to him, because of this matter Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work and in all the sending out of your hand.
Give generously to poor people and not grudgingly. If you give generously to them, Yahweh will bless you in everything that you do.
For the poor will not cease to be among the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘Opening, you shall open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor in your land.’
There will always be some poor people in your land, so I command you to give generously to poor people, to your fellow Israelites.
If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must send him out free from you.
If any of your fellow Israelite men or women sell themselves to one of you {to become your slave}, then you must free them after they have worked for you for six years. When the seventh year comes, you must free them.
And when you send him out free from you, you must not send him emptily.
When you free them, do not allow them to go empty-handed.
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Providing, you shall liberally provide for him from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your winepress. As Yahweh your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
Instead, give to them generously from the things with which Yahweh has blessed you—sheep, grain, and wine.
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And you must remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God redeemed you; therefore I am commanding you today this matter.
Do not forget that your ancestors were once slaves in Egypt and that Yahweh our God freed them. So, I am now commanding you to do this.
And it will be, if he says to you, ‘I will not go from you,’ because he loves you and your house, because {it is} good for him {to be} with you,
It may happen that one of your slaves tells you they do not want to leave you. Perhaps he loves you and your household because you have treated him well.
then you shall take an awl and put {it} through his ear and to the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And also you shall do thus to your female slave.
In that case, take him to the door of your house. While he is standing against the doorway, pierce one of his earlobes with an awl. That will indicate that he will be your slave for the rest of his life. Do the same thing to any female slave {who does not want to leave you}.
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It must not seem difficult in your eyes when you send him out free from you, for double the wage of a hired man he has served you six years. And Yahweh your God will bless you in all that you do.
Do not complain when you are required to free your slaves. Keep in mind that they served you for six years, and you got double the value in comparison with a hired worker. If you free them, Yahweh our God will bless you in everything that you do.
All the firstborn that are born in your herd and your flock, you shall sanctify the males to Yahweh your God. You shall not work with the firstborn of your herd, and you shall not shear the firstborn of your flock.
Set aside for the honor of Yahweh our God the firstborn male animals from your cattle and sheep. Do not force them to do any work for you, and do not shear the wool of the firstborn animals.
You must eat it year by year to the face of Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh will choose, you and your house.
Each year, you and your family must kill them and eat their meat in the presence of Yahweh at the place that he chooses for you to worship him.
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And if it has on it a blemish (lame or blind, any severe blemish), you must not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God.
But if the animals have any defects, if they are lame or blind, or if they have any other serious defect, then you must not sacrifice them to Yahweh our God.
You shall eat it within your gates, the unclean and the clean alike, as a gazelle or a deer.
You may kill and eat the meat of those animals in your towns. The impure and pure people {may eat it}, just like {anyone may eat} the meat of a gazelle or a deer.
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Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it on the ground like water.
But you must not eat any of the blood. You must drain all the blood on the ground when you kill those animals.
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Keeping the month of Aviv, and you shall make the Passover to Yahweh your God, for in the month of Aviv, Yahweh your God brought you out from Egypt {by} night.
{Each year} honor Yahweh our God in the early spring with the Passover Celebration. It was on a night in the early spring that Yahweh rescued your families from Egypt.
And you shall sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, the flock and the herd, in the place that Yahweh will choose to make his name stay there.
In order to celebrate, go to the place that Yahweh will choose for you to worship him. There, sacrifice one young animal from your sheep or cattle to Yahweh.
You shall not eat with it leavened bread, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread on it, the bread of affliction, for you came out from the land of Egypt in haste. Thus, you will remember the day of your exit from the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
When you eat the Passover meal, the bread that you eat must not have yeast in it. You must eat this kind of bread, called the bread of suffering, for seven days. This is to help you to always remember {that your families were suffering in Egypt because they were slaves.} When they left Egypt, they left very quickly.
And no yeast shall be seen among you in all your borders seven days, and nothing from the meat that you sacrifice in the evening on the first day shall remain until the morning.
During the Passover Celebration, which will last for seven days, you must not have any yeast {in any house} in your land. Furthermore, you must eat the meat of the animal that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day of the Passover Festival during that night. Do not allow any of it to remain until the next day.
You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
You must offer the Passover sacrifice only at the place that he chooses for you to worship him. Do not offer that sacrifice in any other town in the land that Yahweh is giving to you. Offer that sacrifice when the sun is setting, at the same time of day that your ancestors started to leave Egypt.
(vv5-6)
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Instead, at the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name stay there, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at the going down of the sun, at the appointed time of your exit from Egypt.
You must offer the Passover sacrifice only at the place that he chooses for you to worship him. Do not offer that sacrifice in any other town in the land that Yahweh is giving to you. Offer that sacrifice when the sun is setting, at the same time of day that your ancestors started to leave Egypt.
(vv5-6)
And you shall cook and eat in the place which Yahweh your God will choose it, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.
Cook the meat and eat it at the place of worship that Yahweh our God chooses. The next morning, you may return to your tents.
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Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day {is} a festive assembly for Yahweh your God, do not do work.
Each day for six days the bread that you eat must have no yeast in it. On the seventh day, you must all gather to worship Yahweh our God. You must not do any work on that day.
You shall count seven weeks for yourself; from the beginning of the sickle on the grain you shall start counting seven weeks.
Each year, from the day that you start to harvest your grain, count seven weeks.
And you shall make the Festival of Weeks for Yahweh your God {with} the contribution of a freewill offering of your hand that you shall give, as Yahweh your God has blessed you.
Then, to honor Yahweh our God, celebrate the Celebration of Weeks. Do that by bringing to him an offering {of grain}. Yahweh has blessed you by causing it to grow in your fields during that year. If you had a big harvest, bring a big offering. If you had a small harvest, bring a small offering.
And you will rejoice to the face of Yahweh your God—you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite who {is} within your gates and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow who {are} among you, in the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name stay there.
You should be joyful in the presence of Yahweh. Their children, their servants, the descendants of Levi who are in that town, and the foreigners, orphans, and widows who are living among you, should also be joyful. Bring those offerings to the place of worship that Yahweh will choose.
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And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall keep and do these statutes.
When you celebrate these festivals by obeying these commands, remember that your families were slaves in Egypt.
You must make the Festival of Shelters for yourselves seven days into your gathering from your threshing floor and from your winepress.
Each year, after you have threshed all your grain and pressed the juice from all your grapes, you must celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days.
And you shall rejoice in your festival—you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow who {are} within your gates.
Each married couple along with their children, their servants, the descendants of Levi who are in that town, and the foreigners, orphans, and widows who are living among you, should be joyful in the presence of Yahweh.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Seven days you shall celebrate for Yahweh your God at the place that Yahweh will choose, because Yahweh your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and you will be completely joyful.
Honor Yahweh our God by celebrating this festival for seven days in the place that he chooses for you to worship him. You should all be joyful, because Yahweh will have blessed your harvest and all the other work that you have done.
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Three times in a year all your males shall appear to the face of Yahweh your God at the place that he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread and at the Festival of Weeks and at the Festival of Shelters. And he shall not appear to the face of Yahweh emptily,
So, each year all of you Israelite men must gather to worship Yahweh our God at the place that he will choose, to celebrate three festivals: The Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters. No one should come before Yahweh without an offering.
{every} man according to the giving of his hand, according to the blessing of Yahweh your God that he has given to you.
Every man {must give} in proportion to the blessings that Yahweh has given you {during that year}.
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You shall set for yourself judges and officers within all your gates that Yahweh your God is giving to you, from your tribes, and they shall judge the people {with} righteous judgment.
Appoint judges and other officials throughout your tribes, in all the towns in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you. They must judge people fairly.
You shall not twist a judgment; you shall not recognize a face and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.
They must not judge unjustly. They must not favor one person more than another. The judges must not accept bribes because a bribe causes a wise person to ignore what is right and misrepresent the words of righteous people.
Righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue, so that you will live and possess the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
You must be completely fair and just, in order that you may live long enough to occupy the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you.
You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah, any pole, beside the altar of Yahweh your God, which you shall make for yourself.
When you make an altar to worship Yahweh our God, do not put next to it any wooden pole that represents the goddess Asherah.
And you shall not erect for yourself a pillar, which Yahweh your God hates.
And do not set up any stone pillar to worship any idol, because Yahweh hates them.
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Do not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep that has on it a blemish, any bad thing, for it {is} an abomination to Yahweh your God.
Do not sacrifice to Yahweh our God any cattle, sheep, or goat that has any defect. This is because Yahweh detests that kind of gift.
If {there} is found among you, in any of your gates that Yahweh your God is giving to you, a man or a woman who does evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, transgressing his covenant,
{When you are living in the land} in one of your towns that Yahweh our God is giving to you, suppose that you discover that some man or woman sins against Yahweh by disobeying the agreement that he has made with you.
and he followed and served other gods and bowed down to them and to the sun or to the moon or to any of the multitude of the heavens, which I have not commanded,
Suppose that the person has worshiped other gods, the sun, the moon, or the stars. Remember that I commanded you not to do this.
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and {it} is told to you, and you listen, and you investigate thoroughly, and behold, the matter {is} an established truth, this abomination has been done in Israel,
Suppose that someone tells you of this idol worship, and you confirm that this detestable thing has happened in Israel.
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then you shall bring that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to your gates, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them with stones, and they shall die.
In that case, you must take the man or woman who has sinned outside of your town. Then you must kill that person by throwing stones at him or her.
At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall die. He shall not die at the mouth of one witness.
At least two people must confirm that they saw the person sin before you execute that person. If only one person says they saw the sin happen, you must not kill the accused person.
The hand of the witnesses shall be the first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people, and you shall remove the evil from among you.
The people who saw the sin happen should throw stones at the guilty person. Then all the other people from that town should throw stones until the guilty person dies. By doing that, you will make sure no one from your community does this evil action of worshiping idols.
If a case is too difficult for you to judge, between blood and blood, between a lawsuit and a lawsuit, and between an assault and an assault, cases of dispute in your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Yahweh your God will choose it.
Sometimes it will be very difficult for a judge to decide what really happened. It could be that he must decide whether someone killed another on purpose or accidentally. Or, it could be that he must decide if one person or another has the legal right in a case. Or, it could be that he must decide whether someone hurt another, or the property of another. If in any town it is very difficult to know what really happened, and the judge cannot decide it, then you should go to the place where Yahweh our God will choose for you to worship him.
And you shall go to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge who will be {there} at that time, and you shall inquire, and they will tell you the word of the judgment.
There, you should explain the case to the descendants of Levi who are priests, and to the judge who is serving at that time. They should decide what should be done.
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And you shall do according to the mouth of the word that they tell you, from that place that Yahweh will choose, and keep doing according to all that they teach you.
After they make their decision, you must do what they tell you to do.
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According to the mouth of the law that they teach you, and according to the judgment that they say to you, you shall do. Do not turn aside from the word that they tell you, right or left.
Accept what they have decided, by doing what they say that you should do. Do not try to change in any way what they have decided.
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And the man who does arrogantly, not listening to the priest who is standing there to serve Yahweh your God, or to the judge, then that man shall die, and you shall remove the evil from Israel.
You must execute anyone who proudly disobeys the judge or the priest who stands there in the presence of Yahweh and decides what should be done. By doing that, you will make sure no one from all the Israelites does this evil action.
And all the people will hear and fear and be arrogant no more.
Then after that person is executed, all the people will hear about it, and they will be afraid. None of them will proudly disobey anymore.
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When you have come to the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, ‘I shall set a king over myself, like all the nations that surround me,’
After you occupy and live in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, you might want a king to rule over you, as the nearby peoples do.
setting, you shall set as king over yourself him whom Yahweh your God will choose. You shall set as king over yourself from among your brothers. You shall not put a foreign man, who is not your brother, over yourself.
{Yahweh our God will permit you to have a king.} But, be sure that you appoint someone whom he has chosen. Your king must be an Israelite. A foreigner cannot be your king.
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Only he shall not multiply horses for himself, so that he shall not cause the people to return to Egypt so that he may multiply horses, for Yahweh said to you, ‘You will no longer return that way again.’
After he becomes the king, he should not own a large number of horses. He should not send people to Egypt to buy horses for him. Remember that Yahweh told you that you would never return to Egypt.
And he shall not multiply wives for himself, and his heart will not turn aside. And he shall not multiply for himself silver and gold excessively.
And he must not marry a lot of wives. If he did that, they might cause him to stop worshiping Yahweh. He must not obtain a lot of silver and gold.
And it will be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, then he shall write for himself in a scroll a copy of this law from to the faces of the priests, the Levites,
When he becomes your king, he must copy these laws on a scroll. He must copy them from the scroll the priests descended from Levi keep.
and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them,
He must keep this new scroll near him and read from it every day of his life. This is so that he may learn to have an awesome respect for Yahweh. Also, this is so that he may faithfully obey all the rules of his law.
so that his heart is not lifted up above his brothers, and so that he does not turn aside from the commandments, right or left, so that he will prolong days in his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.
If he does that, he will not think that he is more important than his fellow Israelites and he will completely obey Yahweh’s commands. As a result, he and his descendants will rule as kings in Israel for many years.
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The priests, the Levites, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the gifts of Yahweh as his inheritance.
The priests, who are all from the tribe of Levi, will not receive any land in Israel. Instead, they will receive some of the food that other people offer to Yahweh.
And he shall have no inheritance among his brothers; Yahweh is his inheritance, as he spoke to him.
They will not receive any land like the other tribes will. What they will receive is the honor of being Yahweh’s priests, which is what he promised them.
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And this is the ordinance of the priests, from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether an oxen or a sheep, and they shall give the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach to the priest.
This is what the law requires that the people do for the priests. When the people bring an ox or a sheep as a sacrifice, they must give to the priests the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach of those animals.
The firstfruits of your grain, your new wine and your oil and the first of the fleece of your sheep you shall give to him.
You must also give to them the first part of the grain that you harvest, the wine and olive oil that you make, and the wool that you shear from your sheep.
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For Yahweh your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to serve in the name of Yahweh, him and his sons, all of the days.
You must do this because Yahweh our God has chosen the tribe of Levi from all of your tribes. He did this so that they would always be the priests who would serve him.
And if a Levite comes from one of your towns from all Israel where he is living there and desires with all his soul to come to the place that Yahweh will choose,
Suppose that a man from the tribe of Levi who has been living in one of the towns in Israel wants to live in the place of worship that Yahweh has chosen.
then he shall serve in the name of Yahweh his God as all his brothers, the Levites, who stand there to the face of Yahweh.
In that case, he may serve Yahweh there as a priest, just like the other men from the tribe of Levi who have been serving there.
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They shall eat portions alike portions, besides from the sale of his fathers.
He must receive the same amount of food that the other priests receive. He may keep any money that he gets from selling family possessions.
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When you have come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, you shall not learn to do as the abominations of those nations.
When you enter the land that Yahweh our God is giving you, you must not imitate the disgusting things that the people groups who are there now do.
There shall not be found among you one who causes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, a user of divination, a soothsayer or a diviner or a sorcerer
You must not sacrifice any of your children by burning them {on your altars}. Do not try to use magic or omens to discover what will happen in the future. Do not practice sorcery.
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or a maker of charms or a questioner of mediums or a conjurer of spirits or a seeker of the dead.
Do not put spells on people. Do not try to talk with spirits of dead people.
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For all who do these {are} an abomination {to} Yahweh, and because of these abominations, Yahweh your God is driving them out from your face.
You must not do those things, because Yahweh hates people who do any of those disgusting things. He is going to drive out these people groups to benefit you because they do those disgusting things.
You shall be blameless with Yahweh your God.
But you must be completely pure for Yahweh {and avoid doing any of those disgusting things}.
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For these nations, those which you will dispossess, listen to soothsayers and to diviners, but you, thus Yahweh your God has not allowed you.
The people groups that you are about to expel from the land rely on fortune-tellers and people who practice divination. But as for you, Yahweh our God does not allow you to do that.
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Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him,
Some day he will send from your people a prophet like me. You must obey him.
according to all that you asked from Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘We will not continue to hear the voice of Yahweh our God, and we will not see this great fire anymore, or we will die.’
On the day that your ancestors gathered at the bottom of the mountain at Horeb, they begged me for help. They told me that they did not want Yahweh to speak to them again. They did not want to see the huge fire {that burned on the mountain}. They were afraid that they would die if Yahweh spoke to them again.
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And Yahweh said to me, ‘What they have said is good.
Then Yahweh said to me, ‘I agree with them.
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I shall raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers, like you. And I shall set my words on his lips, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
So I will send them a prophet from their people like you. I will tell him what to say, and then he will tell people everything that I tell him to say.
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And it will happen, the man who does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name, I, I will require {it} from him.
If any person does not obey what I have told him to say, then I myself will punish that person.
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But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, then that prophet shall die.’
There could be someone who pridefully says that he is a prophet and that his message comes from me, but I did not send him. Or, there could be someone who speaks a message that he says other gods have revealed to him. You must execute that person.’
And thus you must say in your heart, ‘How will we recognize a word that Yahweh has not spoken?’
Maybe you wonder how you can tell if a message that someone tells you does not come from Yahweh.
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When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, and the thing does not happen and does not come to pass, it {is} a word that Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it in presumption; you shall not be afraid of him.
If a person claims to be a prophet who speaks for Yahweh, but what that person said will happen does not happen, then {you will know that} Yahweh did not reveal that message to him. That person said it just so that others would think that he is important, and you do not need to take that person seriously.
When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations, that Yahweh your God is giving their land to you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and their houses,
Yahweh our God will destroy the people groups from the land that he is giving to you. You will drive them out from their towns and you start to live in their homes. After that,
you shall select three cities for yourself in the midst of your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to possess it.
you must divide into three parts the land that Yahweh is giving to you. Then select a city in each part. You must make good roads {in order that people can get to those cities easily}. Someone who kills another person can escape to one of those cities to be safe.
(vv2-3)
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You shall prepare for yourself a road and make the borders of your land three, which Yahweh your God is causing you to inherit, and it will be, everyone who murders shall flee there.
you must divide into three parts the land that Yahweh is giving to you. Then select a city in each part. You must make good roads {in order that people can get to those cities easily}. Someone who kills another person can escape to one of those cities to be safe.
(vv2-3)
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And this {is} the matter of the killer who flees there and lives (who strikes his neighbor without knowledge, and he did not hate him from previous times,
This is the rule for someone who has killed another person. If someone accidentally kills another person who was not his enemy, he may escape to one of those cities and be safe.
and who goes into the forest {with} his neighbor to chop wood and his hand swings with the ax to cut the wood, and the iron detaches from the wood and finds his neighbor, and he dies), he shall flee to one of these cities and live.
There could be a case where two men go into the forest to cut some wood. The ax head might come off the handle while one of the men cuts wood. Then, the ax head might hit and kill the other man. In that case, the man who was using the ax may run to one of those cities and be safe there. {The people of that city will protect him.}
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Lest the avenger of blood pursue after the killer when his heart is heated and overtake him, because the way is long, and he strike him {to} the life, and he did not have a judgment of death, for he had not hated him from previous times.
{If there were only one city for the killer to run to,} the killer could be very far away from a safe city. A judge may decide not to execute the killer because the killing was an accident. Then, a relative of the victim may seek revenge and kill the man in anger before the man can arrive at a safe city.
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Therefore I command you, saying, ‘Select three cities for yourself.’
Therefore, I order you to choose three cities {for this purpose}.
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And if Yahweh your God enlarges your borders, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives to you all the land that he spoke {about} to give to your fathers;
Do everything that I am today commanding you to do. Love Yahweh our God and obey his instructions continually. If you do that, Yahweh our God will give you much more land {than you will have when you first inhabit the land}. You will receive all the land according to what he promised your ancestors. When that happens, select three more cities {in the new land for people to escape to}. (vv8-9)
if you keep all these commandments to do them, which I am commanding you today—to love Yahweh your God and to walk in his ways all of the days—then you shall add three more cities for yourself, more than these three.
Do everything that I am today commanding you to do. Love Yahweh our God and obey his instructions continually. If you do that, Yahweh our God will give you much more land {than you will have when you first inhabit the land}. You will receive all the land according to what he promised your ancestors. When that happens, select three more cities {in the new land for people to escape to}. (vv8-9)
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Then you shall not spill innocent blood in the midst of the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance, and bloodshed be upon you.
As a result, innocent people will not die, and you will not be guilty for allowing them to die in the land that Yahweh is giving to you.
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And if there is a man who hates his neighbor and ambushes him and rises up against him and strikes him {to} the life, and he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,
In a case where someone hates another person, he might hide and wait for this person to pass by. Then, he might attack and murder this person. In this situation, if the attacker flees to one of those cities,
then the elders of his city shall send out and take him from there and give him into the hand of the avenger of blood, then he shall die.
the elders of the murderer’s hometown {are responsible for punishing him. They} must send someone to the city where the murderer is hiding and arrest him. Then they must bring him to the victim’s relative who is responsible for avenging the murder so that the relative may execute the murderer.
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Your eye shall not pity him, and you shall remove the blood of the innocent from Israel, and it will go well for you.
Do not pity killers! {Instead, you must execute them.} This is so that you Israelites will not be responsible for the deaths of innocent people. This is also so that you may prosper.
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You shall not displace the boundary of your neighbor of which he first set the bounds, in your inheritance that you will inherit, in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to possess it.
In the land that Yahweh is giving you, your ancestors placed stones to mark the borders of properties. When you occupy that land, do not move those markers.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins; upon the mouth of two witnesses or upon the mouth of three witnesses a matter may be raised.
When someone accuses another person of any kind of wrong activity or of sinning in any way, one person who says, ‘I saw him do it’ is not enough {to convict him}. There must be at least two or three people who say that they saw him do it in order for the judge to accept that what he says is true.
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If a false witness rises up against a man to testify falsehood against him,
Suppose that someone falsely testifies that they saw a man sin.
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then the two men who have the controversy shall stand to the face of Yahweh, to the faces of the priests and the judges who will be in those days.
Both the accuser and the accused must go to the place of worship. There, they must talk to the priests and judges who are serving at that time.
And the judges shall inquire thoroughly, and behold, {if the} witness {is} false (the false witness testified against his brother),
The judges must investigate the case carefully. If the judges discover that one man falsely testified against the other,
then you shall do to him as he had planned to do to his brother, and you shall remove the evil from among you.
then the people must punish the false witness. The punishment must be the same as the punishment he suggested for the man that he accused. As a result, you will make sure no one from Israel does this evil action.
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Then the remnant will hear and fear and will not continue to do anymore as this evil thing among you.
The rest of the Israelites will learn about the punishment. They will be afraid of the punishment, so they will not testify falsely.
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And your eyes shall not have 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.
Do not pity that person. If he killed someone, you must kill him. In the same way, {if he harmed} someone’s eye, tooth, hand, or foot, {you must cause the same harm to him}.
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When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses and chariots, a people more numerous than you, you shall not be afraid of them, for Yahweh your God {is} with you, who raised you up from the land of Egypt.
When your fighting men go to fight your enemies and see that they have many horses and chariots and that their army is much bigger than yours, do not be afraid of them, because Yahweh our God, who brought the Israelites safely out of Egypt, will be with you.
And it will be, as you draw near to the battle, then the priest shall approach and speak to the people.
When you are ready to start the battle, the high priest must stand in front of the fighting men.
And he shall say to them, ‘Hear, Israel, you are approaching today to battle against your enemies. You shall not soften your hearts. You shall not fear or panic or be terrified of them,
He must say to them, ‘Listen to me Israelite men! Today you are going to fight against our enemies. Do not be timid! Do not be afraid of them in any way at all,
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for Yahweh your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’
because Yahweh our God will go with you. He will fight your enemies for you, and he will enable you to defeat them.’
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And the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Who {is} the man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it.
Then the leaders must say to the fighting men, ‘If anyone among you has just built a new house and has not dedicated it {to God}, he should go home {and dedicate the house}. If he does not do that, if he dies in the battle, someone else will dedicate the house {and live in it}.
And who {is} the man who has planted a vineyard and has not put it into use? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man put it to use.
If anyone among you has planted a vineyard and has not yet harvested any grapes from it, he should go home. If he stays here and dies in the battle, someone else will harvest the grapes and enjoy the wine made from them.
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And who {is} the man who is engaged {to} a woman and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man take her.’
If anyone among you has become engaged to marry a woman but has not married her yet, he should go home {and marry her}. If he stays here and dies in the battle, someone else will marry her.’
And the officers shall continue to speak to the people and say, ‘Who {is} the man who fears and {is} soft of heart? Let him go and return to his house, and the heart of his brother will not melt like his heart.’
Then the leaders must also say to the fighting men, ‘If anyone among you is afraid or timid, he should go home, in order that he does not cause his fellow soldiers to be afraid like him.’
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And it will be, as the officers finish speaking to the people, then they shall appoint leaders of the armies as heads of the people.
When the leaders have finished speaking to the fighting men, they must appoint commanders over them.
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When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then you shall call to it for peace.
When you go up to a city {that is far away} to attack it, first tell the people there that if they surrender, you will not attack them.
And it will be, if it answers, ‘Peace,’ and opens to you, then it will be, all the people found in it shall become for you as forced labor and serve you.
If they open the gates of the city and surrender, they will all become your slaves to work for you.
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But if it does not make peace with you and makes war with you, then you shall siege upon it,
But if they refuse to surrender peacefully and decide instead to fight against you, your troops must surround the city and break through the walls.
and Yahweh your God will give it into your hand, and you shall strike every male by the mouth of the sword.
Then, when Yahweh our God enables you to capture the city, you must kill all the men in the city.
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But the women and the children and the cattle and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself, and you shall consume the spoil of your enemies, whom Yahweh your God has given to you.
But you may take for yourselves the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else that you want to take from the city. You may enjoy all the things that belonged to your enemies, the things that Yahweh our God has given to you.
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Thus you shall do to all the cities very far from you, which {are} not from the cities of these nations here.
That is how you should make war against all the people in cities that are far from the land in which you will settle, not the people in cities in your land.
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Only from the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance, all breathing things shall not live.
But in the cities that are in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you forever, you must kill all the people and all the animals.
But devoting, you shall devote them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you,
You must completely get rid of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Yahweh our God commands you to do this.
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so that they do not teach you to do like any of their abominations that they do for their gods, for you will sin against Yahweh your God.
If you do not do that, they will teach you to sin against Yahweh our God by doing the disgusting things that they do when they worship their gods.
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When you lay siege to a city many days, battling against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against it, for you shall eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man to come from your face in the siege?
When you surround a city for a long time, trying to capture it, do not cut down the fruit trees outside the city. You are allowed to eat the fruit from the trees, but do not destroy the trees, because they certainly are not your enemies.
But a tree that you know that is not a tree for food, you shall destroy it and cut down, and you shall build siege works against the city which it makes war with you, until it falls.
You are permitted to cut down trees you know do not bear fruit and use the wood to make ladders and towers to enable you to go over the walls and capture the city that is resisting you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
If one slain is found in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to possess it, fallen in the field, {and} it is not known who has struck him,
Suppose that while you are living in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you to inherit, you find the body of a person that someone murdered. If you do not know who killed that person because it was in a field,
then your elders and your judges shall go out, and they shall measure to the cities that surround the slain.
your elders and judges must go out to where someone found the body and measure the distance from there to each of the nearby towns.
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And it will be, the town nearest to the slain, and the elders of that town shall take a heifer of the herd, one that has not been put to work, which has not drawn a yoke.
Then the elders in the closest town must select a cow that has not had a baby and has never pulled with a yoke, that is, she has never done any work.
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And the elders of that city shall cause the heifer to descend to a valley with running water, that has not been worked in, nor sown, and there they shall break the neck of the heifer in the valley.
They must take it to a place near a stream where the ground has never been plowed or planted. There they must break its neck.
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And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to serve him and give blessing in the name of Yahweh, and upon their mouth is every dispute and every assault.
The priests must go there also, because Yahweh our God has chosen them from the tribe of Levi to serve him and to be his representatives when they bless people. He has also chosen them to settle disputes involving injuries.
And all the elders of that city, the nearest one to the slain, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,
The elders from the closest town to the body must wash their hands over the young cow whose neck they break, there in the valley.
and they shall respond and say, ‘Our hands have not spilled this blood, and our eyes have not seen.
They must say, ‘We did not murder this person, and we did not see who did it.
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Cover, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not put the blood of the innocent in the midst of your people Israel.’ And the blood will be covered for them.
Yahweh, forgive us, your Israelite people whom you rescued {from Egypt}. Do not consider us guilty for murdering an innocent person.’ When they do this, Yahweh will forgive the Israelites for the murder,
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And you shall remove the blood of the innocent from your midst, when you do right in the eyes of Yahweh.
because you will be doing what Yahweh considers to be right. You will not be considered guilty for murdering that person.
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When you go out to battle against your enemies, and Yahweh your God gives them into your hands and you take its captive captive,
When your fighting men go to fight against your enemies, and Yahweh our God enables you to defeat them, and they become your prisoners,
and you see among the captives a woman of beautiful form, and you desire her and take for yourself as a wife,
one of you may see among them a beautiful woman that he likes, and he may want to marry her.
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then you shall bring her to the midst of your house. And she shall shave her head and do her nails,
He should take her to his home, and there she must shave all the hair off her head and cut her fingernails.
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and she shall remove the clothes of her captivity from upon her, and she shall live in your house and weep {for} her father and her mother a month of days. And afterwards, you shall go in to her and marry her, and she shall be your wife.
She must change out of the clothes that she was wearing when she was captured. She must stay in that man’s house and mourn for her parents for a month. After that, he may marry her and have sex with her.
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And it will be, if you do not delight in her, then you shall send her to her desires, but you surely shall not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her in return for humiliating her.
Later, if he no longer is pleased with her, he must let her leave him and go wherever she wants. But because {sending her away} will humiliate her, he may not sell her to anyone else like a slave.
If a man has two wives, one loved and one hated, and they have borne him sons, the loved and the hated, and it happens that the firstborn son {is} of the hated,
Suppose that a man has two wives, but he loves one of them more than the other. Suppose that they both give birth to sons, and that the oldest son is the child of the woman that he does not favor.
then it will be, on the day he causes his sons to inherit what he has, he shall not {make} the son of the beloved as the firstborn upon the face of the son of the hated, the firstborn.
On the day when that man decides which of his possessions each son will obtain after he dies, he must not favor the son of the wife that he loves by giving him the larger share that should go to the firstborn son of the wife he does not favor.
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But, he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the hated, giving to him a double portion of all that is found of his; for he {is} the beginning of his strength; the regulation of the firstborn {is} his.
He must give the firstborn son twice as much of his possessions as he gives to any other sons, even though he is from the wife whom he does not favor. That son is the first proof that the father can reproduce, and the largest share belongs to him because he was born first.
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If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they chastise him, but he will not listen to them,
Suppose there is a young man who is very stubborn and is always rebelling against his parents, and who will not heed what they say to him. Suppose that they punish him but he still does not pay attention to what they tell him.
then his father and his mother shall seize him and bring him to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place.
If that happens, his parents must take him to the gate of the city where they live and have him stand in front of the elders of the city.
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And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours {is} stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; {he is} a glutton and a drunkard.’
Then the parents must say to the elders of that city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and always rebelling against us. He will not pay attention to what we tell him. He eats too much, and he gets drunk.’
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, and he shall die; and you shall remove the evil from among you. And all Israel will hear and fear.
Then all the men of that city must execute him by throwing stones at him. By doing that, you will make sure no one from among you does this evil action. Everyone in Israel will hear about what happened and they will be afraid to do what he did.
And if a man has sinned, a judgment of {which is} death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,
If you execute someone for committing a crime for which he deserves to die, and you hang his corpse on a post,
his corpse shall not remain on the tree. Instead, you shall surely bury him that day; for cursed of God {is} a hanged man. And you shall not defile your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance.
you must not allow his corpse to remain there all night. You must bury it on the day that he died, because if you keep the corpse on a post, God will curse the land. You must bury the corpse that day, in order that you do not defile the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you to inherit.
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You shall not see the ox of your brother or his sheep be scattered and hide yourself from them. Returning, you shall return them to your brother.
If you see an Israelite’s ox or sheep that has strayed away, do not act as though you did not see it. Take it back to its owner.
And if your brother {is} not near to you, or you do not know him, then gather it to the middle of your house, and it must be with you until your brother seeks it, and you shall return it to him.
But if the owner does not live near you, or if you do not know who he is, take the animal to your house. It can stay with you until the owner comes, searching for it. Then you must give the animal to him.
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And thus you shall do for his donkey; and thus you shall do for his clothing; and thus you shall do for every lost thing of your brother, which is lost from him and you have found it; you shall not hide yourself.
You must do that same thing if you see a donkey, a piece of clothing, or anything else that someone has lost. Do not refuse to do what you should do.
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You shall not see the donkey of your brother or his ox fallen down in the road and hide yourself from them; lifting, you shall lift it up.
And if you see a fellow Israelite’s donkey or cow that has fallen down on the road, do not act as though you did not see it. Help the owner to lift the animal up so that it can stand on its feet again.
A thing of a man shall not be on a woman, and neither shall a man wear the clothing of a woman; for all who do these {are} an abomination to Yahweh your God.
Women must not wear men’s clothes, and men must not wear women’s clothes. Yahweh our God hates people who do things like that.
If the nest of a bird is encountered to your face on the road, in any tree or on the ground, {with} young ones or eggs, and the mother lying down on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the children.
If you happen to find a bird’s nest in a tree or on the ground, and the mother bird is sitting in the nest on its eggs or with the baby birds, do not take both the mother bird and the babies.
Sending, you shall send {away} the mother, but the children you may take for yourself, so that it may go well with you, and you may prolong {your} days.
You may take the baby birds, but you must allow the mother bird to fly away. Do this in order that things will go well for you and that you will live for a long time.
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When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing for your roof, and you will not bring blood on your house if one who falls should fall from it.
If you build a new house, you must put a railing around the roof. In this way, you will not be guilty of having caused someone’s death if a person falls from it and dies.
You shall not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest all the produce of the seed that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard be set apart.
Do not plant any crop in the area where your grapevines are growing. If you do, the harvest of both will become sacred.
You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
Do not hitch together an ox and a donkey for plowing your fields.
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You shall not wear mixed material, wool and linen, together.
Do not wear clothing that is made by weaving together wool and linen.
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You shall make tassels for yourself on the four corners of your garment with which you cover {yourself}.
Twist threads together to make tassels and sew them on the four bottom corners of your cloak.
If a man takes a wife, and he goes in to her and hates her
Suppose a man marries a young woman and has sex with her and later decides that he does not want her anymore,
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and accuses her of shameful things and brings against her a bad name and says, ‘I took this woman, and I came near to her, and I did not find her virginity,’
and suppose that he says false things about her, making people think badly about her by claiming that she was not a virgin when he married her.
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then the father of the girl and the mother shall take and bring the virginity of the girl to the elders {at} the city gate.
If that happens, the young woman’s parents must take the sheet that was on the bed when the man and their daughter were married, which still has bloodstains on it, and show it to the elders of the city at the gate of the city.
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And the father of the girl shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he hates her.
Then the father of the young woman must say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife. But now he says that he does not want her anymore.
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And behold, he has set forth shameful things, saying, “I did not find virginity in your daughter.” But these {are} the virginity of my daughter.’ And they shall spread the garment out to the faces of the elders of the city.
And he has falsely said that she was not a virgin when he married her. But look! Here is what proves that my daughter was a virgin! Look at the bloodstains on the sheet where they slept the night that they were married!’ And he will show the sheet to the city elders.
And the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke him;
Then the elders of that city must punish that man.
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and they shall fine him 100 silvers, and give them to the father of the girl, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he shall not send her away all his days.
They must force him to pay 100 pieces of silver to the father of the young woman, because the man has shamed a young Israelite woman. Also, that woman will be his wife for the rest of his life. He is not allowed to divorce her.
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But if this thing is true, virginity was not found in the girl,
But if what the man said is true, and there is nothing to prove that she was a virgin when he married her,
then they shall bring out the girl to the door of the house of her father, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones, and she shall die, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to commit fornication {in} the house of her father; and you shall remove the evil from among you.
they must take that young woman to the door of her father’s house. Then the men of that city must execute her by throwing stones at her. They must do that because she has done something in Israel that is very disgraceful, by sleeping with some man while she was still living in her father’s house. By executing her like that, you will make sure no one from among you does this evil action.
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If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall die, even the two of them, the man lying with the woman and the woman; and you shall remove the evil from Israel.
If someone catches a man having sex with another man’s wife, you must execute both of them, the man and the woman. By doing that, you will make sure no one from Israel does this evil action.
If {there} is a virgin girl, engaged to a man, and {another} man finds her in the city and lies with her,
Suppose in some town a man sees a young woman who is engaged to another man and has sex with her.
then you shall take both of them to the gate of that city, and stone them with stones, and they shall die—the girl, on account of the matter that she did not cry out in the city, and the man, on account of the matter that he humiliated the wife of his neighbor—and you shall remove the evil from among you.
You must take both of them to the gate of that town. There you must execute them both by throwing stones at them. You must execute the young woman because she did not shout for help even though she was in the town. You must execute the man because he has defiled someone who was supposed to be someone else’s wife. By doing that, you will make sure no one among you does this evil action.
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And if the man finds the engaged girl in the field, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.
But suppose out in the open countryside a man meets a young woman who is engaged to be married, and he forces her to have sex with him. If that happens, you must execute only that man who forced her to have sex.
But to the girl you shall not do a thing; there is no sin of death in the girl. For as a man rises up against his neighbor and murders him, the life, thus {is} this matter.
You must not punish the young woman, because she did not do anything to die for. This case is like when one man attacks another man in the countryside and murders him,
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For he found her in the field; the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
because the man who forced her to have sex with him saw her when she was in the open countryside, and even though she called out for help, there was no one there who could rescue her.
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If a man finds a virgin girl that is not engaged, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered,
If a man forces a young woman who is not engaged to be married to have sex with him, and if someone sees him while he is doing that,
then the man who lay with her shall give 50 silvers to the father of the girl, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not send her away all his days.
the man who forced her to have sex with him must pay 50 pieces of silver to the young woman’s father, and he must marry her, because he defiled her. He is not allowed to divorce her during the rest of his life.
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A man shall not take the wife of his father; and he shall not uncover the hem of his father.
A man must not disgrace his father by having sex with any of his father’s wives.
The injured {by} mutilation or male organ being cut off shall not enter the assembly of Yahweh.
No man with crushed testicles or a severed penis may worship with Yahweh’s people.
No child of intermarriage shall enter the assembly of Yahweh; even his tenth generation shall not enter the assembly of Yahweh.
No child of an Israelite father and a non-Israelite mother or his descendants, extending to the tenth generation, may worship with Yahweh’s people.
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An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of Yahweh; even their tenth generation shall not enter the assembly of Yahweh, until forever,
No Ammonites or Moabites may worship with Yahweh’s people, extending to the tenth generation.
on account of the matter that they did not meet you with bread and with water on the road when you had come out from Egypt, and that he hired against you Balaam, the son of Beor, from Pethor {in} Aram Naharaim, to curse you.
One reason for this is that their leaders refused to give you food and water when they were traveling from the nation of Egypt {to the region of Canaan}. Another reason is that they paid Balaam son of Beor from the town of Pethor in the region of Mesopotamia to curse you Israelites.
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But Yahweh your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, and Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because Yahweh your God loved you.
But Yahweh our God did not pay attention to Balaam; instead, he caused Balaam to bless you rather than curse you, because Yahweh our God loves you.
You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity, all your days, to forever.
As long as Israel is a nation, you must not do anything to cause things to go well for those two people groups to enable them to prosper.
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You shall not detest an Edomite, for he {is} your brother; you shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were a foreigner in his land.
But do not despise any Edomites, because they are descendants of your ancestor Isaac, just like you are. Likewise, do not despise people from Egypt, because they treated your ancestors well when they first lived in Egypt.
The sons that are born to them, the third generation, they may enter the assembly of Yahweh.
The grandchildren of people from Edom and Egypt who live among you now may worship with Yahweh’s people.
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When you go out in camp against your enemies, then you shall keep from every evil thing.
When your fighting men are living in a camp in time of war, they must avoid doing things that would make them unacceptable to God.
If there is among you a man who is not clean, happening {at} night, then he shall go to the outside of the camp; he shall not come to the middle of the camp.
If any soldier becomes unacceptable to God because semen comes out of his body during the night, the next morning he must go outside the camp and stay there during that day.
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And it will happen, turning evening, he shall bathe himself in water, and as the sun goes, he shall go in to the middle of the camp.
But in the evening of that day he must bathe, and at sunset he will be allowed to come back into the camp.
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And you shall have a place outside the camp, and you may go outside there,
Your fighting men must have a toilet area outside the camp where you can go when you need to.
and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it happens when you are sitting yourself out, then you shall dig with it and put back and cover up your excrement.
{When you go to fight against your enemies,} carry something to dig with along with your weapons, in order that when you need to defecate, you can dig a hole, and then cover up the hole when you have finished defecating in it.
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For Yahweh your God walks in the midst of your camp to give you victory and to give your enemies to your faces. And your camp shall be holy, and he will not see an unclean thing among you and turn away from you.
You must keep the camp acceptable to Yahweh our God, because he is with you in your camp to protect you and to enable you to defeat your enemies. Do not do anything disgraceful that would cause Yahweh to abandon you.
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You shall not deliver a slave to his master who has escaped to you from his master.
If slaves who escape from their masters come to you and request you to protect them, do not send them back to their masters.
He shall live with you, in your midst, in the place that he chooses, in one of your gates as good to him. Do not oppress him.
Allow them to stay among you, in whatever town they choose because they like it, and do not mistreat them.
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No female cultic prostitute shall be from the daughters of Israel, and no male cultic prostitute shall be from the sons of Israel.
Do not allow any Israelite man or woman to become religious prostitutes.
You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute or the price of a dog {into} the house of Yahweh your God for any vow; for even both of them {are} abominations to Yahweh your God.
Also, do not allow any woman who earned money from being a prostitute or any man who earned money being a homosexual prostitute to bring any of that money into the temple of Yahweh our God, even if they solemnly promised to pay that money to him. Both of these sexual practices are disgusting to Yahweh our God.
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You shall not charge interest to your brother—interest of money, interest of food, interest of each thing that is charged interest.
When you lend money or food or anything else to a fellow Israelite, do not charge them interest.
You may charge interest to a foreigner; but to your brother you shall not charge interest, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the sending out of your hand, in the land which you are going into to possess it.
You are allowed to charge interest when you lend money to foreigners, but not when you lend money to Israelites. Do this in order that Yahweh our God will bless you in everything that you do in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
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When you vow a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not delay to fulfill it, for, requiring, Yahweh your God shall require it from you; and it would be sin for you.
When you solemnly promise to give something to Yahweh your God or to do something for him, do not delay in doing it. Yahweh expects you to do what you promised, and if you do not do it, you will be sinning.
And if you refrain from vowing, it will not be sin for you.
But it is not sinful not to solemnly promise things to Yahweh.
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What has gone out from your lips you shall keep and do as you have vowed to Yahweh your God, a vow that you have spoken with your mouth.
But if you voluntarily promise to do something for Yahweh our God, you must surely do it.
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When you go into the vineyard of your neighbor, then you may eat grapes as your spirit {is} satisfied, but you shall not put {any} in your vessel.
When you walk through someone else’s vineyard, you are allowed to {pick and} eat as many grapes as you want, but you must not put any in a container {and take them away}.
When you go in the stalks of your neighbor, then you may pluck ears of wheat with your hand, but you shall not wave a sickle on the stalks of your neighbor.
When you walk along a path in someone else’s field of grain, you are allowed to pluck some of the grain by hand {and eat it}, but you must not cut any of his grain with a sickle.
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When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found an indecent thing in her, then he shall write for her a letter of divorce and put {it} into her hand and send her out from his house.
Suppose a man marries a woman and later decides that he does not want her because he finds something about her offensive. Then he must write a paper in which he says that he is divorcing her, give the paper to her, and send her away from his house.
And she shall go out from his house, and she may go and be another man’s.
After she leaves his house she is allowed to marry another man.
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And {if} the latter husband hates her and writes her a letter of divorce and puts {it} into her hand and sends her out from his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her as his wife,
Suppose that that man later also decides that he does not like her, and that he also writes a paper in which he says that he is divorcing her, gives it to her, and sends her away from his house. Or, suppose that the second husband dies.
her first husband, who had sent her away, shall not be able to take her again to be his wife after she has become impure; for it {is} an abomination to the face of Yahweh, and you shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance.
If either of those things happen, her first husband must not marry her again. She is now unclean to him. Yahweh would consider it to be disgusting if he married her again. You must not desecrate the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you by doing that.
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When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army, neither shall pass onto him any matter; he shall be free for his house one year and will cheer his wife whom he has taken.
When a man has just married a woman, he must not become a soldier in the army. He must not have to do any other kind of government work. He must not do those things during the first year after he gets married. Instead, he must stay at home and do what he can to make his new wife happy.
He shall not impound a mill or an upper millstone, for it {is} a life for a pledge.
If someone lends money to another person, he may take something from that person as a guarantee that he will pay the money back. But he must not take a millstone. That is what the family needs to grind grain into flour in order to bake bread and stay alive.
If a man is found stealing a life from his brothers from the sons of Israel, and treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die; and you shall remove the evil from among you.
If someone kidnaps a fellow Israelite to make that person his slave or to sell him to become someone else’s slave, you must execute the person-stealer. By doing that, you will make sure no one among you does this evil action.
Guard against a plague of skin disease, to firmly keep and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, teach you; as I commanded them, you shall keep doing.
If you are suffering from leprosy, be sure to do everything that the priests, who are from the tribe of Levi, tell you to do. Obey carefully the instructions that I have given to them.
Remember what Yahweh your God did to Miriam on the way when you were coming out from Egypt.
Remember that Yahweh our God caused Miriam to have leprosy as your ancestors were coming out of Egypt. That is a warning for you.
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When you lend to your neighbor any loan, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge.
When you lend something to someone, do not go into his house to take whatever item he says that he will give you to guarantee that he will return what he has borrowed.
You shall stand outside, and the man whom you have lent to shall bring the pledge outside to you.
Stand outside his house, and the man to whom you are lending something will bring the item out to you.
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And if he {is} a poor man, you shall not lie asleep with his pledge.
But if he is poor {and can only give you his cloak as a guarantee}, do not keep that cloak overnight.
Restoring, you shall restore to him the pledge as the sun goes down, and he will sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you to the face of Yahweh your God.
When the sun sets, be sure to take the cloak back to him, in order that he may wear it while he sleeps. If you do that, he will ask God to bless you, and Yahweh our God will be pleased with you.
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You shall not oppress a poor and needy hired man from your brothers or from the foreigners who {are} in your land, within your gates.
Do not mistreat any servants whom you have hired who are poor and needy, whether they are Israelites or foreigners who are living in your towns.
In his day you shall give his wage, and the sun shall not go down on it, for he {is} poor and he lifts up his life to it. Then he will not call against you to Yahweh and have it be for you a sin.
Every day, before sunset, you must pay them the money that they have earned. They are poor and they need to get their pay. If you do not pay them right away, they will cry out against you to Yahweh, and he will punish you for having sinned like that.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Fathers shall not be put to death on account of sons, and sons shall not be put to death on account of fathers. A man shall be put to death for his sin.
You must not execute any parents for crimes that their children have committed, and you must not execute any children for crimes that their parents have committed. You should only execute someone for the crimes that they themselves have committed.
You shall not twist the judgment of the foreigner {or} the fatherless, and you shall not take for a pledge the garment of a widow.
You must do for foreigners who live among you and for orphans the things that the law commands you to do for them. Also, if you lend something to a widow, do not take her coat from her as a guarantee that she will return it.
And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and Yahweh your God redeemed you from there. Therefore, I command you to do this word.
Do not forget that you had great troubles when you were slaves in Egypt, and that Yahweh our God rescued you from there. That is why I am commanding you to help others who have troubles.
(There are no questions for this verse)
When you reap your harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to take it; it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, or for the widow, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
When you harvest your crops, if you forget a bundle in the field, do not go back to get it. Leave it there for foreigners, orphans, and widows. If you do that, Yahweh our God will bless you in everything that you do.
When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the branches after yourself; it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, or for the widow.
And when you have harvested all your olives from the trees once, do not go back to pick the ones that are still on the trees. Leave them for foreigners, orphans, and widows.
(There are no questions for this verse)
When you gather your vineyard, you shall not glean after yourself. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, or for the widow.
Similarly, when you pick the grapes in your vineyard, do not go back a second time to try to find more. Leave them for foreigners, orphans, and widows.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I command you to do this word.
Do not forget that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I am commanding you to be kind to those who are needy.
(There are no questions for this verse)
If there is a dispute between men and they go to the judgment, and they judge them, then they shall declare the righteous as just and declare the wicked as unjust.
If people have a dispute and they go to a court, the judge will decide who is innocent and who is guilty.
And if the wicked is a son of striking, then the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten to his face as {is} enough in number {for} his wickedness.
If the judge says that someone must punish the guilty person, he will command him to lie on the ground. While the judge watches, someone will strike the guilty person with a whip a certain number of times depending on what kind of crime he committed.
(There are no questions for this verse)
He shall not add to his 40 blows, lest he add his striking of him {with} many {more} blows than these, and your brother is humiliated before your eyes.
The judge may order someone to strike him up to forty times. Do not strike him more than that, since that would humiliate him publicly.
You shall not muzzle an ox in his threshing.
When your ox is walking on the grain to separate it from the stalks, do not prevent it from eating some of grain.
(There are no questions for this verse)
If brothers live together and one of them dies, and he does not have a son, the wife of the dead man shall not be for a strange man from outside. Her brother-in-law shall go in to her and take her for himself as a wife, and {be} her brother-in-law.
If two brothers live on the same property, and one of them who has no son dies, the man’s widow should not marry someone who is not a member of his family. The dead man’s brother must marry her and sleep with her. It is his duty to do that.
And it will happen, the firstborn that she bears will rise up upon the name of his brother who died, and his name will not be wiped out from Israel.
If she later gives birth to a son, everyone should consider that first son as the son of the man who died, in order that the dead man’s name will not disappear from Israel.
(There are no questions for this verse)
But if the man does not delight in taking his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to raise up for his brother a name in Israel; he is not willing {to be} my brother-in-law.’
But if the dead man’s brother does not want to marry that woman, she must go to the city leaders at the city gate. She must say to them, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to marry me in order that I may give birth to a son who will prevent the dead man’s name from disappearing in Israel. He does not want to do his duty to me as a brother-in-law.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
And the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. If he stands and says, ‘I do not delight in taking her.’
Then the elders must summon that man and talk to him. Perhaps he will still refuse to marry that widow.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Then his brother’s wife shall come to him before the eyes of the elders and take off his sandal from his foot and spit in his face. And she shall respond and say, ‘Thus is done to the man who does not build up the house of his brother.’
In that case, she must go up to him while the elders are watching, and take off one of his sandals {to symbolize that he would not receive any of her property}, spit in his face, and say to him, ‘This is what happens to the man who refuses to preserve his brother’s family line.’
And his name will be called in Israel, ‘The house of the sandal taken off.’
After that happens, people will know that man’s family as ‘the family of the man of the pulled-off sandal.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
If men fight with each other, a man and his brother, and the wife of one comes to rescue her husband from the hand of his attacker, and she stretches out her hand and seizes him by his genitals,
When two men are fighting with each other, and the one man’s wife comes up to help her husband by grabbing hold of the other man’s private parts,
then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall have no pity.
do not act mercifully toward her; cut off her hand.
(There are no questions for this verse)
You shall not have in your bag a stone and a stone, a large and a small.
Do not cheat people by having one weight which you use when you buy something and a different weight which you use when you sell something,
(There are no questions for this verse)
You shall not have in your house an ephah and an ephah, a large and a small.
or by having one measure which you use when you buy something and a different measure which you use when you sell something.
(There are no questions for this verse)
A perfect and just stone you shall have; a perfect and just ephah you shall have, so that your days will be long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
Always be honest in your transactions by using correct weights and correct measures, in order that Yahweh our God will allow you to live a long time in the land that he is giving to you.
For all who do these, all who do injustice {are} an abomination {to} Yahweh your God.
Yahweh our God hates all those who act dishonestly.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Remember what Amalek did to you on the road as you came out from Egypt,
Continue to remember what the people of Amalek did to your ancestors when they were coming out of Egypt.
how he met you on the road and attacked you from behind, all the stragglers following you, and you {were} faint and weary; and he did not fear God.
They attacked your ancestors as they were traveling, when they were weak and exhausted. Those people were not afraid of God at all, so they attacked your ancestors from the rear and killed all those who were unable to walk as fast as the others.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will happen, when Yahweh your God has given to you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to possess {as} an inheritance, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens; you shall not forget.
Therefore, when Yahweh our God has given you the land that he promised to give you, and when he has enabled you to rest from fighting all your enemies around you, kill all the people of Amalek, with the result that no one will remember them anymore. Do not forget to do this!
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will happen, when you have come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance and you possess it and live in it,
After you arrive and settle in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you to own forever,
then you shall take from the first of all the harvest of the land that you have brought in from the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you. And you shall put {it} in a basket and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name stay there.
each of you must put some of the first crops that you harvest from the land that Yahweh our God is giving you in a basket. Take them to the place that Yahweh will have chosen for you to worship.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall go to the priest who will be in those days and say to him, ‘I declare today to Yahweh your God that I have come to the land that Yahweh swore to our fathers to give to us.’
Go to the high priest who is serving at that time and say to him, ‘Yahweh our God solemnly promised our ancestors to give us this land. Today {by this offering} I declare to him that I am settled here {in fulfillment of his promise}.’
And the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it to the face of the altar of Yahweh your God.
Then the priest must take the basket of food from you and hold it in front of the altar for sacrificing to Yahweh our God.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall respond and say to the face of Yahweh your God,
‘My father {was} a wandering Aramean. And he went down to Egypt and stayed there, his people {were} few, and there he became a great, mighty, and numerous nation.
There in Yahweh our God’s presence you must say this: ‘My ancestor was a nomadic man in Aram. He took his family to Egypt. They were a small group when they went there, but they lived there and their descendants became a very large and powerful nation.
And the Egyptians treated us badly and afflicted us. And they set hard work upon us.
Then the people of Egypt acted very harshly toward them, and they forced them to become their slaves and to work very hard.
And we cried out to Yahweh, the God of our fathers, and Yahweh heard our voice and saw our affliction and our labor and our oppression.
Then our ancestors prayed to you, Yahweh our God, and you heard them. You saw that they were suffering, and that the Egyptians were forcing them to work very hard and oppressing them.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Yahweh brought us out from Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great fearsomeness and with signs and with wonders;
Then by your great power and by performing many kinds of miracles, and other terrifying things, you brought them out of Egypt.
and he has brought us to this place and has given to us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
You brought us to this land and gave it to us, a land that is very fertile.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And now, behold, I have brought the first of the harvest of the land that Yahweh has given to me.’ And you shall set it down to the face of Yahweh your God and bow down to the face of Yahweh your God,
So now, Yahweh, I have brought to you the first part of the harvest from the land that you gave me.’ Then you must set the basket down in Yahweh’s presence and worship him there.
and you shall rejoice in all the good that Yahweh your God has given to you and to your house—you and the Levite and the foreigner who {is} among you.
Then you must celebrate {by eating a meal together} to thank Yahweh our God for all the good things that he has given to you and to your family. You must invite the descendants of Levi and the foreigners who are living among you to also rejoice {and eat with you}.
(There are no questions for this verse)
When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your harvest in the third year (the year of tithing), then you shall give {it} to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, and they may eat within your gates and be satisfied.
Every third year, you must bring to the descendants of Levi, to the foreigners who are living among you, to the orphans, and to the widows the offering of a tenth of your crops, in order that in every town they will have plenty to eat.
And you shall say to the face of Yahweh your God,
‘I have removed from my house the things set apart, and also have given it to the Levite, and to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandments that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten.
Then you must say to Yahweh our God, ‘I have brought to you, from my house, all of the tenth from my harvest this year that I have set aside for you. I am giving it to the descendants of Levi, to the foreigners, to the orphans, and to the widows, as you commanded us to do. I have not disobeyed any of your commands {about the tenth portion}, and I have not forgotten any of your commands {about it}.
(There are no questions for this verse)
I have not eaten from it in my mourning, nor have I removed from it in sin, nor have I given from it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of Yahweh my God; I have done according to all that you have commanded me.
I have not eaten any food from the tenth portion while I was mourning {for someone who died}. I have not taken any of it out of my house while I was in any condition unacceptable to you. I have not offered any of it to spirits of dead people. Yahweh my God, I have obeyed you and done everything that you have commanded us concerning the tenth portion.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Look down from your holy habitation, from the heavens, and bless your people, Israel, and the land that you have given to us, as you had sworn to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.’
So please look down from your holy living place in heaven, and bless us, your Israelite people. Also bless this very fertile land which you have given to us, as you promised our ancestors you would give it to us.’
This day Yahweh your God is commanding you to obey these statutes and ordinances, and you shall keep and do them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Today Yahweh our God is commanding you to obey all these rules and decrees. So obey them faithfully, with all that you are.
Yahweh you have declared today to be your God, and to walk in his ways and to keep his statutes and his commandments and his ordinances, and to listen to his voice.
Today you have declared that it is Yahweh who is your God, and that you will conduct your lives as he wants you to do, that you will obey all his commands, rules, and decrees, and that you will do all that he tells you to do.
Today Yahweh has declared that you are his, a people for a possession, as he had spoken to you, and to keep all his commandments,
And today Yahweh has declared that you are his people, like a prized possession, which is what he promised that you would be, and he commands you to obey all his commands.
and he will set you high above all the nations that he has made, for praise and for a name and for beauty. And you will be a sanctified people for Yahweh your God, just as he has spoken.”
If you do that, he will cause you to become greater than any other nation that he has established. Other nations will consider you famous and beautiful, and they will praise you. You will be a special people to Yahweh, set apart and holy to him, just as he promised.”
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep all the commandments that I command you today.
Moses, along with the other Israelite leaders, said this to the people, “Obey all the commandments that I am giving to you today.
And it will be, on the day when you cross the Jordan to the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, then you shall erect for yourself large stones and plaster them with plaster.
Soon you will cross the Jordan River and enter the land that Yahweh, our God, promised to give to you. There, set up some large stones and cover them with plaster.
And you shall write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over; so that you may go into the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you.
Write on those stones all these laws and teachings, when you enter that very fertile land that Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors worshiped, promised to give to you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will be, when you have crossed the Jordan, erect these stones that I am commanding you today, on Mount Ebal, and plaster them with plaster.
When you have crossed the Jordan River, set up some large stones on Mount Ebal, just as I told you, and cover them with plaster.
And there you shall build an altar to Yahweh your God, an altar of stones; you shall not brandish an iron tool on them.
And build a stone altar there to offer sacrifices to Yahweh our God, but do not do any work on those stones with iron tools.
(There are no questions for this verse)
You shall build the altar of Yahweh your God of untouched stones, and you shall sacrifice burnt offerings on it to Yahweh your God,
You must make Yahweh our God’s alter with uncut stones. You must present wholly burnt sacrifices to him on it.
(There are no questions for this verse)
and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and eat there; and you shall rejoice to the face of Yahweh your God.
You must make fellowship sacrifices to Yahweh and eat them there. You must rejoice in the presence of Yahweh our God.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.”
When you write these laws on those stones, you must write them very clearly.”
And Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying, “Be silent and listen, Israel! This day you have become the people of Yahweh your God.
Then Moses, along with the priests descended from Levi, said to all the Israelites, “Israelites! Be quiet and listen to what I am saying! Today you have become the people who belong to Yahweh, our God.
And listen to the voice of Yahweh your God and do his commandments and statutes that I am commanding you today.”
So you must do what he tells you, and obey all the rules and regulations that I am giving to you today.”
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Moses commanded the people on that day, saying,
On that same day Moses said to the Israelites,
“These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you have crossed the Jordan: Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin.
“After you have crossed over the Jordan River, the tribes descended from Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin must stand on Mount Gerizim {and request Yahweh} to bless the people.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And these shall stand for the curse on Mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad and Asher and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
And the tribes descended from Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali must stand on Mount Ebal and listen to the {things that Yahweh will do when he} curses {the people}.
And the Levites shall respond and say to all the men of Israel {in} a loud voice,
The descendants of Levi must shout these words loudly so the Israelites can hear:
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved image or cast figure, an abomination {to} Yahweh, the work of the hands of a craftsman, and sets up secretly.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who carves a figure from wood or stone or casts a figure from metal, and secretly sets it up and worships it. Yahweh considers that those things are detestable.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
‘Cursed is the one who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who displaces the boundary of his neighbor.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who removes someone else’s markers of property boundaries.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who misleads a blind man on the road.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who leads a blind person to go in the wrong direction.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who twists a judgment of a foreigner, fatherless, or widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who refuses to act toward foreigners, orphans, or widows in the way that the law requires.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who lies with the wife of his father, because he has uncovered the hem of his father.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who violates his father’s marriage rights by having sexual relations with any of his father’s wives.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
‘Cursed is the one who lies with any beast.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who has sexual relations with any animal.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who has sexual relations with his sister or with his half-sister.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who lies with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who has sexual relations with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who strikes his neighbor secretly.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who secretly murders someone else.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
‘Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to strike a life of innocent blood.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who murders someone who is innocent because someone else has given him money or something else to do that.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘Cursed is the one who does not keep the words of this law, to do them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
‘Yahweh will curse anyone who does not carefully obey these laws.’ And all the people must reply, ‘Amen.’
And it will be, if listening you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep doing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, then Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
If you do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and faithfully obey everything that I am today commanding you to do, he will cause you to become greater than any other people group on the earth.
And all these blessings will come upon you and reach you, if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
If you obey Yahweh your God, he will bless you in all these ways:
(There are no questions for this verse)
Blessed you {will be} in the city, and blessed you {will be} in the field.
He will bless everything that you do when you are in the cities, and he will bless everything that you do when you are working in the fields.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Blessed {will be} the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.
He will bless you by giving you many children, abundant crops, plenty of fertile cattle, and many sheep.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Blessed {will be} your basket and your kneading trough.
He will bless you by giving you plenty of grain to make bread.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Blessed you {will be} in your coming in and blessed you {will be} in your going out.
He will bless you everywhere—whether you are at home or elsewhere.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh shall let your enemies who rise up against you be struck down to your faces; they will come out against you one way but will flee to your faces seven ways.
Yahweh will enable you to defeat the armies of your enemies; they will attack you from one direction, but they will run away from you in many directions.
Yahweh will command for you the blessing in your barns and in all the sending out of your hand, and he will bless you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
Yahweh will bless you by filling your barns with grain, and he will bless all the work that you do; he will bless you in the land that he is giving to you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will establish you as his sanctified people, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and walk in his ways.
If you obey all that Yahweh our God is commanding you to do, he will keep you as his own holy people, just as he promised you.
And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of Yahweh is called upon you, and they will be afraid of you.
Then all the peoples on the earth will realize that you belong to Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Yahweh will make you abound in prosperity in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground, in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to you.
And Yahweh will cause you to prosper very much. He will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he solemnly promised to our ancestors that he would give to you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will open to you his treasure, the good of the heavens, to give rain {for} your land at the appointed time, and to bless all the work of your hand, and you will lend to many nations, but you, you will not borrow.
At the time that your land needs rain, Yahweh will send it from where he stores it in the sky, and he will bless all your work, with the result that you will be able to lend money to many other people groups, but you will not need to borrow money from them.
And Yahweh will set you as head, and not as tail, and you will be only above, and you will not be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today, to keep and do,
If you faithfully obey all of the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving you today, then Yahweh will cause your people group to be superior {to other people groups}, not inferior {to them}.
(There are no questions for this verse)
and you do not turn away from any of the words that I am commanding you today, right or left, going after other gods to serve them.
{Yahweh will do all these things for you if} you do not stop obeying what I am commanding you today, and if you never worship other gods.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will happen, if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep doing all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and reach you.
But if you do not do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and do not faithfully obey all his rules and regulations that I am today commanding you to do, he will curse you in all these ways:
Cursed you {will be} in the city and cursed you {will be} in the field.
He will curse everything that you do when you are in the cities, and he will curse everything that you do when you are working in the fields.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Cursed {will be} your basket and your kneading trough.
He will curse you by not giving you much grain to make bread.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Cursed {will be} the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.
He will curse you by giving you few and sickly children, crops, cattle, and sheep.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Cursed you {will be} in your coming in and cursed you {will be} in your going out.
He will curse you everywhere—whether you are at home or elsewhere.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will send against you curses, confusion, and rebukes in all the sending out of your hand that you will do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly from the faces of your wicked deeds by which you will have forsaken me.
Yahweh will curse you by confusing and frustrating you in all that you do until your enemies destroy you. They will quickly kill you for your wicked sins and for rebelling against him.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until he has finished you from off the land which you are going into to possess it.
Yahweh will make you very sick, until all of you die in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will strike {you} with emaciation and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with a sword and with scorching winds and with mildew. And they will pursue you until you perish.
Yahweh will afflict you with diseases that shrivel your bodies, with fever, with inflammation. It will be extremely hot, there will be violence everywhere, there will be scorching winds, and he will cause your crops to rot. He will afflict you with these until you die.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And your skies that {are} over your head shall be bronze, and the earth that {is} under you {shall be} iron.
It will not rain so the ground will be very hard and unproductive.
Yahweh will allow the rain of your land {to be} powder and dust; from the heavens it will come down on you until you are destroyed.
Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land to {ruin your crops and} starve you to death.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh shall let you be struck down to the faces of your enemies; you will go out one way against him but will flee to his face seven ways. And you will become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
Yahweh will enable your enemies to defeat you; your soldiers will attack them from one direction, but will run away from them in many directions. People from every other nation will be horrified at what Yahweh has done to you.
And your corpse will be as food for all the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, and there will be none to startle {them}.
You will die, and birds and wild animals will come and eat your corpses, and there will not be anyone to scare them away.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will smite {you} with the boils of Egypt and with ulcers and with rash and with itch, from which you are not able to be healed.
Yahweh will cause you to have boils on your skin, like he caused the people of Egypt to have many years ago. He will cause you to have tumors, open sores, and your skin will itch, but there will be nothing that will cure those diseases.
Yahweh will smite {you} with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.
Yahweh will cause some of you to become insane; he will cause some of you to become blind, and he will cause some of your minds to become confused.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you will be groping about at noon like the blind grope in the darkness, and you will not succeed in your ways. And you shall again be oppressed and robbed all of the days, and there will be no deliverer.
At midday you will feel around with your hands, like you are blind or in the dark. You will not prosper in anything that you do. Enemies will continually oppress and rob you, and there will not be anyone to help you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
You will betroth a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it; you will plant a vineyard but not use it.
A man will formally arrange to marry a young woman, but someone else will rape her. You will build houses, but you will never live in them. You will plant grapevines, but you will not pick any grapes or drink any wine.
Your ox {will be} slain before your eyes, but you will not eat from it. Your donkey will be robbed from to your face and will not be returned to you. Your sheep {will be} given to your enemies, and there will be no deliverer for you.
Your enemies will butcher your cattle while you watch them, but you will not get any of the meat to eat. They will drag away your donkeys while you watch them do it, and they will not give them back to you. They will take away your sheep and there will not be anyone to help you rescue them.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Your sons and your daughters {will be} given to other peoples, and your eyes will look on and will long for them all the day, and your hand will have no strength.
Foreigners will steal your sons and daughters. You will constantly watch for your children to return, but you will not be able to do anything for them.
A nation that you do not know will eat the fruit of your land and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed all the days.
People from a foreign nation will eat all the crops that you worked hard to produce, and they will constantly treat you harshly and cruelly.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you will become insane from the view of your eyes that you will see.
All these terrible things that you see will cause you to become insane.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will strike {you} with bad boils on the knees and on the legs that you will not be able to heal, from the bottom of your foot and to the top of your head.
Yahweh will cause painful boils that no one can heal to cover your knees and legs, and you will have boils from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will lead you and your king that you will raise up over yourself to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers, and there you will serve other gods, {of} wood and stone.
Yahweh will cause enemies to take your king (who you will have chosen for yourself) and the rest of you to another country where you and your ancestors have never lived. There you will worship strange gods that men made of wood or stone.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you will become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the peoples where Yahweh will drive you there.
The people in the nations where Yahweh drives you will use what has happened to you as a horror story, a proverb, and something to mock.
You will take much seed out {into} the field, but will gather little seed in, for the locusts will consume it.
You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops.
You will plant vineyards and cultivate {them}, but you will not drink the wine nor harvest, for the worms will eat it.
You will plant grapevines and take care of them, but you will not pick any grapes or drink any wine, because worms will eat the vines.
(There are no questions for this verse)
You will have olive trees within all your territory, but you will not grease yourself {with} the oil, for your olives will become detached.
Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not get any olive oil to rub on your skin because the olives will drop on the ground before they are ripe.
(There are no questions for this verse)
You will bear sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.
You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because enemies will capture and take them away.
(There are no questions for this verse)
All your trees and the fruit of your ground—the crickets will take possession.
Swarms of crickets will eat your crops and the leaves of all your trees.
(There are no questions for this verse)
The foreigner who {is} among you will rise up above you higher {and} higher, and you will descend lower {and} lower.
Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more powerful, and you will become less and less powerful.
He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.
They will have money to lend to you, but you will not have any money to lend to them. They will be superior to you, and you will be inferior to them.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And all these curses will come upon you and pursue you and reach you until you are destroyed because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.
When all these disasters happen to you and continue to happen to you until they destroy you, you will know it is because you did not do what Yahweh your God told you to do and did not obey all the rules and regulations that he gave to you.
And they will be on you as signs and as wonders, and on your seed until forever.
These disasters that Yahweh will bring on you and your descendants will forever show everyone his mighty power.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart from the abundance of everything,
Because Yahweh our God blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully, but you did not do that.
so you will serve your enemies that Yahweh will send against you: in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he destroys you.
Therefore, you will work for the enemies whom Yahweh will send to attack you. You will be hungry and thirsty; you will not have clothes to wear and you will lack everything else that you need. Yahweh will cause you to become slaves and work hard until he destroys you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Yahweh will lift up a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, like an eagle flies, a nation whose language you do not understand;
Yahweh will bring against you an army from very far away. Their soldiers will speak a language that you will not understand. They will swoop down on you quickly like an eagle.
a nation fierce of face, which does not lift up a face for the elder and does not favor the young.
They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even old people or young children.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will eat the fruit of your cattle and the fruit of your land until you are destroyed, which will leave for you no grain, new wine, or oil, young of your cattle or young of your flock, until it causes you to perish.
They will kill and eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will starve. They will not leave for you any grain, wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs. You will all die from hunger.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will besiege you within all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you had trusted, come down in all your land. And it will besiege you within all your gates, in all your land that Yahweh your God has given to you.
Your enemies will surround your towns throughout the land that Yahweh your God is about to give to you. They will break down the high and strong walls around your towns, walls which you trusted would protect you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, whom Yahweh your God gave to you, in the siege and in the distress when your enemies oppress you.
When your enemies are surrounding your towns, you will be so extremely hungry that you will eat your own sons and daughters whom Yahweh your God has given to you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
The tender man among you and the very delicate, his eye will do wrong against his brother and against the wife of his bosom and against the remainder of his children who remain,
When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most dainty and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will kill their own children and eat them, because they will not have anything else to eat. They will be greedy and not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their other children who are still alive.
(vv54-55)
without giving to any of them from the flesh of his children that he will eat, since nothing remains for himself {at} all in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will oppress you within all your gates.
When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most dainty and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will kill their own children and eat them, because they will not have anything else to eat. They will be greedy and not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their other children who are still alive.
(vv54-55)
(There are no questions for this verse)
The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not attempt to set the bottom of her foot on the ground because of delicateness and tenderness, her eye will do wrong against the husband of her bosom and against her son and against her daughter
Even the most dainty and sensitive women among you, so sensitive and dainty that they have never walked barefoot, will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that, after they give birth to a child, they will secretly kill the baby and eat it and also eat the afterbirth. They will be greedy and will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.
(vv56-57)
and against her afterbirth coming out from between her legs and against the children whom she will bear, for she will secretly eat them {for} lack of anything else, in the siege and in the distress which your enemy will set upon you within your gates.
Even the most dainty and sensitive women among you, so sensitive and dainty that they have never walked barefoot, will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that, after they give birth to a child, they will secretly kill the baby and eat it and also eat the afterbirth. They will be greedy and will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.
(vv56-57)
(There are no questions for this verse)
If you do not keep doing all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear this glorious and feared name, Yahweh your God,
If you do not faithfully obey all of the laws that I am writing, and if you do not have the utmost respect for Yahweh our glorious and amazing God,
(There are no questions for this verse)
then Yahweh will cause extraordinary afflictions—your plagues and the plagues of your seed {will be} great and enduring plagues and great and enduring sicknesses.
he will punish you by sending on you and on your descendants great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years.
And he will bring back to you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid of their faces, and they will cling to you.
He will bring on you all the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, which terrified you, and you will always be sick.
(There are no questions for this verse)
Also every sickness and every plague that {is} not written in the scroll of this law, Yahweh will cause them to rise against you until you are destroyed.
He will also send on you many other sicknesses and diseases that I have not talked about in these laws, until you all will die.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall remain few in number, although you were like the stars of the heavens in number, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
You became as numerous as the stars in the sky, but only a few of you will remain alive, if you do not obey Yahweh your God.
And it will happen, as Yahweh rejoiced over you in doing you good, and in multiplying you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you in causing you to perish and in destroying you. And you will be torn away from the land which you are going into to possess it.
Yahweh was very happy to do good things for you and to cause you to become very numerous, but now he will be happy to ruin you and get rid of you. Those of you who do not die from these plagues, he will snatch away from the land that you will soon be entering to possess.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Yahweh will scatter you among all the peoples from {one} end of the earth and to the {other} end of the earth, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone that you have not known, you or your fathers.
Yahweh will scatter you among all the peoples of the earth, and in those places, you will worship other gods that men made of wood or stone, gods which you and your ancestors have never known.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And among these nations you will not have peace, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot. And there Yahweh will give you a trembling heart and failing eyes and a mourning spirit.
In those areas you will not have any peace or rest. Yahweh will make you afraid, hopeless, and discouraged.
And it will happen, your life will hang before you, and you will fear, night and day, and you will have no certainty in your life.
You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night.
(There are no questions for this verse)
In the morning you will say, ‘Who gives evening?’ and in the evening you will say, ‘Who gives morning?’ because of the fear in your hearts that you fear and the view of your eyes that you will see.
Because you will be very fearful and because you will very distressed because of the terrible things that you see, each morning you will say ‘I wish it were evening already!’ and each evening you will say ‘I wish it were morning already!’
(There are no questions for this verse)
And Yahweh will bring you back {to} Egypt by ships, by the route which I had said to you, ‘You will not continue to see it again.’ And there you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male slaves and female slaves, but there will be no buyers.”
Yahweh will send some of you back to Egypt in ships, even though he promised that he would never force you to go there again. There in Egypt you will try to sell yourselves to become slaves of your enemies {in order to have food to eat}, but no one will buy you.”
(There are no questions for this verse)
These {are} the words of the covenant that Yahweh commanded Moses to cut {with} the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had cut with them at Horeb.
Yahweh commanded Moses to have the Israelites commit to all the following things when they were in the Moab region {on the east side of the Jordan River}. This was in addition to what they and Yahweh promised each other at Horeb:
And Moses called to all Israel and said to them, “You have seen everything that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land—
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them, “You saw for yourselves what Yahweh did to the king of Egypt and to his officials and to his entire country.
the great sufferings that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.
You saw all the plagues that Yahweh sent on them, and all the various miracles that he performed.
But until this day, Yahweh has not given to you a heart to know or eyes to see or ears to hear.
But to this day, Yahweh has not enabled you to understand the meaning of all that you have seen and heard.
(There are no questions for this verse)
‘And I have led you 40 years in the wilderness; your clothes did not wear out on you, and your sandals did not wear out on your feet.
For forty years Yahweh has led you while you traveled through the desert. During that time, your clothes and your sandals have not worn out.
You did not eat bread, and you did not drink wine or alcohol, so that you might know that I {am} Yahweh your God.’
You did not have bread to eat or wine or other fermented drinks to drink, {but Yahweh took care of you,} in order that you would know that he is your God.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you came to this place, and Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us for the battle, and we struck them down.
And when we came to this place, Sihon, the king who ruled in the city of Heshbon, and Og, the king who ruled the region of Bashan, came out with their armies to attack us, but we defeated them.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
We took their land and divided it among the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And you shall keep the words of this covenant and do them so that you may prosper in everything that you do.
So obey faithfully all that you have promised Yahweh you will do, in order that you will prosper in everything that you do.
You stand today, all of you, to the face of Yahweh your God (your chiefs, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel,
Today all of us are standing in the presence of Yahweh our God—I, the leaders of all your tribes, your elders, your officials, all you Israelite men,
your children, your wives, and the foreigner who {is} among you in your camp, from him who cuts your wood to him who draws your water),
your wives, your children, and the foreigners who live among us and cut wood for us and carry water for us.
(There are no questions for this verse)
to enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God and into the oath that Yahweh your God is cutting with you today,
You are all here today to agree with Yahweh our God, and to commit to obey him.
so that he may raise you up today into a people for himself and he may be God for you, as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
He is agreeing with you in order to make sure that you are his people, and that he is your God. This is what he promised to do for you, and what he solemnly promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that he would do.
and not only with you am I cutting this covenant and this oath,
It is not just that you and Yahweh are agreeing today.
but {with} those who are standing here with us today to the face of Yahweh our God, and {with} those who are not here with us today.
What we agree with Yahweh our God here today we are committing for us and also for our descendants who are not yet born.
(There are no questions for this verse)
For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we went through in the midst of the nations which you passed through,
You remember the things that our ancestors suffered in Egypt, and how they traveled through the land that belonged to other people groups after they came out of Egypt.
and you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, that {were} among them,
In those countries they saw those disgusting idols made of wood and stone and decorated with silver and gold.
lest there is among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from Yahweh our God to go serve the gods of those nations, lest there is among you a root bearing gall and wormwood.
So be sure that no man or woman or family or tribe that is here today stops worshiping Yahweh our God and starts worshiping any of the gods of those people groups. That would start to make you seem like something very bad tasting to Yahweh.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it will be, when he hears the words of this curse, then he will bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘I will have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,’ so that the wet {and} the dry are swept away.
Be sure that no one here today who hears us agreeing with Yahweh says to himself, ‘Everything will go well with me, even if I stubbornly do what I want to.’ If you do that, the result will be that Yahweh will eventually destroy all of you, both good people and evil people.
Yahweh is not willing to forgive him. Instead, the nose of Yahweh and his jealousy will smolder against that man, and all the curses written in this book will rest on him, and Yahweh will wipe out his name from under the heavens.
Yahweh will not forgive anyone who is stubborn like that. Instead, he will be extremely angry with that person. He will cause all the curses that I have written down here to happen to that person, until Yahweh destroys that person and his family forever.
And Yahweh will separate him for disaster from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
From all the tribes of Israel, Yahweh will choose that individual to suffer all the disasters that I have listed in the scroll that contains this agreement and its laws.
(There are no questions for this verse)
And the latter generation, your children who will rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, will say, when they see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which Yahweh has made it sick,
In future years, your descendants and people from other countries will see the disasters and the illnesses that Yahweh has caused to happen to you. They will exclaim,
‘All its land {is} sulfur and burning salt; no one sows and nothing sprouts and not any grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Yahweh destroyed in his nose and in his wrath,’
‘This land is a wasteland full of sulfur and burning salt! No one is planting anything! Nothing grows, not even weeds! This land is like the place where the cities Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboyim used to be. Yahweh destroyed those when he was very angry with those people.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
and all the nations will say, ‘Because of what has Yahweh done such to this land? What {is} the heat of this great nose?’
And the people from those other people groups will ask, ‘Why did Yahweh do this to this land? Why was he so angry with the people who lived here?’
(There are no questions for this verse)
And they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, that he cut with them when he brought them out from the land of Egypt,
Then other people will reply, ‘It is because they refused to do what they had agreed with Yahweh, the God whom their ancestors worshiped, when he brought them out of Egypt.
and they went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods that they had not known, and they had no portion of.
Instead, they worshiped other gods that they had never worshiped before, gods that Yahweh had told them not to worship.
(There are no questions for this verse)
So the nose of Yahweh burned against that land to bring on it all the curses written in this book,
So Yahweh became very angry with the people of this land, and he has caused to happen to them all the disasters that their leader warned them about.
(There are no questions for this verse)
and Yahweh has torn them away from their land in nose and in wrath and in great fury and has thrown them into another land, as this day.’
Yahweh became extremely angry with them and took them out of their land, and threw them into another land, and they are still there.’
The secret things {are} of Yahweh our God, but the revealed things {are} for us and for our sons until forever, in order to do all the words of this law.
There are some things that Yahweh our God has kept secret, but he has revealed his law to us, and he expects us and our descendants to obey it forever.
And it will be, if all these things have come on you, the blessings and the curses that I have set to your faces, and you return to your heart among all the nations where Yahweh your God has driven you there,
If, despite Yahweh our God blessing you in all the ways I have just told you about, {you disobey him, and when} he curses you in all the ways I have just told you about, and you are living in the countries to which he will have scattered you, you may realize what you have done.
and you return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice, according to all that I am commanding you today, you and your sons, with all your heart and with all your soul,
Then, if you and your children begin to worship Yahweh our God again and faithfully obey all that I have today commanded you to do,
(There are no questions for this verse)
then Yahweh your God will turn back your captivity and have compassion on you, and he will return and gather you from all the peoples where Yahweh your God has scattered you there.
he will act mercifully toward you by rescuing you. He will bring you back from the nations to which he scattered you.
(There are no questions for this verse)
If your scattered people are in the end of the heavens, from there Yahweh your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.
Even if he scatters you to the most distant places on the earth, Yahweh our God will gather you from there and bring you back to your land.
And Yahweh your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, and you will possess it, and he will do you good and will multiply you more than your fathers.
He will enable you to possess again the land where your ancestors lived. He will cause you to be more prosperous and more numerous than you are now.
And Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to the love of Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
Yahweh our God will change your and your children’s inner beings, with the result that you will love him with all that you desire and with all that you feel and that you will continue to live {in that land}.
And Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on haters of you, who pursued you.
Yahweh our God will send all the disasters {that I have told you about} on your enemies and on those who oppressed you.
And you will return and listen to the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today.
As you did before, you will do what Yahweh wants you to do and you will obey all that I have commanded you today.
And Yahweh your God will give you prosperity in all the work of your hand and in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground, for goodness; for Yahweh will again rejoice over you for goodness, as he rejoiced over your fathers,
Yahweh our God will cause you to be very prosperous in all that you do. You will have many children and many cattle, and you will produce abundant crops. He will again be happy to enable you to prosper, just like he was happy to enable your ancestors to prosper.
(There are no questions for this verse)
if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes written in this book of the law, if you return to Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
But he will do those things only if you do what he has told you to do, and only if you obey all his rules and regulations that I have written about in this instruction book, and only if you again worship Yahweh with all that you desire and with all that you feel.
For this commandment that I am commanding you today is not {too} wonderful for you, and it is not far away.
The commands that I am giving to you today are not very difficult for you to obey, and they are not difficult to know.
It {is} not in heaven, saying, ‘Who will go up for us to heaven and take it to us and cause us to hear it, and let us do it?’
They are not hiding in heaven. You do not need to say, ‘Someone will need to go up to heaven for us and bring them back to us, in order than we can hear them and obey them.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
And it {is} not beyond the sea, saying, ‘Who will go over to beyond the sea for us and take it to us and cause us to hear it and let us do it?’
And they are not on the other side of the sea. You do not need to say, ‘Someone will need to cross the sea for us and bring them back to us, in order than we can hear them and obey them.’
(There are no questions for this verse)
But the word {is} very near to you, in your mouth and your heart, so that you may do it.
No, his commands are here with you. You have memorized them and you can tell them to anyone. So you can easily obey them.
(There are no questions for this verse)
See, today I have set to your faces life and good and death and evil.
So listen! Today I am allowing you to choose between doing what is good resulting in you living and doing what is evil resulting in you dying.
What I am commanding you today is to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, and you will live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land which you are going into to possess it.
I say again, if you love Yahweh our God, conduct your lives as he wants you to do and obey everything he commands you, you will prosper and become very numerous. Yahweh our God will bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.
But if your heart turns away and you do not listen but are drawn away and bow down to other gods and serve them,
But if you stop worshiping Yahweh, and if you refuse to obey what he says, and if you allow others to persuade you to worship other gods,
I announce to you today that perishing you will perish; you will not prolong {your} days in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to go into to possess it.
I am warning you today that you will soon die. Your people will not live for very long in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan River to enter and possess.
(There are no questions for this verse)
I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today: I have set to your faces life and death, the blessings and the curses; that you would choose life that you may live, you and your seed,
I am requesting everyone in heaven and on the earth to testify to you, that today I am allowing you to choose whether you want to live for a long time or to soon die, whether you want Yahweh to bless you or to curse you. So choose to obey and therefore live; choose for you and for your descendants.
to love Yahweh your God, to listen to his voice, and to cling to him—for he {is} your life and the length of your days—so you may live in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them.”
Decide to love Yahweh our God, to obey him and to always be faithful to him. If you do that, he will enable you and your descendants to live for a long time in the land that Yahweh solemnly promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give to them.”
“Listen, heavens, and let me speak, and let the earth hear the utterances of my mouth.
“Listen to me, all you who are in the heavens, let me sing {this song}, all you who are on the earth, {do the same:} listen to what I sing.
Let my teaching drop like rain, my saying mist like dew, like sprinkling on the green, and like downpours on the grass.
I wish that my song may help you like the rain helps you, may it refresh you like the dew on the ground in the morning, like a gentle rain on the young plants, or like showers of rain on the grass.
For the name of Yahweh I proclaim; ascribe greatness to our God!
{This song will refresh you if you listen to it} because I will praise Yahweh. All you people should praise how great our God is.
The Rock, his work {is} perfect, for all his ways {are} just. A faithful God without iniquity, righteous and upright {is} he.
He is like a rock on top of which we are safe; everything that he does is perfect and completely just. He always does what he says that he will do, and he never breaks his promises; he always does the right thing.
He acted corruptly to him, {they are} not his sons, {that is} their flaw; {they are} a perverse and crooked generation.
But you Israelite people have been very unfaithful to him; because of your sins, you no longer deserve to be his children. You are extremely wicked and deceitful.
{Is} this how you reward Yahweh, people foolish and without wisdom? {Is} he not your father, your shaper? He made you and established you.
You foolish and senseless people, this is certainly not the way that you should repay Yahweh for all that he has done for you. He is your father; he created you; he caused you to become a nation.
Remember the days of eternity; consider the years of generation upon generation. Ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you.
Think about what happened long ago by considering what happened to your ancestors. Ask your parents, and they will inform you; {ask} the older people, and they will tell you.
When the Most High gave the nations an inheritance, when he divided the sons of man, he defined the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of Israel.
Long ago when the Greatest God divided humanity into people groups and gave them their lands, he set their boundaries according to the number of Jacob’s descendants,
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For the portion of Yahweh {is} his people, Jacob {is} the portion of his inheritance.
because Yahweh decided that we would be his people. He chose us, Jacob’s descendants, to belong to him.
He found him in a wilderness land, and in the barren, howling desert. He surrounded him and gave mind to him, watched over him as the little man of his eye.
He saw our ancestors when they were in a desert, wandering in a land that was desolate. He protected them and took care of them, as every person takes good care of his own eyes.
Like an eagle rouses his nest, over his young he hovers, {He} spread his wings, {he} took him, carried him on his pinions.
Yahweh trained and protected his people just like an eagle encourages its babies to fly and flutters over them, spreading its wings and catching them if they start to fall.
Yahweh alone led him, and there was not with him a god of foreigners.
Yahweh was the only one who led them; no other foreign god helped them.
He caused him to ride on heights of the land, and fed {him} the fruits of the field, and he nourished him {with} honey from the crag, and oil from the flinty stone,
Yahweh enabled them to rule the hill country; they ate the crops that grew in the fields. They found honey in the rocks, and their olive trees grew even in stony ground.
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curd of cattle and milk of flocks, with fat of lambs, and rams, sons of Bashan, and goats, with fat kernels of wheat, and the blood of grapes you drank {as} wine.
Their cows produced very creamy milk, the sheep and goats gave them plenty of milk, they ate choice lamb fat, Bashan-bred rams, and goats, they had choice wheat kernels, and they made and drank delicious wine from their grapes.
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And Jeshurun fattened and kicked— you were fat, you thickened, you gorged— and he abandoned the God {who} made him, and he rejected the Rock of his salvation.
The Israelites became so rich and prosperous that they became very fat, but then they rebelled against God; they abandoned him, the one who created them. They disregarded the God who powerfully saves them.
He made him jealous with strangers. With their abominations they angered him.
The Israelites made God jealous by worshiping other gods. Because they did disgusting things while worshiping idols, he became angry.
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They sacrificed to demons, not God, gods they had not known, new ones come recently, {whom} your fathers had not feared.
They offered sacrifices to gods who were really demons instead of sacrificing to God, to gods that they had not known before. They offered sacrifices to gods that they had recently found out about, to gods whom your ancestors had never been afraid of.
The Rock, your bearer, you neglected and you forgot the God {who} gave you birth.
They ignored their Protector who created them, forgetting the {true} God who made them {a nation}.
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And Yahweh saw, and he spurned, from the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
When Yahweh saw {that they had abandoned him}, he became angry, so he rejected the Israelites who were like his sons and daughters.
And he said, ‘Let me hide my face from them, I shall see what their end {will be;} for a perverse generation {are} they, children {with} no faithfulness in them.
He said, ‘They are very wicked people, very unfaithful, so I will no longer help them, and then I will watch and see what happens to them.
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They made me jealous with a not-god; angered me by their worthless things, so I will make them jealous with a not-people; by a foolish nation I will anger them,
Because they worship worthless idols that are not real gods, they have made me angry like a jealous husband. So I will make them angry in return by using a foolish nation that is not really a people.
for a fire flares in my nose, and burns to the lowest Sheol, and devours the earth and its yield, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.
My anger is like a fierce fire that burns in my nostrils; it will burn all the way down to the place where dead people are. That fire will destroy the land and the crops, it will even burn deep under the mountains.
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I will increase disasters on them; I will spend my arrows on them,
I will cause so many disasters to happen to them that they will feel like I am shooting all my arrows into them.
wasted {by} hunger and weakened {by} plague and bitter contagion, and on the teeth of beasts, I will send them, with the poison of crawlers {in the} dust.
They will die because of being hungry and because of having hot fevers and because of terrible diseases. I will send wild animals to attack them, and poisonous snakes to bite them.
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Outside the sword will bereave, and in the bedrooms, terror, both young man and virgin, the suckling, with the gray-haired man.
Outside their houses, their enemies will kill them with swords, and in their homes, their enemies will terrify them. Their enemies will kill young men and young women, and they will kill infants and old people with gray hair.
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I said I would wipe them out. I would remove from mankind their memory
I almost completely destroyed them in order that no one would ever remember them.
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if the provocation of the enemy I did not fear, lest their adversaries misjudge, lest they say, “Our hand {is} exalted, and Yahweh did not carry out all this.”’
But I worried that if I did that, their enemies would boast. They would think the wrong thing. I did not want them to say, “We are the stronger than the Israelites; it was us, not Yahweh who destroyed them.”’
For a nation devoid of counsel {are} they, and without understanding in them.
You are a nation of people who do not have any sense. None of you are wise.
If they were wise, they would comprehend this; they would understand their latter days!
If you were wise, you would understand why I would punish you; you would have realized what was going to happen to you.
How could one chase a thousand, or two put to flight ten thousands, unless their Rock sold them, and Yahweh gave them up?
You would have realized why one soldier could defeat a thousand soldiers, and why two soldiers could chase away ten thousand soldiers. You would realize that this could happen only if the Israelites’ Protector, Yahweh, had given their enemies power to defeat them.
For not like our Rock {is} their rock, and {thus}, our enemies assess.
Even our enemies know that their protector gods are not like our Protector God.
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For from the vine of Sodom {is} their vine, and from the vineyards of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, bitter clusters are to them.
Their gods are as deeply evil as those of Sodom and Gomorrah, so those who worship them are bitter and toxic,
The venom of serpents {is} their wine, and the cruel poison of vipers.
they love celebrating things as deadly as snakes’ poison.
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‘Is it not concealed with me, sealed up among my treasures?
Yahweh says, ‘The things I will do to punish them, I have kept hidden with me, protected like a treasure.
Mine {is} vengeance and recompense, at the time when their foot slips; for the day of their disaster {is} near, and the things prepared for them hasten.’
It is for me to punish and to pay back. When everything sudden goes wrong I am starting to destroy them. I am prepared to punish them quickly.’
For Yahweh vindicates his people, and has compassion on his servants. For he will see that gone is {their} hand, and there are none, kept back or let free.
Yahweh will see that his people are helpless and that almost no one remains—neither prisoner nor free person. Then he will pity his servants and judge on behalf of them.
And he will say, ‘Where {are} their gods, the rock in whom they took refuge,
Then Yahweh will ask you, ‘Where are the gods that you thought would protect you?
who ate the fat of their sacrifices, drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up and help you; let them be a shelter over you.
You gave to those gods the best parts of the animals that you sacrificed, and you poured out wine for them to drink. So they should take action to help you; they should be the ones who will protect you!
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See, now, that I, I {am} he, and there is no god besides me. I put to death and give life; I wound, and I heal, and no one rescues from my hand,
But now you will realize that I, only I, am God; there is no other god who is a real god. I alone can kill people and can cause people to live; I can wound people, and I alone can heal people, and there is no one who can prevent me from doing those things.
for I lift up my hand to heaven and say, “{As} I live forever,
I solemnly swear that just as surely as I live forever, I will act.
when I sharpen my glittering sword, and my hand seizes justice, I will return vengeance on my enemies, and I will pay back those who hate me.
I will prepare to judge my enemies like a warrior sharpens his sword until it shines. I will strike my enemies back by repaying those who hate me for what they have done.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.”’
The arrows {of the army that I send to destroy my enemies} will have so much blood on them that it would make them drunk if it were wine and they were people. Their swords will kill a lot of people. The blood will come from enemies that they kill or that they wound and capture, some will come from the enemies’ leaders’ heads.’
Nations, make his people rejoice, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and he will return vengeance on his adversaries, and atone for his land {and} his people.”
Everyone joyfully praise Yahweh, because Yahweh gets revenge on those who kill the people who serve him, and he cleanses his people’s land {which has become defiled because of their sins}.”
And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Joshua, the son of Nun.
Moses and Joshua son of Nun sang that song while the Israelites listened.
And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel.
Then Moses finished telling all the Israelites all Yahweh’s instructions.
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And he said to them, “Set your hearts on all the words which I bore witness to you today, that you may command your children to keep doing all the words of this law.
He concluded by telling them, “Never forget all these commands that I have been giving you today. Teach these laws to your children, in order that they will faithfully obey all of them.
For it {is} no empty thing for you, because it {is} your life, and through this thing you may prolong {your} days in the land to which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess it.”
These instructions are very important. If you obey them, you will live a long time in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan River to occupy.”
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And Yahweh spoke to Moses on this same day, saying,
On that same day, Yahweh said to Moses,
“Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which {is} in the land of Moab, that {is} on the face of Jericho. And you will see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession.
“Go to the Abarim mountain range here in the region of Moab, across from the city of Jericho. Climb Mount Nebo and look {toward the west} to see Canaan, the land that I am about to give to the Israelites.
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And you will die on the mountain which you are going up to, and you will be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,
You will die on the mountain after you go up. You will join your people {in the place where dead people stay}, just like your older brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and went to join your people {in the place where dead people stay}.
because you were unfaithful to me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah {in} Kadesh, {in the} wilderness of Zin; because you did not regard me as holy among the sons of Israel.
You will die because both of you disobeyed me in the presence of the Israelites, when you all were at the springs of Meribah near Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. You did not honor and respect me in the presence of the Israelites in the way that I deserve because I am God.
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For you will see the land from the front, but you will not go there, into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.”
When you are on that mountain where I told you to go, you will see in the distance in front of you the land that I am about to give to the Israelites, but you will not enter it.”
And this {is} the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the sons of Israel to the face of his death.
Before God’s prophet Moses died, he blessed the Israelites.
And he said, “Yahweh from Sinai came and rose from Seir to them, shone forth from Mount Paran, and came with ten thousands of the holy, in his right hand, a fire of law for them.
This is what he said, “Yahweh came from Mount Sinai, he came to Israel like the sun rising over Mount Seir, his light shone from near Mount Paran. He came with ten thousand holy angels, and there was a flaming fire at his right side.
Yes, he loves the peoples. All his sanctified {are} in your hand, and they will be tied to your feet, he will take from your words.
Yahweh truly loves his people and protects all his special people. So they worship him and listen to his instructions.
A law Moses commanded to us, a possession for the assembly of Jacob.
{They said that} I gave them laws to obey, laws that would forever be for the descendants of Jacob.
And he became a king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people had gathered together, the tribes of Israel.
So Yahweh became the king of his precious people when all the tribes and their leaders had gathered together.
Let Reuben live and not die, but let his men be few.”
I say this about the tribe of Reuben, I desire that their tribe will never disappear, but that they will never become numerous.
And this {is} for Judah. And he said, “Listen, Yahweh, {to} the voice of Judah, and to his people bring him. Let his hand strive for himself, and a help against his enemies you will be.”
I say this about the tribe of Judah, Yahweh, listen to them {when they call out for help}. When they are fighting a battle, help them against the enemy, and bring them back home safely.
And to Levi, he said, “Your Thummim and your Urim are to your faithful man, whom you tested at Massah. You strove against him {at} the waters of Meribah
I say this about the tribe of Levi, Yahweh’s {sacred lots called} Thummim and Urim belong to the tribe that stayed loyal to him after he tested them at Massah and where they quarreled with him at Meribah spring.
who said of his father and of his mother, ‘I have not seen them,’ and his brothers he did not acknowledge, and his sons he did not know, for they guarded your speech and your covenant they kept.
They did what you told them to do by faithfully keeping the solemn agreement between Yahweh and the Israelites. Obeying Yahweh was much more important to them than their parents, siblings, or children.
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They teach your ordinances to Jacob, and your law to Israel. They will put incense before your nose, and whole offerings on your altar.
They teach Yahweh’s decrees and laws to the Israelites, they will burn incense for him to enjoy and will completely burn the offerings {that the people bring} on Yahweh’s altar.
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Bless, Yahweh, his possessions, and the work of his hands accept. Shatter the loins of those who rise up against him, and haters of him, lest they rise up.”
Yahweh, make them prosper and accept all that they do. Crush their attackers’ ability to have children, so those that hate them will never be able to fight against them again.
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To Benjamin, he said, “The beloved of Yahweh lives in security beside him. He covers him all the day, and between his shoulders he lives.”
I say this about the tribe of Benjamin, Yahweh loves them; he keeps them safe. He protects them continually, and he lives among their hills.
And to Joseph, he said, “Blessed of Yahweh {be} his land, from the bounty of heaven, from dew, and from the deep lying beneath,
I say this about the tribes of Joseph, I desire that Yahweh will bless their land by giving them dew from the sky, and water from deep in the ground
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and from the bounty of the harvest of the sun, and from the bounty of the yield of the moons,
to produce for them wonderful fruit that the sun makes ripe, wonderful crops in the right months,
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and from the heads of ancient mountains, and from the bounty of eternal hills,
and wonderful things produced on their ancient hills and mountains.
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and from the bounty of earth and from its fullness, and the favor of the bush-dweller. Let them come on the head of Joseph, and on the top of the head of the prince of his brothers.
Indeed, may he give them plenty of wonderful things from all that the earth produces and may {Yahweh who} lived in the {burning} bush be kind to them. I desire that Yahweh will bless the tribes of Joseph in all those ways, because he was the leader over his brothers {when they were in Egypt}.
His firstborn ox {is} his majesty, and the horns of a wild ox {are} his horns. With them he will ram the peoples together to the ends of the earth, And they {are} the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they {are} the thousands of Manasseh.”
There are ten thousand upon ten thousand people in the tribe of Ephraim and thousands upon thousands of people in the tribe of Manasseh which will be as strong as a bull; with their weapons they will wound their enemies like a wild ox gores other animals with its horns. Together they will push other people groups to the most distant places on the earth.
And to Zebulun, he said, “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out, and Issachar, in your tents.
I say this about the tribes of Zebulun {and Issachar}, I desire that the people of Zebulun will prosper whenever they go {across the seas}, and that the people of Issachar will prosper while they stay at home {and take care of their cattle and crops}.
Peoples they will call {to} the mountain. There they will sacrifice sacrifices of righteousness. For the abundance of the seas they suckle, and treasures hidden {in the} sand.”
They will invite people {from the other Israelite tribe}s to the mountain {where they worship Yahweh by} offering correct sacrifices to him. They will become rich from {the work that they do on} the seas and from {using} the sand along the sea {to make things}.
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And to Gad, he said, “Blessed be the increaser of Gad. Like a lioness he will live, and tear off an arm, also a head.
I say this about the tribe of Gad, Praise Yahweh, the one who made their territory large. The people of their tribe will attack their enemies fiercely like a lion that crouches, waiting to tear off the arm or the scalp of some animal.
And he saw the first for himself, for there the portion of a commander {is} reserved. And he came {with} the heads of the people. The justice of Yahweh he carried out, and his judgments with Israel.”
They chose the best part of the land for themselves; they got a share big enough for a leader. When the leaders of the tribes of Israel gathered together, the tribe of Gad did the righteous things Yahweh commanded Israel to do.
And to Dan, he said, “Dan {is} a lion cub leaping out from Bashan.”
I say this about the tribe of Dan, The people of the tribe of Dan are like a young lion; they leap out from their caves in the region of Bashan to attack their enemies.
And to Naphtali, he said, “Naphtali, satisfied {with} favor, and full of the blessing of Yahweh, the west and the south, you will possess.”
I say this about the tribe of Naphtali, Yahweh has blessed and been very kind to the people of the tribe of Naphtali; their land extends far south from the Sea of Chenneroth.
And to Asher, he said, “Blessed among sons {is} Asher. Let him be favored {among} his brothers, and bathe in oil his foot.
I say this about the tribe of Asher, May Yahweh bless the descendants of Asher more than he will bless the other tribes. I desire that they have a lot of olive trees that will produce a lot of olives to make olive oil.
Iron and bronze your gate-bolts, and as your days, your security.
Their towns will have high walls with gates that have bronze and iron bars. They will be strong as long as they live.”
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{There is} no one like the God of Jeshurun, riding the heavens to your help, and in his majesty {on} the clouds.
{Then Moses said to all the Israelites,} “You Israelites, there is no god like your God, who travels swiftly through the heavens to rescue you.
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A refuge {is} the God of ancient days, and underneath {are} the eternal arms. And he thrust out the enemy from your faces, and he said, ‘Destroy!’
God, who lives forever, is the one who gives you refuge; it is as though he puts his everlasting arms under you to support you. He will drive out your enemies while you advance; he has told you to destroy all of them.
And Israel dwelt {in} safety secure, the spring of Jacob in a land of grain and new wine. Indeed, let his heavens drop dew.
So you Israelite people will live safely; no one will disturb you descendants of Jacob; in the land {where you will live}, there will be plenty of grain and wine, and plenty of dew will fall from the sky.
Your happiness, Israel! Who {is} like you, a people saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, and who {is} the sword of your majesty? And your enemies will fawn over you, but you, on their backs will trample.”
You people of Israel are very fortunate. There is certainly no nation like your nation, whom Yahweh has rescued {from being slaves in Egypt}. He will be like a shield to protect you and like a powerful sword to enable you to defeat your enemies. Your enemies will come to you begging for you to act mercifully toward them, but you will thoroughly overcome them.”