DEUTERONOMY - 1
1 These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the
Jordan—in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel,
Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab.
2 (By the way of Mount Seir it takes eleven days to reach Kadesh-barnea
from Horeb.)
3 In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month,
Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded him to speak to
them.
4 This was after he had defeated King Sihon of the Amorites, who
reigned in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and in
Edrei.
5 Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound
this law as follows:
6 The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, "You have
stayed long enough at this mountain.
7 Resume your journey, and go into the hill country of the Amorites
as well as into the neighbouring regions—the Arabah, the hill country, the
Shephelah, the Negeb, and the seacoast—the land of the Canaanites and the
Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of
the land that I swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them."
9 At that time I said to you, "I am unable by myself to bear
you.
10 The Lord your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as
numerous as the stars of heaven.
11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand
times more and bless you, as he has promised you!
12 But how can I bear the heavy burden of your disputes all by
myself?
13 Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise,
discerning, and reputable to be your leaders."
14You answered me, "The plan you have proposed is a good
one."
15 So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and reputable
individuals, and installed them as leaders over you, commanders of thousands,
commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and
officials, throughout your tribes.
16 I charged your judges at that time: "Give the members of your
community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another,
whether citizen or resident alien.
17 You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the
great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's.
Any case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it."
18 So I charged you at that time with all the things that you should
do.
19 Then, just as the Lord our God had ordered us, we set out from
Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw, on
the way to the hill country of the Amorites, until we reached
Kadesh-barnea.
20 I said to you, "You have reached the hill country of the
Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
21 See, the Lord your God has given the land to you; go up, take
possession, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you; do not
fear or be dismayed."
22 All of you came to me and said, "Let us send men ahead of us
to explore the land for us and bring back a report to us regarding the route by
which we should go up and the cities we will come to."
23 The plan seemed good to me, and I selected twelve of you, one from
each tribe.
24 They set out and went up into the hill country, and when they
reached the Valley of Eshcol they spied it out
25 and gathered some of the land's produce, which they brought down
to us. They brought back a report to us, and said, "It is a good land that
the Lord our God is giving us."
26 But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the command
of the Lord your God;
27 you grumbled in your tents and said, "It is because the Lord
hates us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to
the Amorites to destroy us.
28 Where are we headed? Our kindred have made our hearts melt by
reporting, "The people are stronger and taller than we; the cities are
large and fortified up to heaven! We actually saw there the offspring of the
Anakim!' "
29I said to you, "Have no dread or fear of them.
30 The Lord your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight
for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes,
31 and in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God carried
you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you travelled until you
reached this place.
32 But in spite of this, you have no trust in the Lord your
God,
33 who goes before you on the way to seek out a place for you to
camp, in fire by night, and in the cloud by day, to show you the route you
should take."
34 When the Lord heard your words, he was wrathful and swore:
35 "Not one of these—not one of this evil generation —shall see
the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors,
36 except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to
his descendants I will give the land on which he set foot, because of his
complete fidelity to the Lord."
37 Even with me the Lord was angry on your account, saying, "You
also shall not enter there.
38Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, shall enter there; encourage him, for
he is the one who will secure Israel's possession of it.
39 And as for your little ones, who you thought would become booty,
your children, who today do not yet know right from wrong, they shall enter
there; to them I will give it, and they shall take possession of it.
40 But as for you, journey back into the wilderness, in the direction
of the Red Sea."
41 You answered me, "We have sinned against the Lord! We are
ready to go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us." So all
of you strapped on your battle gear, and thought it easy to go up into the hill
country.
42 The Lord said to me, "Say to them, "Do not go up and do
not fight, for I am not in the midst of you; otherwise you will be defeated by
your enemies.' "
43 Although I told you, you would not listen. You rebelled against
the command of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the hill country.
44 The Amorites who lived in that hill country then came out against
you and chased you as bees do. They beat you down in Seir as far as
Hormah.
45 When you returned and wept before the Lord, the Lord would neither
heed your voice nor pay you any attention.
46 After you had stayed at Kadesh as many days as you did,
DEUTERONOMY - 2
1 we journeyed back into the wilderness, in the direction of the Red
Sea, as the Lord had told me and skirted Mount Seir for many days.
2 Then the Lord said to me:
3 "You have been skirting this hill country long enough. Head
north,
4 and charge the people as follows: You are about to pass through
the territory of your kindred, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They
will be afraid of you, so, be very careful
5 not to engage in battle with them, for I will not give you even so
much as a foot's length of their land, since I have given Mount Seir to Esau as
a possession.
6 You shall purchase food from them for money, so that you may eat;
and you shall also buy water from them for money, so that you may drink.
7 Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings;
he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord
your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."
8So we passed by our kin, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir,
leaving behind the route of the Arabah, and leaving behind Elath and
Ezion-geber. When we had headed out along the route of the wilderness of
Moab,
9 the Lord said to me: "Do not harass Moab or engage them in
battle, for I will not give you any of its land as a possession, since I have
given Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot."
10 (The Emim—a large and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim—had
formerly inhabited it.
11 Like the Anakim, they are usually reckoned as Rephaim, though the
Moabites call them Emim.
12Moreover, the Horim had formerly inhabited Seir, but the descendants of
Esau dispossessed them, destroying them and settling in their place, as Israel
has done in the land that the Lord gave them as a possession.)
13 "Now then, proceed to cross over the Wadi Zered." So we
crossed over the Wadi Zered.
14 And the length of time we had travelled from Kadesh-barnea until
we crossed the Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation
of warriors had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn concerning them.
15 Indeed, the Lord's own hand was against them, to root them out
from the camp, until all had perished.
16 Just as soon as all the warriors had died off from among the
people,
17 the Lord spoke to me, saying,
18 "Today you are going to cross the boundary of Moab at
Ar.
19 When you approach the frontier of the Ammonites, do not harass
them or engage them in battle, for I will not give the land of the Ammonites to
you as a possession, because I have given it to the descendants of
Lot."
20 (It also is usually reckoned as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim
formerly inhabited it, though the Ammonites call them Zamzum’mim,
21 a strong and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim. But the Lord
destroyed them from before the Ammonites so that they could dispossess them and
settle in their place.
22 He did the same for the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, by
destroying the Horim before them so that they could dispossess them and settle
in their place even to this day.
23 As for the Avvim, who had lived in settlements in the vicinity of
Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their
place.)
24 "Proceed on your journey and cross the Wadi Arnon. See, I
have handed over to you King Sihon the Amorite of Heshbon, and his land. Begin
to take possession by engaging him in battle.
25 This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the
peoples everywhere under heaven; when they hear report of you, they will
tremble and be in anguish because of you."
26 So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon
of Heshbon with the following terms of peace:
27 "If you let me pass through your land, I will travel only
along the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left.
28 You shall sell me food for money, so that I may eat, and supply me
water for money, so that I may drink. Only allow me to pass through on
foot—
29 just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir have done for me
and likewise the Moabites who live in Ar—until I cross the Jordan into the land
that the Lord our God is giving us."
30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was not willing to let us pass through,
for the Lord your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart defiant in
order to hand him over to you, as he has now done.
31 The Lord said to me, "See, I have begun to give Sihon and his
land over to you. Begin now to take possession of his land."
32 So when Sihon came out against us, he and all his people for
battle at Jahaz,
33 the Lord our God gave him over to us; and we struck him down,
along with his offspring and all his people.
34 At that time we captured all his towns, and in each town we
utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single
survivor.
35 Only the livestock we kept as spoil for ourselves, as well as the
plunder of the towns that we had captured.
36 From Aroer on the edge of the Wadi Arnon (including the town that
is in the wadi itself) as far as Gilead, there was no citadel too high for us.
The Lord our God gave everything to us.
37 You did not encroach, however, on the land of the Ammonites,
avoiding the whole upper region of the Wadi Jabbok as well as the towns of the
hill country, just as the Lord our God had charged.
DEUTERONOMY - 3
1 When we headed up the road to Bashan, King Og of Bashan came out
against us, he and all his people, for battle at Edrei.
2 The Lord said to me, "Do not fear him, for I have handed him
over to you, along with his people and his land. Do to him as you did to King
Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon."
3 So the Lord our God also handed over to us King Og of Bashan and
all his people. We struck him down until not a single survivor was left.
4 At that time we captured all his towns; there was no citadel that
we did not take from them—sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom
of Og in Bashan.
5 All these were fortress towns with high walls, double gates, and
bars, besides a great many villages.
6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of
Heshbon, in each city utterly destroying men, women, and children.
7 But all the livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as
spoil for ourselves.
8 So at that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the
land beyond the Jordan, from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon
9(the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it
Senir),
10 all the towns of the tableland, the whole of Gilead, and all of
Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og's kingdom in Bashan.
11 (Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the
Rephaim. In fact his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the
Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits
wide.)
12 As for the land that we took possession of at that time, I gave to
the Reubenites and Gadites the territory north of Aroer, that is on the edge of
the Wadi Arnon, as well as half the hill country of Gilead with its
towns,
13 and I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and
all of Bashan, Og's kingdom. (The whole region of Argob: all that portion of
Bashan used to be called a land of Rephaim;
14 Jair the Manassite acquired the whole region of Argob as far as
the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and he named them—that is,
Bashan—after himself, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.)
15 To Machir I gave Gilead.
16 And to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from
Gilead as far as the Wadi Arnon, with the middle of the wadi as a boundary, and
up to the Jabbok, the wadi being boundary of the Ammonites;
17 the Arabah also, with the Jordan and its banks, from Chinnereth
down to the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, with the lower slopes of Pisgah on
the east.
18 At that time, I charged you as follows: "Although the Lord
your God has given you this land to occupy, all your troops shall cross over
armed as the vanguard of your Israelite kin.
19 Only your wives, your children, and your livestock—I know that you
have much livestock—shall stay behind in the towns that I have given to
you.
20 When the Lord gives rest to your kindred, as to you, and they too
have occupied the land that the Lord your God is giving them beyond the Jordan,
then each of you may return to the property that I have given to
you."
21 And I charged Joshua as well at that time, saying: "Your own
eyes have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to these two kings;
so the Lord will do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to
cross.
22 Do not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for
you."
23 At that time, too, I entreated the Lord, saying:
24"O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your
greatness and your might; what god in heaven or on earth can perform deeds and
mighty acts like yours!
25 Let me cross over to see the good land beyond the Jordan, that
good hill country and the Lebanon."
26 But the Lord was angry with me on your account and would not heed
me. The Lord said to me, "Enough from you! Never speak to me of this
matter again!
27 Go up to the top of Pisgah and look around you to the west, to the
north, to the south, and to the east. Look well, for you shall not cross over
this Jordan.
28 But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because it is
he who shall cross over at the head of this people and who shall secure their
possession of the land that you will see."
29 So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.
DEUTERONOMY - 4
1 So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am
teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that
the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.
2 You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away
anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I
am charging you.
3 You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did with regard to the
Baal of Peor—how the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who
followed the Baal of Peor,
4 while those of you who held fast to the Lord your God are all
alive today.
5 See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you
statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to
enter and occupy.
6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom
and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will
say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!"
7For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God
is whenever we call to him?
8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as
this entire law that I am setting before you today?
9 But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to
forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind
all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's
children—
10 how you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the
Lord said to me, "Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my
words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and
may teach their children so";
11 you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the
mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds.
12Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words
but saw no form; there was only a voice.
13 He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe,
that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 And the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statutes and
ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and
occupy.
15 Since you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of
the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely,
16 so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves,
in the form of any figure—the likeness of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of
any winged bird that flies in the air,
18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness
of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
19 And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and
the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them
and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples
everywhere under heaven.
20 But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter,
out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are
now.
21 The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he vowed that I
should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the
Lord your God is giving for your possession.
22 For I am going to die in this land without crossing over the
Jordan, but you are going to cross over to take possession of that good
land.
23 So be careful not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God
made with you, and not to make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything
that the Lord your God has forbidden you.
24 For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25 When you have had children and children's children, and become
complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of
anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and
provoking him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will
soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy;
you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you
will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you.
28 There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of
wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him
if you search after him with all your heart and soul.
30 In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in
time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him.
31 Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither
abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your
ancestors that he swore to them.
32 For ask now about former ages, long before your own, ever since
the day that God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of heaven
to the other: has anything so great as this ever happened or has its like ever
been heard of?
33 Has any people ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a
fire, as you have heard, and lived?
34 Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself
from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a
mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as
the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
35 To you it was shown so that you would acknowledge that the Lord is
God; there is no other besides him.
36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth
he showed you his great fire, while you heard his words coming out of the
fire.
37 And because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants
after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great
power,
38 driving out before you nations greater and mightier than
yourselves, to bring you in, giving you their land for a possession, as it is
still today.
39 So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in
heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
40 Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding you
today for your own well-being and that of your descendants after you, so that
you may long remain in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all
time.
41 Then Moses set apart on the east side of the Jordan three
cities
42 to which a homicide could flee someone who unintentionally kills
another person, the two not having been at enmity before; the homicide could
flee to one of these cities and live:
43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland, belonging to the
Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan,
belonging to the Manassites.
44 This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites.
45 These are the decrees and the statutes and ordinances that Moses
spoke to the Israelites when they had come out of Egypt,
46 beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of
King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned at Heshbon, whom Moses and the
Israelites defeated when they came out of Egypt.
47They occupied his land and the land of King Og of Bashan, the two kings
of the Amorites on the eastern side of the Jordan:
48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, as far as Mount
Sirion (that is, Hermon),
49 together with all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far
as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.
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