1 These are the words Moshe spoke to all Isra'el on the far side of the Yarden River, in the desert, in the 'Aravah, across from Suf, between Pa'ran and Tofel, Lavan, Hatzerot and Di-Zahav.
2 It is eleven days' journey from Horev to Kadesh-Barnea by way of Mount Se'ir.
3 On the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year, Moshe spoke to the people of Isra'el, reviewing everything ADONAI had ordered him to tell them.
4 This was after he had defeated Sichon, king of the Emori, who lived in Heshbon, and 'Og, king of Bashan, who lived in 'Ashtarot, at Edre'i.
5 There, beyond the Yarden, in the land of Mo'av, Moshe took it upon himself to expound this Torah and said:
6 'ADONAI spoke to us in Horev. He said, 'You have lived long enough by this mountain.
7 Turn, get moving and go to the hill-country of the Emori and all the places near there in the 'Aravah, the hill-country, the Sh'felah, the Negev and by the seashore - the land of the Kena'ani, and the L'vanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River.
8 I have set the land before you! Go in, and take possession of the land ADONAI swore to give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov, and their descendants after them.'
9 'At that time I told you, 'You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone.
10 ADONAI your God has multiplied your numbers, so that there are as many of you today as there are stars in the sky.
11 May ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, increase you yet a thousandfold and bless you, as he has promised you!
12 But you are burdensome, bothersome and quarrelsome! How can I bear it by myself alone?
13 Pick for yourselves from each of your tribes men who are wise, understanding and knowledgeable; and I will make them heads over you.'
14 'You answered me, 'What you have said would be a good thing for us to do.'
15 So I took the heads of your tribes, men wise and knowledgable, and made them heads over you - leaders in charge of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers, tribe by tribe.
16 At that time I commissioned your judges, 'Hear the cases that arise between your brothers; and judge fairly between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is with him.
17 You are not to show favoritism when judging, but give equal attention to the small and to the great. No matter how a person presents himself, don't be afraid of him; because the decision is God's. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me and I will hear it.'
18 I also gave you orders at that time concerning all the things you were to do.
19 'So we left Horev and went through all that vast and fearsome desert which you saw on the way to the hill-country of the Emori, as ADONAI our God ordered us; and we arrived at Kadesh-Barnea.
20 There I said to you, 'You have come to the hill-country of the Emori, which ADONAI our God is giving to us.
21 Look! ADONAI your God has placed the land before you. Go up, take possession, as ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, has told you. Don't be afraid, don't be dismayed.'
22 'You approached me, every one of you, and said, 'Let's send men ahead of us to explore the country for us and bring back word concerning what route we should use in going up and what the cities we will encounter are like.'
23 The idea seemed good to me, so I took twelve of your men, one from each tribe;
24 and they set out, went up into the hills, came to the Eshkol Valley and reconnoitered it.
25 They took some of the produce of the land and brought it down to us; they also brought back word to us -'The land ADONAI our God is giving to us is good.'
26 'But you would not go up. Instead you rebelled against the order of ADONAI your God;
27 and in your tents you complained, 'It's because ADONAI hated us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, only to hand us over to the Emori to destroy us.
28 What sort of place is it that we're heading for? Our brothers made our courage fail when they said, 'The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are great and fortified up to the sky; and finally, we have seen 'Anakim there.''
29 'I answered you, 'Don't be fearful, don't be afraid of them.
30 ADONAI your God, who is going ahead of you, will fight on your behalf, just as he accomplished all those things for you in Egypt before your eyes,
31 and likewise in the desert, where you saw how ADONAI your God carried you, like a man carries his child, along the entire way you traveled until you arrived at this place.
32 Yet in this matter you don't trust ADONAI your God,
33 even though he went ahead of you, seeking out places for you to pitch your tents and showing you which way to go, by fire at night and by a cloud during the day.'
34 'ADONAI heard what you were saying, became angry and swore,
35 'Not a single one of these people, this whole evil generation, will see the good land I swore to give to your ancestors,
36 except Kalev the son of Y'funeh -he will see it; I will give him and his descendants the land he walked on, because he has fully followed ADONAI.'
37 'Also, because of you ADONAI was angry with me and said, 'You too will not go in there.
38 Y'hoshua the son of Nun, your assistant -he will go in there. So encourage him, because he will enable Isra'el to take possession of it.
39 Moreover, your little ones, who you said would be taken as booty, and your children who don't yet know good from bad -they will go in there; I will give it to them, and they will have possession of it.
40 But as for yourselves, turn around and head into the desert by the road to the Sea of Suf.'
41 'Then you answered me, 'We have sinned against ADONAI. Now we will go up and fight, in accordance with everything ADONAI our God ordered us.'And every man among you put on his arms, considering it an easy matter to go up into the hill-country.
42 But ADONAI said to me, 'Tell them, 'Don't go up, and don't fight, because I am not there with you; if you do, your enemies will defeat you.''
43 So I told you, but you wouldn't listen. Instead, you rebelled against ADONAI's order, took matters into your own hands and went up into the hill-country;
44 where the Emori living in that hill-country came out against you like bees, defeated you in Se'ir and chased you back all the way to Hormah.
45 You returned and cried before ADONAI, but ADONAI neither listened to what you said nor paid you any attention.
46 This is why you had to stay in Kadesh as long as you did.
1 'Then we turned and began traveling into the desert along the road to the Sea of Suf, as ADONAI had said to me; and we skirted Mount Se'ir for a long time.
2 Finally ADONAI said to me,
3 'You have been going around this mountain long enough! Head north,
4 and give this order to the people: 'You are to pass through the territory of your kinsmen the descendants of 'Esav who live in Se'ir. They will be afraid of you, so be very cautious,
5 and don't get into disputes with them; for I am not going to give you any of their land, no, not even enough for one foot to stand on; inasmuch as I have given Mount Se'ir to 'Esav as his possession.
6 Pay them money for the food you eat, and pay them money for the water you drink.
7 For ADONAI your God has blessed you in everything your hands have produced. He knows that you have been traveling through this vast desert; these forty years ADONAI your God has been with you; and you have lacked nothing.'
8 'So we went on past our kinsmen the descendants of 'Esav living in Se'ir, left the road through the 'Aravah from Eilat and 'Etzyon-Gever, and turned to pass along the road through the desert of Mo'av.
9 ADONAI said to me, 'Don't be hostile toward Mo'av or fight with them, because I will not give you any of their land to possess, since I have already given 'Ar to the descendants of Lot as their territory.''
10 (The Emim used to live there, a great and numerous people as tall as the 'Anakim.
11 They are also considered Refa'im, as are the 'Anakim, but the Mo'avim call them Emim.
12 In Se'ir the Horim used to live, but the descendants of 'Esav dispossessed and destroyed them, settling in their place. Isra'el did similarly in the land it came to possess, which ADONAI gave to them.)
13 ''Now get going, and cross Vadi Zered!' 'So we crossed Vadi Zered.
14 The time between our leaving Kadesh-Barnea and our crossing Vadi Zered was thirty-eight years - until the whole generation of men capable of bearing arms had been eliminated from the camp, as ADONAI had sworn they would be.
15 Moreover, ADONAI's hand was against them to root them out of the camp until the last of them was gone.
16 When all the men who were able to bear arms had died and were no longer part of the people,
17 ADONAI said to me,
18 'Today you are to cross the border of Mo'av at 'Ar.
19 When you approach the descendants of 'Amon, don't bother them or fight with them, for I will not give you any of the territory of the people of 'Amon to possess, since I have given it to the descendants of Lot as their territory.''
20 (This too is considered a land of the Refa'im: Refa'im, whom the Emori call Zamzumim, used to live there.
21 They were a large, numerous people, as tall as the 'Anakim; but ADONAI destroyed them as the people of 'Amon advanced and settled in their place -
22 just as he destroyed the Horim as descendants of 'Esav advanced into Se'ir and settled in their place, where they live to this day.
23 It was the same with the 'Avim, who lived in villages as far away as 'Azah -the Kaftorim, coming from Kaftor, destroyed them and settled in their place.)
24 ''Get up, get moving, and cross the Arnon Valley! Here, I have put in your hands Sichon the Emori, king of Heshbon, and his land; commence the conquest, begin the battle!
25 Today I will start putting the fear and dread of you into all the peoples under heaven, so that the mere mention of your name will make them quake and tremble before you.'
26 'I sent envoys from the K'demot Desert to Sichon king of Heshbon with a peaceable message,
27 'Let me pass through your land. I will keep to the road, turning neither right nor left.
28 You will sell me food to eat for money and give me water to drink for money. I only want to pass through.
29 Do as the people of 'Esav living in Se'ir and the Mo'avim living in 'Ar did with me, until I cross the Yarden into the land ADONAI our God is giving us.'
30 'But Sichon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through his territory, because ADONAI your God had hardened his spirit and made him stubborn, so that he could hand him over to you, as is the case today.
31 ADONAI said to me, 'See, I have begun handing over Sichon and his territory before you; start taking possession of his land.'
32 Then Sichon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Yahatz;
33 and ADONAI our God handed him over to us, so that we defeated him, his sons and all his people.
34 At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed every city - men, women, little ones - we left none of them.
35 As booty for ourselves we took only the cattle, along with the spoil from the cities we had captured.
36 From 'Aro'er, on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city in the valley, all the way to Gil'ad, there was not one city too well fortified for us to capture -ADONAI our God gave all of them to us.
37 The only land you didn't approach was that of the descendants of 'Amon - the region around the Yabok River, the cities in the hills and wherever else ADONAI our God forbade us to go.
1 'Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and 'Og the king of Bashan came out against us with all his people to fight at Edre'i.
2 ADONAI said to me, 'Don't be afraid of him; for I have handed him, all his people and his territory over to you; you will do to him as you did to Sichon king of the Emori, who lived at Heshbon.'
3 So ADONAI our God also handed over to us 'Og the king of Bashan with all his people, and we defeated him until he had no one left.
4 At that time we captured all his cities; there was not one city of theirs that we didn't capture. There were sixty cities, all the region of Argov, the kingdom of 'Og in Bashan;
5 all of them fortified cities with high walls, gates and bars - in addition to a great number of unwalled towns.
6 We completely destroyed them, as we did with Sichon king of Heshbon, annihilating every city -men, women and little ones.
7 But we took all the livestock, along with the spoil from the cities, as booty for ourselves.
8 'At that time we captured the territory of the two kings of the Emori east of the Yarden between the Arnon Valley and Mount Hermon,'
9 the Hermon which the Tzidonim call Siryon and the Emori call S'nir,
10 'all the cities of the plain, all Gil'ad and all Bashan, as far as Salkhah and Edre'i, cities of the kingdom of 'Og in Bashan.'
11 'Og king of Bashan was the last survivor of the Refa'im. His bed was made of iron; it is still in Rabbah with the people of 'Amon. It was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, using the normal cubit [thirteen-and-a-half by six feet].
12 'Of this land that we took possession of then, I assigned to the Re'uveni and the Gadi the territory extending from 'Aro'er along the Arnon Valley together with half the hill-country of Gil'ad, including its cities.
13 The rest of Gil'ad and all Bashan, the kingdom of 'Og, I gave to the half-tribe of M'nasheh.' The whole region of Argov together with all of Bashan form what is called the land of Refa'im.
14 Ya'ir the son of M'nasheh took all the region of Argov, as far as the border with the G'shuri and the Ma'akhati; he named this whole area, including Bashan, after himself -it remains Havot-Ya'ir to this day.
15 'I gave Gil'ad to Machir;
16 and to the Re'uveni and the Gadi I gave the territory from Gil'ad to the Arnon Valley, with the middle of the valley as the border, as far as the Yabok River, which is the border with the people of 'Amon;
17 the 'Aravah too, the Yarden being its border, from Kinneret to the Sea of the 'Aravah, the Dead Sea, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah to the east.
18 'At that time I gave you this order: 'ADONAI your God has given you this land to possess. But all of you who are fit to fight must cross over, armed, ahead of your brothers the people of Isra'el.
19 Your wives, your little ones and your livestock - I know you have much livestock - will stay in your cities which I have given you,
20 until ADONAI allows your brothers to rest, as he has allowed you; and they too take possession of the land ADONAI your God is giving them on the west side of the Yarden. At that point you will return, each man to his own possession which I have given you.'
21 'Also at that time I gave this order to Y'hoshua: 'Your eyes have seen everything that ADONAI your God has done to these two kings. ADONAI will do the same to all the kingdoms you encounter when you cross over.
22 Don't be afraid of them, because ADONAI your God will fight on your behalf.'
23 'Then I pleaded with ADONAI,
24 'Adonai ELOHIM, you have begun to reveal your greatness to your servant, and your strong hand - for what other god is there in heaven or on earth that can do the works and mighty deeds that you do?
25 Please! Let me go across and see the good land on the other side of the Yarden, that wonderful hill-country and the L'vanon!'
26 But ADONAI was angry with me on account of you, and he didn't listen to me. ADONAI said to me, 'Enough from you! Don't say another word to me about this matter!
27 Climb up to the top of Pisgah and look out to the west, north, south and east. Look with your eyes - but you will not go across this Yarden.
28 However, commission Y'hoshua, encourage him and strengthen him; for he will lead this people across and enable them to inherit the land that you will see.'
29 So we stayed in the valley across from Beit-P'or.
1 'Now, Isra'el, listen to the laws and rulings I am teaching you, in order to follow them, so that you will live; then you will go in and take possession of the land that ADONAI, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
2 In order to obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God which I am giving you, do not add to what I am saying, and do not subtract from it.
3 You saw with your own eyes what ADONAI did at Ba'al-P'or, that ADONAI destroyed from among you all the men who followed Ba'al-P'or;
4 but you who stuck with ADONAI your God are still alive today, every one of you.
5 Look, I have taught you laws and rulings, just as ADONAI my God ordered me, so that you can behave accordingly in the land where you are going in order to take possession of it.
6 Therefore, observe them; and follow them; for then all peoples will see you as having wisdom and understanding. When they hear of all these laws, they will say, 'This great nation is surely a wise and understanding people.'
7 For what great nation is there that has God as close to them as ADONAI our God is, whenever we call on him?
8 What great nation is there that has laws and rulings as just as this entire Torah which I am setting before you today?
9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves diligently as long as you live, so that you won't forget what you saw with your own eyes, so that these things won't vanish from your hearts. Rather, make them known to your children and grandchildren -
10 the day you stood before ADONAI your God at Horev, when ADONAI said to me, 'Gather the people to me, and I will make them hear my very words, so that they will learn to hold me in awe as long as they live on earth, and so that they will teach their children.'
11 You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain; and the mountain blazed with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, clouds and thick mist.
12 Then ADONAI spoke to you out of the fire! You heard the sound of words but saw no shape, there was only a voice.
13 He proclaimed his covenant to you, which he ordered you to obey, the Ten Words; and he wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 At that time ADONAI ordered me to teach you laws and rulings, so that you would live by them in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
15 'Therefore, watch out for yourselves! Since you did not see a shape of any kind on the day ADONAI spoke to you in Horev from the fire,
16 do not become corrupt and make yourselves a carved image having the shape of any figure - not a representation of a human being, male or female,
17 or a representation of any animal on earth, or a representation of any bird that flies in the air,
18 or a representation of anything that creeps along on the ground, or a representation of any fish in the water below the shoreline.
19 For the same reason, do not look up at the sky, at the sun, moon, stars and everything in the sky, and be drawn away to worship and serve them; ADONAI your God has allotted these to all the peoples under the entire sky.
20 No, you ADONAI has taken and brought out of the smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of inheritance for him, as you are today.
21 'But ADONAI was angry with me on account of you and swore that I would not cross the Yarden and go into that good land, which ADONAI your God is giving you to inherit.
22 Rather, I must die in this land and not cross the Yarden; but you are to cross and take possession of that good land.
23 Watch out for yourselves, so that you won't forget the covenant of ADONAI your God, which he made with you, and make yourself a carved image, a representation of anything forbidden to you by ADONAI your God.
24 For ADONAI your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25 'When you have had children and grandchildren, lived a long time in the land, become corrupt and made a carved image, a representation of something, and thus done what is evil in the sight of ADONAI your God and provoked him;
26 I call on the sky and the earth to witness against you today that you will quickly disappear from the land that you are crossing the Yarden to possess. You will not prolong your days there but will be completely destroyed.
27 ADONAI will scatter you among the peoples; and among the nations to which ADONAI will lead you away, you will be left few in number.
28 There you will serve gods which are the product of human hands, made of wood and stone, which can't see, hear, eat or smell.
29 However, from there you will seek ADONAI your God; and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and being.
30 In your distress, when all these things have come upon you, in the acharit-hayamim, you will return to ADONAI your God and listen to what he says;
31 for ADONAI your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.
32 'Indeed, inquire about the past, before you were born: since the day God created human beings on the earth, from one end of heaven to the other, has there ever been anything as wonderful as this? Has anyone heard anything like it?
33 Did any other people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and stay alive?
34 Or has God ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from the very bowels of another nation, by means of ordeals, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, an outstretched arm and great terrors -like all that ADONAI your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
35 This was shown to you, so that you would know that ADONAI is God, and there is no other beside him.
36 From heaven he caused you to hear his voice, in order to instruct you; and on earth he caused you to see his great fire; and you heard his very words coming out from the fire.
37 Because he loved your ancestors, chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt with his presence and great power,
38 in order to drive out ahead of you nations greater and stronger than you, so that he could bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as is the case today;
39 know today, and establish it in your heart, that ADONAI is God in heaven above and on earth below - there is no other.
40 Therefore, you are to keep his laws and mitzvot which I am giving you today, so that it will go well with you and with your children after you, and so that you will prolong your days in the land ADONAI your God is giving you forever.'
41 Then Moshe separated three cities on the east side of the Yarden, toward the sunrise,
42 to which a killer might flee, that is, someone who kills by mistake a person whom he did not previously hate, and upon fleeing to one of these cities might live there.
43 The cities were Betzer in the desert, in the flatland, for the Re'uveni; Ramot in Gil'ad for the Gadi; and Golan in Bashan for the M'nashi.
44 This is the Torah which Moshe placed before the people of Isra'el -
45 these are the instructions, laws and rulings which Moshe presented to the people of Isra'el after they had come out of Egypt -
46 beyond the Yarden River, in the valley across from Beit-P'or, in the land of Sichon king of the Emori, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moshe and the people of Isra'el defeated when they came out of Egypt;
47 and they took possession of his land and the land of 'Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Emori, who were beyond the Yarden toward the sunrise;
48 from 'Aro'er on the edge of the Arnon Valley to Mount Si'on,' that is, Mount Hermon,
49 'with all the 'Aravah beyond the Yarden eastward, all the way to the Dead Sea at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.
1 Then Moshe called to all Isra'el and said to them, 'Listen, Isra'el, to the laws and rulings which I am announcing in your hearing today, so that you will learn them and take care to obey them.
2 ADONAI our God made a covenant with us at Horev.
3 ADONAI did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us -with us, who are all of us here alive today.
4 ADONAI spoke with you face to face from the fire on the mountain.
5 At that time I stood between ADONAI and you in order to tell you what ADONAI was saying; because, on account of the fire, you were afraid and wouldn't go up onto the mountain. He said, t
6 ''I am ADONAI your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves. c
7 ''You are to have no other gods before me.
8 You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or in the water below the shoreline -
9 you are not to bow down to them or serve them; for I, ADONAI your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the parents, also the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
10 but displaying grace to the thousandth generation of those who love me and obey my mitzvot.
11 ''You are not to misuse the name of ADONAI your God, because ADONAI will not leave unpunished someone who misuses his name.
12 ''Observe the day of Shabbat, to set it apart as holy, as ADONAI your God ordered you to do.
13 You have six days to labor and do all your work,
14 but the seventh day is a Shabbat for ADONAI your God. On it you are not to do any kind of work - not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property - so that your male and female servants can rest just as you do.
15 You are to remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and ADONAI your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore ADONAI your God has ordered you to keep the day of Shabbat.
16 ''Honor your father and mother, as ADONAI your God ordered you to do, so that you will live long and have things go well with you in the land ADONAI your God is giving you.
17 ''Do not murder.
18 ''Do not commit adultery.
19 ''Do not steal.
20 ''Do not give false evidence against your neighbor.
21 ''Do not covet your neighbor's wife; do not covet your neighbor's house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox, his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.'
22 'These words ADONAI spoke to your entire gathering at the mountain from fire, cloud and thick mist, in a loud voice; then it ceased. But he wrote them on two stone tablets, which he gave to me.
23 When you heard the voice coming out of the darkness, as the mountain blazed with fire, you came to me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders,
24 and said, 'Here, ADONAI our God has shown us his glory and his greatness! We have heard his voice coming from the fire, and we have seen today that God does speak with human beings, and they stay alive.
25 But why should we keep risking death? This great fire will consume us! If we hear the voice of ADONAI our God any more, we will die!
26 For who is there of all humanity that has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and stayed alive?
27 You, go near; and hear everything ADONAI our God says. Then you will tell us everything ADONAI our God says to you; and we will listen to it and do it.'
28 'ADONAI heard what you were saying when you spoke to me, and ADONAI said to me, 'I have heard what this people has said when speaking to you, and everything they have said is good.
29 Oh, how I wish their hearts would stay like this always, that they would fear me and obey all my mitzvot; so that it would go well with them and their children forever.
30 Go, tell them to return to their tents.
31 But you, stand here by me; and I will tell you all the mitzvot, laws and rulings which you are to teach them, so that they can obey them in the land I am giving them as their possession.'
32 'Therefore you are to be careful to do as ADONAI your God has ordered you; you are not to deviate either to the right or the left.
33 You are to follow the entire way which ADONAI your God has ordered you; so that you will live, things will go well with you, and you will live long in the land you are about to possess.
1 'Now this is the mitzvah, the laws and rulings which ADONAI your God ordered me to teach you for you to obey in the land you are crossing over to possess,
2 so that you will fear ADONAI your God and observe all his regulations and mitzvot that I am giving you - you, your child and your grandchild - as long as you live, and so that you will have long life.
3 Therefore listen, Isra'el, and take care to obey, so that things will go well with you, and so that you will increase greatly, as ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, promised you by giving you a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 'Sh'ma, Yisra'el! ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad [Hear, Isra'el! ADONAI our God, ADONAI is one];
5 and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, all your being and all your resources.
6 These words, which I am ordering you today, are to be on your heart;
7 and you are to teach them carefully to your children. You are to talk about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
8 Tie them on your hand as a sign, put them at the front of a headband around your forehead,
9 and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates.
10 'When ADONAI your God has brought you into the land he swore to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov that he would give you - cities great and prosperous, which you didn't build;
11 houses full of all sorts of good things, which you didn't fill; water cisterns dug out, which you didn't dig; vineyards and olive trees, which you didn't plant - and you have eaten your fill;
12 then be careful not to forget ADONAI, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves.
13 You are to fear ADONAI your God, serve him and swear by his name.
14 You are not to follow other gods, chosen from the gods of the peoples around you;
15 because ADONAI, your God, who is here with you, is a jealous God. If you do, the anger of ADONAI your God will flare up against you and he will destroy you from the face of the earth.
16 Do not put ADONAI your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah [testing].
17 Observe diligently the mitzvot of ADONAI your God, and his instructions and laws which he has given you.
18 You are to do what is right and good in the sight of ADONAI, so that things will go well with you, and you will enter and possess the good land ADONAI swore to your ancestors,
19 expelling all your enemies ahead of you, as ADONAI said.
20 'Some day your child will ask you, 'What is the meaning of the instructions, laws and rulings which ADONAI our God has laid down for you?'
21 Then you will tell your child, 'We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and ADONAI brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.
22 ADONAI worked great and terrible signs and wonders against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household, before our very eyes.
23 He brought us out from there in order to bring us to the land he had sworn to our ancestors that he would give us.
24 ADONAI ordered us to observe all these laws, to fear ADONAI our God, always for our own good, so that he might keep us alive, as we are today.
25 It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to obey all these mitzvot before ADONAI our God, just as he ordered us to do.''
1 'ADONAI your God is going to bring you into the land you will enter in order to take possession of it, and he will expel many nations ahead of you -the Hitti, Girgashi, Emori, Kena'ani, P'rizi, Hivi and Y'vusi, seven nations bigger and stronger than you.
2 When he does this, when ADONAI your God hands them over ahead of you, and you defeat them, you are to destroy them completely! Do not make any covenant with them. Show them no mercy.
3 Don't intermarry with them -don't give your daughter to his son, and don't take his daughter for your son.
4 For he will turn your children away from following me in order to serve other gods. If this happens, the anger of ADONAI will flare up against you, and he will quickly destroy you.
5 No, treat them this way: break down their altars, smash their standing-stones to pieces, cut down their sacred poles and burn up their carved images completely.
6 For you are a people set apart as holy for ADONAI your God. ADONAI your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his own unique treasure.
7 ADONAI didn't set his heart on you or choose you because you numbered more than any other people - on the contrary, you were the fewest of all peoples.
8 Rather, it was because ADONAI loved you, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your ancestors, that ADONAI brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 From this you can know that ADONAI your God is indeed God, the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and extends grace to those who love him and observe his mitzvot, to a thousand generations.
10 But he repays those who hate him to their face and destroys them. He will not be slow to deal with someone who hates him; he will repay him to his face.
11 Therefore, you are to keep the mitzvot, laws and rulings which I am giving you today, and obey them.
12 'Because you are listening to these rulings, keeping and obeying them, ADONAI your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy that he swore to your ancestors.
13 He will love you, bless you and increase your numbers; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground - your grain, wine, olive oil and the young of your cattle and sheep - in the land he swore to your ancestors that he would give you.
14 You will be blessed more than all other peoples; there will not be a sterile male or female among you, and the same with your livestock.
15 ADONAI will remove all illness from you - he will not afflict you with any of Egypt's dreadful diseases, which you have known; instead, he will lay them on those who hate you.
16 You are to devour all the peoples that ADONAI your God hands over to you - show them no pity, and do not serve their gods, because that will become a trap for you.
17 If you think to yourselves, 'These nations outnumber us; how can we dispossess them?'
18 nevertheless, you are not to be afraid of them; you are to remember well what ADONAI your God did to Pharaoh and all of Egypt -
19 the great ordeals which you yourself saw, and the signs, wonders, strong hand and outstretched arm by which ADONAI your God brought you out. ADONAI will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
20 Moreover, ADONAI your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left and those who hide themselves perish ahead of you.
21 You are not to be frightened of them, because ADONAI your God is there with you, a God great and fearsome.
22 ADONAI your God will expel those nations ahead of you little by little; you can't put an end to them all at once, or the wild animals will become too numerous for you.
23 Nevertheless, ADONAI your God will give them over to you, sending one disaster after another upon them until they have been destroyed.
24 He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their name from under heaven; none of them will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.
25 You are to burn up completely the carved statues of their gods. Don't be greedy for the silver or gold on them; don't take it with you, or you will be trapped by it; for it is abhorrent to ADONAI your God.
26 Don't bring something abhorrent into your house, or you will share in the curse that is on it; instead, you are to detest it completely, loathe it utterly; for it is set apart for destruction.
1 'All the mitzvot I am giving you today you are to take care to obey, so that you will live, increase your numbers, enter and take possession of the land ADONAI swore about to your ancestors.
2 You are to remember everything of the way in which ADONAI led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you in order to know what was in your heart - whether you would obey his mitzvot or not.
3 He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry, and then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of ADONAI.
4 During these forty years the clothing you were wearing didn't grow old, and your feet didn't swell up.
5 Think deeply about it: ADONAI was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his child.
6 So obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God, living as he directs and fearing him.
7 For ADONAI your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides.
8 It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;
9 a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper.
10 So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless ADONAI your God for the good land he has given you.
11 'Be careful not to forget ADONAI your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today.
12 Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them,
13 and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own,
14 you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting ADONAI your God - who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves;
15 who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you;
16 who fed you in the desert with man, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling and testing you in order to do you good in the end -
17 you will think to yourself, 'My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.'
18 No, you are to remember ADONAI your God, because it is he who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today.
19 If you forget ADONAI your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish.
20 You will perish just like the nations that ADONAI is causing to perish ahead of you, because you will not have heeded the voice of ADONAI your God.'
1 'Listen, Isra'el! You are to cross the Yarden today, to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities fortified up to the sky;
2 a people great and tall, the 'Anakim, whom you know about and of whom you have heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of 'Anak?'
3 Therefore understand today that ADONAI your God will himself cross ahead of you as a devouring fire; he will destroy them and bring them down before you. Thus will you drive them out and cause them to perish quickly, as ADONAI has said to you.
4 'Don't think to yourself, after your God has pushed them out ahead of you, 'It is to reward my righteousness that ADONAI has brought me in to take possession of this land.' No, it is because these nations have been so wicked that ADONAI is driving them out ahead of you.
5 It is not because of your righteousness, or because your heart is so upright, that you go in to take possession of their land; but to punish the wickedness of these nations that ADONAI your God is driving them out ahead of you, and also to confirm the word which ADONAI swore to your ancestors, Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov.
6 Therefore, understand that it is not for your righteousness that ADONAI your God is giving you this good land to possess. 'For you are a stiffnecked people!
7 Remember, don't forget, how you made ADONAI your God angry in the desert. From the day you left the land of Egypt till you arrived at this place, you have been rebelling against ADONAI.
8 Also in Horev you made ADONAI angry -ADONAI was angry enough with you to destroy you!
9 I had gone up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets on which was written the covenant ADONAI had made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights without eating food or drinking water.
10 Then ADONAI gave me the two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God; and on them was written every word ADONAI had said to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly.
11 Yes, after forty days and nights ADONAI gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
12 Then ADONAI said to me, 'Get up, and hurry down from here, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have become corrupt. So quickly have they turned aside from the way I ordered them to follow! They have made themselves a metal image!'
13 Moreover, ADONAI said to me, 'I have seen this people, and what a stiffnecked people they are!
14 Let me alone, so that I can put an end to them and blot out their name from under heaven! I will make out of you a nation bigger and stronger than they.'
15 I came down from the mountain. The mountain was blazing fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
16 I looked, and there, you had sinned against ADONAI your God! You had made yourselves a metal calf, you had turned aside quickly from the way ADONAI had ordered you to follow.
17 I seized the two tablets, threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18 Then I fell down before ADONAI, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of ADONAI and thus provoking him.
19 I was terrified that because of how angry ADONAI was at you, of how heatedly displeased he was, that he would destroy you. But ADONAI listened to me that time too.
20 In addition, ADONAI was very angry with Aharon and would have destroyed him; but I prayed for Aharon also at the same time.
21 I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it up in the fire, beat it to pieces, and ground it up still smaller, until it was as fine as dust; then I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain.
22 'Again at Tav'erah, Massah and Kivrot-HaTa'avah you made ADONAI angry;
23 and when ADONAI sent you off from Kadesh-Barnea by saying, 'Go up and take possession of the land I have given you,' you rebelled against the order of ADONAI your God - you neither trusted him nor heeded what he said.
24 You have been rebelling against ADONAI from the day I first knew you!
25 'So I fell down before ADONAI for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because ADONAI had said he would destroy you.
26 I prayed to ADONAI ; I said, 'Adonai ELOHIM! Don't destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand!
27 Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov! Don't focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin.
28 Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, 'It is because ADONAI wasn't able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.'
29 But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.'
1 'At that time ADONAI said to me, 'Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, come up to me on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood.
2 I will inscribe on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to put them in the ark.'
3 So I made an ark of acacia-wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, then climbed the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.
4 He inscribed the tablets with the same inscription as before, the Ten Words which ADONAI proclaimed to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly; and ADONAI gave them to me.
5 I turned, came down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made; and there they remain; as ADONAI ordered me.
6 'The people of Isra'el traveled from the wells of B'nei-Ya'akan to Moserah, where Aharon died and was buried; and El'azar his son took his place, serving in the office of cohen.
7 From there they traveled to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Yotvatah, a region with running streams.
8 At that time ADONAI set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark for the covenant of ADONAI and to stand before ADONAI to serve him and to bless in his name, as they still do today.
9 This is why Levi has no share or inheritance with his brothers; ADONAI is his inheritance, as ADONAI your God had said to him.
10 'I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as previously; and ADONAI listened to me that time too -ADONAI would not destroy you.
11 Then ADONAI said to me, 'Get up, and go on your way at the head of the people, so that they can enter and take possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.'
12 'So now, Isra'el, all that ADONAI your God asks from you is to fear ADONAI your God, follow all his ways, love him and serve ADONAI your God with all your heart and all your being;
13 to obey, for your own good, the mitzvot and regulations of ADONAI which I am giving you today.
14 See, the sky, the heaven beyond the sky, the earth and everything on it all belong to ADONAI your God.
15 Only ADONAI took enough pleasure in your ancestors to love them and choose their descendants after them -yourselves -above all peoples, as he still does today.
16 Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and don't be stiffnecked any longer!
17 For ADONAI your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes.
18 He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing.
19 Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
20 You are to fear ADONAI your God, serve him, cling to him and swear by his name.
21 He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which you have seen with your own eyes.
22 Your ancestors went down into Egypt with only seventy people, but now ADONAI your God has made your numbers as many as the stars in the sky!
1 'Therefore, you are to love ADONAI your God and always obey his commission, regulations, rulings and mitzvot.
2 Today it is you I am addressing -not your children, who haven't known or experienced the discipline of ADONAI your God, his greatness, his strong hand, his outstretched arm,
3 his signs and his actions which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to his entire country.
4 They didn't experience what he did to Egypt's army, horses and chariots -how ADONAI overwhelmed them with the water of the Sea of Suf as they were pursuing you, so that they remain destroyed to this day.
5 They didn't experience what he kept doing for you in the desert until you arrived at this place;
6 or what he did to Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eli'av the descendant of Re'uven -how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, tents and every living thing in their company, there in front of all Isra'el.
7 But you have seen with your own eyes all these great deeds of ADONAI.
8 Therefore, you are to keep every mitzvah I am giving you today; so that you will be strong enough to go in and take possession of the land you are crossing over to conquer;
9 and so that you will live long in the land ADONAI swore to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 'For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn't like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden.
11 But the land you are crossing over to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys, which soaks up water when rain falls from the sky.
12 It is a land ADONAI your God cares for. The eyes of ADONAI your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
13 'So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love ADONAI your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being;
14 then, [says ADONAI,] 'I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil;
15 and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied.'
16 But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them.
17 If you do, the anger of ADONAI will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land ADONAI is giving you.
18 Therefore, you are to store up these words of mine in your heart and in all your being; tie them on your hand as a sign; put them at the front of a headband around your forehead;
19 teach them carefully to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up;
20 and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates -
21 so that you and your children will live long on the land ADONAI swore to your ancestors that he would give them for as long as there is sky above the earth. (vii & Maftir)
22 'For if you will take care to obey all these mitzvot I am giving you, to do them, to love ADONAI your God, to follow all his ways and to cling to him,
23 then ADONAI will expel all these nations ahead of you; and you will dispossess nations bigger and stronger than you are.
24 Wherever the sole of your foot steps will be yours; your territory will extend from the desert to the L'vanon and from the River, the Euphrates River, to the Western Sea.
25 No one will be able to withstand you; ADONAI your God will place the fear and dread of you on all the land you step on, as he told you.
26 'See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse -
27 the blessing, if you listen to the mitzvot of ADONAI your God that I am giving you today;
28 and the curse, if you don't listen to the mitzvot of ADONAI your God, but turn aside from the way I am ordering you today and follow other gods that you have not known.
29 'When ADONAI your God brings you into the land you are entering in order to take possession of it, you are to put the blessing on Mount G'rizim and the curse on Mount 'Eival.
30 Both are west of the Yarden, in the direction of the sunset, in the land of the Kena'ani living in the 'Aravah, across from Gilgal, near the pistachio trees of Moreh.
31 For you are to cross the Yarden to enter and take possession of the land ADONAI your God is giving you; you are to own it and live in it.
32 And you are to take care to follow all the laws and rulings I am setting before you today.
1 Here are the laws and rulings you are to observe and obey in the land ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess as long as you live on earth.
2 You must destroy all the places where the nations you are dispossessing served their gods, whether on high mountains, on hills, or under some leafy tree.
3 Break down their altars, smash their standing-stones to pieces, burn up their sacred poles completely and cut down the carved images of their gods. Exterminate their name from that place.
4 'But you are not to treat ADONAI your God this way.
5 Rather, you are to come to the place where ADONAI your God will put his name. He will choose it from all your tribes; and you will seek out that place, which is where he will live, and go there.
6 You will bring there your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tenths [that you set aside for ADONAI], the offerings that you give, the offerings you have vowed, your voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep.
7 There you will eat in the presence of ADONAI your God; and you will rejoice over everything you set out to do, you and your households, in which ADONAI your God has blessed you.
8 You will not do things the way we do them here today, where everyone does whatever in his own opinion seems right;
9 because you haven't yet arrived at the rest and inheritance which ADONAI your God is giving you.
10 But when you cross the Yarden and live in the land ADONAI your God is having you inherit, and he gives you rest from all your surrounding enemies, so that you are living in safety;
11 then you will bring all that I am ordering you to the place ADONAI your God chooses to have his name live -your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tenths, the offering from your hand, and all your best possessions that you dedicate to ADONAI;
12 and you will rejoice in the presence of ADONAI your God - you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves and the Levi staying with you, inasmuch as he has no share or inheritance with you.
13 'Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings just anywhere you see,
14 but do it in the place ADONAI will choose in one of your tribal territories; there is where you are to offer your burnt offerings and do everything I order you to do.
15 However, you may slaughter and eat meat wherever you live and whenever you want, in keeping with the degree to which ADONAI your God has blessed you. The unclean and the clean may eat it, as if it were gazelle or deer.
16 But don't eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.
17 'You are not to eat on your own property the tenth of your grain, new wine or olive oil [that you set aside for ADONAI], or the firstborn of your cattle or sheep, or any offering you have vowed, or your voluntary offering, or the offering from your hand.
18 No, you are to eat these in the presence of ADONAI your God in the place ADONAI your God will choose -you and your sons, daughters, male and female slaves, and the Levi who is your guest; and you are to rejoice before ADONAI your God in everything you undertake to do.
19 As long as you are living on your property, take care not to abandon the Levi.
20 'When ADONAI your God expands your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, 'I want to eat meat,' simply because you want to eat meat, then you may eat meat, as much as you want.
21 If the place which ADONAI your God chooses to place his name is too far away from you; then you are to slaughter animals from your cattle or sheep, which ADONAI has given you; and eat on your own property, as much as you want.
22 Eat it as you would gazelle or deer; the unclean and clean alike may eat it.
23 Just take care not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you are not to eat the life with the meat.
24 Don't eat it, but pour it out on the ground like water.
25 Do not eat it, so that things will go well with you and with your children after you, as you do what ADONAI sees as right.
26 Only the things set aside for God which you have, and the vows you have vowed to make, you must take and go to the place which ADONAI will choose.
27 There you will offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of ADONAI your God. The blood of your sacrifices is to be poured out on the altar of ADONAI your God, and you will eat the meat.
28 Obey and pay attention to everything I am ordering you to do, so that things will go well with you and with your descendants after you forever, as you do what ADONAI sees as good and right.
29 'When ADONAI your God has cut off ahead of you the nations you are entering in order to dispossess, and when you have dispossessed them and are living in their land;
30 be careful, after they have been destroyed ahead of you, not to be trapped into following them; so that you inquire after their gods and ask, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I want to do the same.'
31 You must not do this to ADONAI your God! For they have done to their gods all the abominations that ADONAI hates! They even burn up their sons and daughters in the fire for their gods!
32 'Everything I am commanding you, you are to take care to do. Do not add to it or subtract from it.
1 'If a prophet or someone who gets messages while dreaming arises among you and he gives you a sign or wonder,
2 and the sign or wonder comes about as he predicted when he said, 'Let's follow other gods, which you have not known; and let us serve them,'
3 you are not to listen to what that prophet or dreamer says. For ADONAI your God is testing you, in order to find out whether you really do love ADONAI your God with all your heart and being.
4 You are to follow ADONAI your God, fear him, obey his mitzvot, listen to what he says, serve him and cling to him;
5 and that prophet or dreamer is to be put to death; because he urged rebellion against ADONAI your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from a life of slavery; in order to seduce you away from the path ADONAI your God ordered you to follow. This is how you are to rid your community of this wickedness.
6 'If your brother the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or your wife whom you love, or your friend who means as much to you as yourself, secretly tries to entice you to go and serve other gods, which you haven't known, neither you nor your ancestors -
7 gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near or far away from you, anywhere in the world -
8 you are not to consent, and you are not to listen to him; and you must not pity him or spare him; and you may not conceal him.
9 Rather, you must kill him! Your own hand must be the first one on him in putting him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people.
10 You are to stone him to death; because he has tried to draw you away from ADONAI your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.
11 Then all Isra'el will hear about it and be afraid, so that they will stop doing such wickedness as this among themselves.
12 'If you hear it told that in one of your cities which ADONAI your God is giving you to live in,
13 certain scoundrels have sprung up among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city by saying, 'Let's go and serve other gods, which you haven't known,'
14 then you are to investigate the matter, inquiring and searching diligently. If the rumor is true, if it is confirmed that such detestable things are being done among you,
15 you must put the inhabitants of that city to death with the sword, destroying it completely with the sword, everything in it, including its livestock.
16 Heap all its spoils in an open space, and burn the city with its spoils to the ground for ADONAI your God; it will remain a tel forever and not be built again -
17 none of what has been set apart for destruction is to stay in your hands. Then ADONAI will turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and increase your numbers, as he swore to your ancestors -
18 provided you listen to what ADONAI says and obey all his mitzvot that I am giving you today, thus doing what ADONAI your God sees as right.
1 'You are the people of ADONAI your God. You are not to gash yourselves or shave the hair above your foreheads in mourning for the dead,
2 because you are a people set apart as holy for ADONAI your God. ADONAI your God has chosen you to be his own unique treasure out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
3 'You are not to eat anything disgusting.
4 The animals which you may eat are: ox, sheep, goat,
5 deer, gazelle, roebuck, ibex, antelope, oryx and mountain sheep.
6 Any animal that has a separate hoof that is completely divided and also chews the cud, these animals you may eat.
7 But you are not to eat those that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof. For example, the camel, the hare and the coney are unclean for you because they chew the cud but don't have a separate hoof;
8 while the pig is unclean for you because, although it has a separate hoof, it doesn't chew the cud. You are not to eat meat from these or touch their carcasses.
9 'Of all that lives in the water, you may eat these: anything in the water that has fins and scales, these you may eat.
10 But whatever lacks fins and scales you are not to eat; it is unclean for you.
11 'You may eat any clean bird;
12 but these you are not to eat: eagles, vultures, ospreys,
13 kites, any kind of buzzard,
14 any kind of raven,
15 ostriches, screech-owls, seagulls, any kind of hawk,
16 little owls, great owls, horned owls,
17 pelicans, barn owls, cormorants,
18 storks, any kind of heron, hoopoes and bats.
19 'All winged swarming creatures are unclean for you; they are not to be eaten;
20 but all clean flying creatures you may eat.
21 'You are not to eat any animal that dies naturally; although you may let a stranger staying with you eat it, or sell it to a foreigner; because you are a holy people for ADONAI your God. 'You are not to boil a young animal in its mother's milk.
22 'Every year you must take one tenth of everything your seed produces in the field,
23 and eat it in the presence of ADONAI your God. In the place where he chooses to have his name live you will eat the tenth of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep, so that you will learn to fear ADONAI your God always.
24 But if the distance is too great for you, so that you are unable to transport it, because the place where ADONAI chooses to put his name is too far away from you; then, when ADONAI your God prospers you,
25 you are to convert it into money, take the money with you, go to the place which ADONAI your God will choose,
26 and exchange the money for anything you want - cattle, sheep, wine, other intoxicating liquor, or anything you please - and you are to eat there in the presence of ADONAI your God, and enjoy yourselves, you and your household.
27 'But don't neglect the Levi staying with you, because he has no share or inheritance like yours.
28 At the end of every three years you are to take all the tenths of your produce from that year and store it in your towns.
29 Then the Levi, because he has no share or inheritance like yours, along with the foreigner, the orphan and the widow living in your towns, will come, eat and be satisfied - so that ADONAI your God will bless you in everything your hands produce.
1 'At the end of every seven years you are to have a sh'mittah.
2 Here is how the sh'mittah is to be done: every creditor is to give up what he has loaned to his fellow member of the community -he is not to force his neighbor or relative to repay it, because ADONAI's time of remission has been proclaimed.
3 You may demand that a foreigner repay his debt, but you are to release your claim on whatever your brother owes you.
4 In spite of this, there will be no one needy among you; because ADONAI will certainly bless you in the land which ADONAI your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess -
5 if only you will listen carefully to what ADONAI your God says and take care to obey all these mitzvot I am giving you today.
6 Yes, ADONAI your God will bless you, as he promised you - you will lend money to many nations without having to borrow, and you will rule over many nations without their ruling over you.
7 'If someone among you is needy, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which ADONAI your God is giving you, you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from giving to your needy brother.
8 No, you must open your hand to him and lend him enough to meet his need and enable him to obtain what he wants.
9 Guard yourself against allowing your heart to entertain the mean-spirited thought that because the seventh year, the year of sh'mittah is at hand, you would be stingy toward your needy brother and not give him anything; for then he may cry out to ADONAI against you, and it will be your sin.
10 Rather, you must give to him; and you are not to be grudging when you give to him. If you do this, ADONAI your God will bless you in all your work, in everything you undertake -
11 for there will always be poor people in the land. That is why I am giving you this order, 'You must open your hand to your poor and needy brother in your land.'
12 'If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, he is to serve you for six years; but in the seventh year, you are to set him free.
13 Moreover, when you set him free, don't let him leave empty-handed;
14 but supply him generously from your flock, threshing-floor and winepress; from what ADONAI your God has blessed you with, you are to give to him.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and ADONAI your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this order today.
16 But if he says to you, 'I don't want to leave you,' because he loves you and your household, and because his life with you is a good one;
17 then take an awl, and pierce his ear through, right into the door; and he will be your slave forever. Do the same with your female slave.
18 Don't resent it when you set him free, since during his six years of service he has been worth twice as much as a hired employee. Then ADONAI your God will bless you in everything you do.
19 'All the firstborn males in your herd of cattle and in your flock you are to set aside for ADONAI your God; you are not to do any work with a firstborn from your herd or shear a firstborn sheep.
20 Each year you and your household are to eat it in the presence of ADONAI your God in the place which ADONAI will choose.
21 But if it has a defect, is lame or blind, or has some other kind of fault, you are not to sacrifice it to ADONAI your God;
22 rather, eat it on your own property; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, like the gazelle or the deer.
23 Just don't eat its blood, but pour it out on the ground like water.
1 'Observe the month of Aviv, and keep Pesach to ADONAI your God; for in the month of Aviv, ADONAI your God brought you out of Egypt at night.
2 You are to sacrifice the Pesach offering from flock and herd to ADONAI your God in the place where ADONAI will choose to have his name live.
3 You are not to eat any hametz with it; for seven days you are to eat with it matzah, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. Thus you will remember the day you left the land of Egypt as long as you live.
4 No leaven is to be seen with you anywhere in your territory for seven days. None of the meat from your sacrifice on the first day in the evening is to remain all night until morning.
5 You may not sacrifice the Pesach offering in just any of the towns that ADONAI your God is giving you;
6 but at the place where ADONAI your God will choose to have his name live - there is where you are to sacrifice the Pesach offering, in the evening, when the sun sets, at the time of year that you came out of Egypt.
7 You are to roast it and eat it in the place ADONAI your God will choose; in the morning you will return and go to your tents.
8 For six days you are to eat matzah; on the seventh day there is to be a festive assembly for ADONAI your God; do not do any kind of work.
9 'You are to count seven weeks; you are to begin counting seven weeks from the time you first put your sickle to the standing grain.
10 You are to observe the festival of Shavu'ot [weeks] for ADONAI your God with a voluntary offering, which you are to give in accordance with the degree to which ADONAI your God has prospered you.
11 You are to rejoice in the presence of ADONAI your God - you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, the L'vi'im living in your towns, and the foreigners, orphans and widows living among you - in the place where ADONAI your God will choose to have his name live.
12 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt; then you will keep and obey these laws.
13 'You are to keep the festival of Sukkot for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing-floor and winepress.
14 Rejoice at your festival - you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, the L'vi'im, and the foreigners, orphans and widows living among you.
15 Seven days you are to keep the festival for ADONAI your God in the place ADONAI your God will choose, because ADONAI your God will bless you in all your crops and in all your work, so you are to be full of joy!
16 'Three times a year all your men are to appear in the presence of ADONAI your God in the place which he will choose - at the festival of matzah, at the festival of Shavu'ot and at the festival of Sukkot. They are not to show up before ADONAI empty-handed,
17 but every man is to give what he can, in accordance with the blessing ADONAI your God has given you.
18 'You are to appoint judges and officers for all your gates [in the cities] ADONAI your God is giving you, tribe by tribe; and they are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
19 You are not to distort justice or show favoritism, and you are not to accept a bribe, for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of even the upright.
20 Justice, only justice, you must pursue; so that you will live and inherit the land ADONAI your God is giving you.
21 'You are not to plant any sort of tree as a sacred pole beside the altar of ADONAI your God that you will make for yourselves.
22 Likewise, do not set up a standing-stone; ADONAI your God hates such things.
1 'You are not to sacrifice to ADONAI your God a cow or sheep that has a defect or anything wrong with it; that would be an abomination to ADONAI your God.
2 'If there is found among you, within any of your gates [in any city] that ADONAI your God gives you, a man or woman who does what ADONAI your God sees as wicked, transgressing his covenant
3 by going and serving other gods and worshipping them, the sun, the moon, or anything in the sky - something I have forbidden -
4 and it is told to you, or you hear about it; then you are to investigate the matter diligently. If it is true, if it is confirmed that such detestable things are being done in Isra'el;
5 then you are to bring the man or woman who has done this wicked thing to your city gates, and stone that man or woman to death.
6 The death sentence is to be carried out only if there was testimony from two or three witnesses; he may not be sentenced to death on the testimony of only one witness.
7 The witnesses are to be the first to stone him to death; afterwards, all the people are to stone him. Thus you will put an end to this wickedness among you.
8 'If a case comes before you at your city gate which is too difficult for you to judge, concerning bloodshed, civil suit, personal injury or any other controversial issue; you are to get up, go to the place which ADONAI your God will choose,
9 and appear before the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, and the judge in office at the time. Seek their opinion, and they will render a verdict for you.
10 You will then act according to what they have told you there in that place which ADONAI will choose; you are to take care to act according to all their instructions.
11 In accordance with the Torah they teach you, you are to carry out the judgment they render, not turning aside to the right or the left from the verdict they declare to you.
12 Anyone presumptuous enough not to pay attention to the cohen appointed there to serve ADONAI your God or to the judge - that person must die. Thus you will exterminate such wickedness from Isra'el -
13 all the people will hear about it and be afraid to continue acting presumptuously.
14 'When you have entered the land ADONAI your God is giving you, have taken possession of it and are living there, you may say, 'I want to have a king over me, like all the other nations around me.'
15 In that event, you must appoint as king the one whom ADONAI your God will choose. He must be one of your kinsmen, this king you appoint over you - you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who is not your kinsman.
16 However, he is not to acquire many horses for himself or have the people return to Egypt to obtain more horses, inasmuch as ADONAI told you never to go back that way again.
17 Likewise, he is not to acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart will not turn away; and he is not to acquire excessive quantities of silver and gold.
18 'When he has come to occupy the throne of his kingdom, he is to write a copy of this Torah for himself in a scroll, from the one the cohanim and L'vi'im use.
19 It is to remain with him, and he is to read in it every day, as long as he lives; so that he will learn to fear ADONAI his God and keep all the words of this Torah and these laws and obey them;
20 so that he will not think he is better than his kinsmen; and so that he will not turn aside either to the right or to the left from the mitzvah. In this way he will prolong his own reign and that of his children in Isra'el.
1 The cohanim, who are L'vi'im, and indeed the whole tribe of Levi, is not to have a share or an inheritance with Isra'el. Instead, their support will come from the food offered by fire to ADONAI and from whatever else becomes his.
2 They will have no inheritance with their brothers, because ADONAI is their inheritance - as he has said to them.
3 'The cohanim will have the right to receive from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether ox or sheep, the shoulder, the jowls and the stomach.
4 You will also give him the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep.
5 For ADONAI your God has chosen him from all your tribes to stand and serve in the name of ADONAI, him and his sons forever.
6 'If a Levi from one of your towns anywhere in Isra'el where he is living comes, highly motivated, to the place which ADONAI will choose,
7 then he will serve there in the name of ADONAI his God, just like his kinsmen the L'vi'im who stand and serve in the presence of ADONAI.
8 Such a Levi will receive the same share as they do, in addition to what he may receive from selling his inherited ancestral property.
9 'When you enter the land ADONAI your God is giving you, you are not to learn how to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
10 There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, a diviner, a soothsayer, an enchanter, a sorcerer,
11 a spell-caster, a consulter of ghosts or spirits, or a necromancer.
12 For whoever does these things is detestable to ADONAI, and because of these abominations ADONAI your God is driving them out ahead of you.
13 You must be wholehearted with ADONAI your God.
14 For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners; but you, ADONAI your God does not allow you to do this.
15 'ADONAI will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay attention to him,
16 just as when you were assembled at Horev and requested ADONAI your God, 'Don't let me hear the voice of ADONAI my God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will die!'
17 On that occasion ADONAI said to me, 'They are right in what they are saying.
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I order him.
19 Whoever doesn't listen to my words, which he will speak in my name, will have to account for himself to me.
20 ''But if a prophet presumptuously speaks a word in my name which I didn't order him to say, or if he speaks in the name of other gods, then that prophet must die.'
21 You may be wondering, 'How are we to know if a word has not been spoken by ADONAI?'
22 When a prophet speaks in the name of ADONAI, and the prediction does not come true -that is, the word is not fulfilled -then ADONAI did not speak that word. The prophet who said it spoke presumptuously; you have nothing to fear from him.
1 'When ADONAI your God cuts off the nations whose land ADONAI your God is giving you, and you take their place and settle in their cities and houses,
2 you are to set aside three cities for yourselves in your land that ADONAI your God is giving you to possess.
3 Divide the territory of your land, which ADONAI your God is having you inherit, into three parts; and prepare the roads, so that any killer can flee to these cities.
4 The killer who will live if he flees there is someone who has killed his fellow member of the community by mistake, who did not hate him in the past.
5 An example would be if a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood and takes a stroke with the axe to fell a tree, but the head of the axe flies off the handle, hits his neighbor and kills him. Then he is to flee to one of these cities and live there.
6 Otherwise the next-of-kin avenger, in the heat of his anger, may pursue the killer, overtake him because the distance [to the city of refuge] is long, and strike him dead - even though he didn't deserve to die, inasmuch as he hadn't hated him in the past.
7 This is why I am ordering you to set aside for yourselves three cities.
8 'If ADONAI your God expands your territory, as he swore to your ancestors that he would, and gives you all the land he promised to give to your ancestors -
9 provided you keep and observe all these mitzvot I am giving you today, loving ADONAI your God and always following his ways - then you are to add three more cities for yourselves, besides these three;
10 so that innocent blood will not be shed in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus blood guilt be on you.
11 'However, if someone hates his fellow member of the community, lies in wait for him, attacks him, strikes him a death blow, and then flees into one of these cities;
12 then the leaders of his own town are to send and bring him back from there and hand him over to the next-of-kin avenger, to be put to death.
13 You are not to pity him. Rather, you must put an end to the shedding of innocent blood in Isra'el. Then things will go well with you.
14 'You are not to move your neighbor's boundary marker from the place where people put it long ago, in the inheritance soon to be yours in the land ADONAI your God is giving you to possess.
15 'One witness alone will not be sufficient to convict a person of any offense or sin of any kind; the matter will be established only if there are two or three witnesses testifying against him.
16 'If a malicious witness comes forward and gives false testimony against someone,
17 then both the men involved in the controversy are to stand before ADONAI, before the cohanim and the judges in office at the time.
18 The judges are to investigate carefully. If they find that the witness is lying and has given false testimony against his brother,
19 you are to do to him what he intended to do to his brother. In this way, you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
20 Those who remain will hear about it, be afraid and no longer commit such wickedness among you.
21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
1 'When you go out to fight your enemies and see horses, chariots and a force larger than yours, you are not to be afraid of them; because ADONAI your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.
2 When you are about to go into battle, the cohen is to come forward and address the people.
3 He should tell them, 'Listen, Isra'el! You are about to do battle against your enemies. Don't be fainthearted or afraid; don't be alarmed or frightened by them;
4 because ADONAI your God is going with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies and give you victory.'
5 'Then the officials will speak to the soldiers. They are to say, 'Is there a man here who has built a new house, but hasn't dedicated it yet? He should go back home now; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will dedicate it.
6 ''Is there a man here who has planted a vineyard, but hasn't yet made use of its fruit? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will use it.
7 ''Is there a man here who is engaged to a woman, but hasn't married her yet? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will marry her.'
8 'The officials will then add to what they have said to the soldiers: 'Is there a man here who is afraid and fainthearted? He should go back home; otherwise his fear may demoralize his comrades as well.'
9 When the officials have finished speaking with the soldiers, commanders are to be appointed to lead the army.
10 'When you advance on a town to attack it, first offer it terms for peace.
11 If it accepts the terms for peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people there are to be put to forced labor and work for you.
12 However, if they refuse to make peace with you but prefer to make war against you, you are to put it under siege.
13 When ADONAI your God hands it over to you, you are to put every male to the sword.
14 However, you are to take as booty for yourself the women, the little ones, the livestock, and everything in the city - all its spoil. Yes, you will feed on your enemies' spoil, which ADONAI your God has given you.
15 This is what you are to do to all the towns which are at a great distance from you, which are not the towns of these nations.
16 'As for the towns of these peoples, which ADONAI your God is giving you as your inheritance, you are not to allow anything that breathes to live.
17 Rather you must destroy them completely - the Hitti, the Emori, the Kena'ani, the P'rizi, the Hivi and the Y'vusi - as ADONAI your God has ordered you;
18 so that they won't teach you to follow their abominable practices, which they do for their gods, thus causing you to sin against ADONAI your God.
19 'When, in making war against a town in order to capture it, you lay siege to it for a long time, you are not to destroy its trees, cutting them down with an axe. You can eat their fruit, so don't cut them down. After all, are the trees in the field human beings, so that you have to besiege them too?
20 However, if you know that certain trees provide no food, you may destroy them and cut them down, in order to build siege-works against the town making war with you, until it falls.
1 'If, in the land ADONAI your God is giving you to possess, a murder victim is found lying in the countryside; and the perpetrator of the murder is not known;
2 then your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between it and the surrounding towns.
3 After it has been determined which town is the closest, the leaders of that town are to take a young female cow that has never been put to work or yoked for use as a draft animal.
4 The leaders of that town are to bring the heifer down to a vadi with a stream in it that never dries up, to a place that is neither plowed nor sown; and they are to break the cow's neck there in the vadi.
5 Then the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, are to approach; for ADONAI your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in the name of ADONAI; they will decide the outcome of every dispute and matter involving violence.
6 All the leaders of the town nearest the murder victim are to wash their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the vadi.
7 Then they are to speak up and say, 'This blood was not shed by our hands, nor have we seen who did it.
8 ADONAI, forgive your people Isra'el, whom you redeemed; do not allow innocent blood to be shed among your people Isra'el.' And they will be forgiven this bloodshed.
9 Thus you will banish the shedding of innocent blood from among you, by doing what ADONAI sees as right.
10 'When you go out to war against your enemies, and ADONAI your God hands them over to you, and you take prisoners,
11 and you see among the prisoners a woman who looks good to you, and you feel attracted to her and want her as your wife;
12 you are to bring her home to your house, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails
13 and remove her prison clothing. She will stay there in your house, mourning her father and mother for a full month; after which you may go in to have sexual relations with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife.
14 In the event that you lose interest in her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes; but you may not sell her for money or treat her like a slave, because you humiliated her.
15 'If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and unloved wives have borne him children, and if the firstborn son is the child of the unloved wife;
16 then, when it comes time for him to pass his inheritance on to his sons, he may not give the inheritance due the firstborn to the son of the loved wife in place of the son of the unloved one, who is in fact the firstborn.
17 No, he must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the unloved wife by giving him a double portion of everything he owns, for he is the firstfruits of his manhood, and the right of the firstborn is his.
18 'If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey what his father or mother says, and even after they discipline him he still refuses to pay attention to them;
19 then his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the leaders of his town, at the gate of that place,
20 and say to the leaders of his town, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he doesn't pay attention to us, lives wildly, gets drunk.'
21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death; in this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you, and all Isra'el will hear about it and be afraid.
22 'If someone has committed a capital crime and is put to death, then hung on a tree,
23 his body is not to remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him the same day, because a person who has been hanged has been cursed by God -so that you will not defile your land, which ADONAI your God is giving you to inherit.
1 'You are not to watch your brother's ox or sheep straying and behave as if you hadn't seen it; you must bring them back to your brother.
2 If your brother is not close by, or you don't know who the owner is, you are to bring it home to your house; and it will remain with you until your brother asks for it; then you are to give it back to him.
3 You are to do the same with his donkey, his coat or anything else of your brother's that he loses. If you find something he lost, you must not ignore it.
4 'If you see your brother's donkey or ox collapsed on the road, you may not behave as if you hadn't seen it; you must help him get them up on their feet again.
5 'A woman is not to wear men's clothing, and a man is not to put on women's clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to ADONAI your God.
6 'If, as you are walking along, you happen to see a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground with chicks or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the chicks or the eggs, you are not to take the mother with the chicks.
7 You must let the mother go, but you may take the chicks for yourself; so that things will go well with you, and you will prolong your life.
8 'When you build a new house, you must build a low wall around your roof; otherwise someone may fall from it, and you will be responsible for his death.
9 'You are not to sow two kinds of seed between your rows of vines; if you do, both the two harvested crops and the yield from the vines must be forfeited.
10 You are not to plow with an ox and a donkey together.
11 You are not to wear clothing woven with two kinds of thread, wool and linen together.
12 'You are to make for yourself twisted cords on the four corners of the garment you wrap around yourself.
13 'If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her and then, having come to dislike her,
14 brings false charges against her and defames her character by saying, 'I married this woman, but when I had intercourse with her I did not find evidence that she was a virgin';
15 then the girl's father and mother are to take the evidence of the girl's virginity to the leaders of the town at the gate.
16 The girl's father will say to the leaders, 'I let my daughter marry this man, but he hates her,
17 so he has brought false charges that he didn't find evidence of her virginity; yet here is the evidence of my daughter's virginity'-(
18 )and they will lay the cloth before the town leaders.
19 The leaders of that town are to take the man, punish him, 19 and fine him two-and-a-half pounds of silver shekels, which they will give to the girl's father, because he has publicly defamed a virgin of Isra'el. She will remain his wife, and he is forbidden from divorcing her as long as he lives.
20 'But if the charge is substantiated that evidence for the girl's virginity could not be found;
21 then they are to lead the girl to the door of her father's house, and the men of her town will stone her to death, because she has committed in Isra'el the disgraceful act of being a prostitute while still in her father's house. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
22 'If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, both of them must die -the man who went to bed with the woman and the woman too. In this way you will expel such wickedness from Isra'el.
23 'If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with her;
24 you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them to death - the girl because she didn't cry out for help, there in the city, and the man because he has humiliated his neighbor's wife. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
25 'But if the man comes upon the engaged girl out in the countryside, and the man grabs her and has sexual relations with her, then only the man who had intercourse with her is to die.
26 You will do nothing to the girl, because she has done nothing deserving of death. The situation is like the case of the man who attacks his neighbor and kills him.
27 For he found her in the countryside, and the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 'If a man comes upon a girl who is a virgin but who is not engaged, and he grabs her and has sexual relations with her, and they are caught in the act,
29 then the man who had intercourse with her must give to the girl's father one-and-a-quarter pounds of silver shekels, and she will become his wife, because he humiliated her; he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
30 'A man is not to take his father's wife, thus violating his father's rights.
1 'A man with crushed or damaged private parts may not enter the assembly of ADONAI.
2 'A mamzer may not enter the assembly of ADONAI, nor may his descendants down to the tenth generation enter the assembly of ADONAI.
3 'No 'Amoni or Mo'avi may enter the assembly of ADONAI, nor may any of his descendants down to the tenth generation ever enter the assembly of ADONAI,
4 because they did not supply you with food and water when you were on the road after leaving Egypt, and because they hired Bil'am the son of B'or from P'tor in Aram-Naharayim to put a curse on you.
5 But ADONAI your God would not listen to Bil'am; rather, ADONAI your God turned the curse into a blessing for you; because ADONAI your God loved you.
6 So you are never to seek their peace or well being, as long as you live.
7 'But you are not to detest an Edomi, because he is your brother; and you are not to detest an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
8 The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of ADONAI.
9 'When you are in camp, at war with your enemies, you are to guard yourself against anything bad.
10 If there is a man among you who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp; he is not to enter the camp.
11 When evening arrives he is to bathe himself in water, and after sunset he may enter the camp.
12 Also you are to have an area outside the camp to use as a latrine.
13 You must include a trowel with your equipment, and when you relieve yourself, you are to dig a hole first and afterwards cover your excrement.
14 For ADONAI your God moves about in your camp to rescue you and to hand over your enemies to you. Therefore your camp must be a holy place. [ADONAI] should not see anything indecent among you, or he will turn away from you.
15 'If a slave has escaped from his master and taken refuge with you, you are not to hand him back to his master.
16 Allow him to stay with you, in whichever place suits him best among your settlements; do not mistreat him.
17 'No woman of Isra'el is to engage in ritual prostitution, and no man of Isra'el is to engage in ritual homosexual prostitution.
18 Nothing earned through heterosexual or homosexual prostitution is to be brought into the house of ADONAI your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to ADONAI your God.
19 'You are not to lend at interest to your brother, no matter whether the loan is of money, food or anything else that can earn interest.
20 To an outsider you may lend at interest, but to your brother you are not to lend at interest, so that ADONAI your God will prosper you in everything you set out to do in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
21 'When you make a vow to ADONAI your God, you are not to delay in fulfilling it, for ADONAI your God will certainly demand it of you, and your failure to do so will be your sin.
22 If you choose not to make a vow at all, that will not be a sin for
23 but if a vow passes your lips, you must take care to perform it according to what you voluntarily vowed to ADONAI your God, what you promised in words spoken aloud.
24 'When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat enough grapes to satisfy your appetite; but you are not to put any in your basket.
25 When you enter your neighbor's field of growing grain, you may pluck ears with your hand; but you are not to put a sickle to your neighbor's grain.
1 'Suppose a man marries a woman and consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing, because he has found her offensive in some respect. He writes her a divorce document, gives it to her and sends her away from his house.
2 She leaves his house, goes and becomes another man's wife;
3 but the second husband dislikes her and writes her a get, gives it to her and sends her away from his house; or the second husband whom she married dies.
4 In such a case her first husband, who sent her away, may not take her again as his wife, because she is now defiled. It would be detestable to ADONAI, and you are not to bring about sin in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your inheritance.
5 'If a man has recently married his wife, he is not to be subject to military service; he is to be free of external obligations and left at home for one year to make his new wife happy.
6 'No one may take a mill or even an upper millstone as collateral for a loan, because that would be taking as collateral the debtor's very means of sustenance.
7 'If a man kidnaps any of his brothers, fellow members of the community of Isra'el, and makes him his slave or sells him, that kidnapper must die; in this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.
8 'When there is an outbreak of tzara'at, be careful to observe and do just what the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, teach you. Take care to do as I ordered them.
9 Remember what ADONAI your God did to Miryam on the road after you left Egypt.
10 'When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you are not to enter his house to take his collateral.
11 You must stand outside, and the borrower will bring the collateral outside to you.
12 If he is poor, you are not to go to bed with what he gave as collateral in your possession;
13 rather, you must restore the pledged item at sunset; then he will go to sleep wearing his garment and bless you. This will be an upright deed of yours before ADONAI your God.
14 'You are not to exploit a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether one of your brothers or a foreigner living in your land in your town.
15 You are to pay him his wages the day he earns them, before sunset; for he is poor and looks forward to being paid. Otherwise he will cry out against you to ADONAI, and it will be your sin.
16 'Fathers are not to be executed for the children, nor are children to be executed for the fathers; every person will be executed for his own sin.
17 'You are not to deprive the foreigner or the orphan of the justice which is his due, and you are not to take a widow's clothing as collateral for a loan.
18 Rather, remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and ADONAI your God redeemed you from there. That is why I am ordering you to do this.
19 'When harvesting the grain in your field, if you forgot a sheaf of grain there, you are not to go back and get it; it will remain there for the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, so that ADONAI your God will bless you in all the work you do.
20 When you beat your olive tree, you are not to go back over the branches again; the olives that are left will be for the foreigner, the orphan and the widow.
21 When you gather the grapes from your vineyard, you are not to return and pick grapes a second time; what is left will be for the foreigner, the orphan and the widow.
22 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. That is why I am ordering you to do this.
1 'If people have a dispute, seek its resolution in court, and the judges render a decision in favor of the righteous one and condemning the wicked one;
2 then, if the wicked one deserves to be flogged, the judge is to have him lie down and be flogged in his presence. The number of strokes is to be proportionate to his offense;
3 but the maximum number is forty. He is not to exceed this; if he goes over this limit and beats him more than this, your brother will be humiliated before your eyes.
4 'You are not to muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.
5 'If brothers live together, and one of them dies childless, his widow is not to marry someone unrelated to him; her husband's brother is to go to her and perform the duty of a brother-in-law by marrying her.
6 The first child she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be eliminated from Isra'el.
7 If the man does not wish to marry his brother's widow, then his brother's widow is to go up to the gate, to the leaders, and say, 'My brother-in-law refuses to raise up for his brother a name in Isra'el; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother for me.'
8 The leaders of his town are to summon him and speak to him. If, on appearing before them, he continues to say, 'I don't want to marry her,'
9 then his brother's widow is to approach him in the presence of the leaders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face and say, 'This is what is done to the man who refuses to build up his brother's family.'
10 From that time on, his family is to be known in Isra'el as 'the family of the man who had his sandal pulled off.'
11 'If men are fighting with each other, and the wife of one comes up to help her husband get away from the man attacking him by grabbing the attacker's private parts with her hand,
12 you are to cut off her hand; show no pity.
13 'You are not to have in your pack two sets of weights, one heavy, the other light.
14 You are not to have in your house two sets of measures, one big, the other small.
15 You are to have a correct and fair weight, and you are to have a correct and fair measure, so that you will prolong your days in the land ADONAI your God is giving you.
16 For all who do such things, all who deal dishonestly, are destestable to ADONAI your God.
17 'Remember what 'Amalek did to you on the road as you were coming out of Egypt,
18 how he met you by the road, attacked those in the rear, those who were exhausted and straggling behind when you were tired and weary. He did not fear God.
19 Therefore, when ADONAI your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your inheritance to possess, you are to blot out all memory of 'Amalek from under heaven. Don't forget!
1 'When you have come to the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your inheritance, taken possession of it and settled there;
2 you are to take the firstfruits of all the crops the ground yields, which you will harvest from your land that ADONAI your God is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place where ADONAI your God will choose to have his name live.
3 You will approach the cohen holding office at the time and say to him, 'Today I declare to ADONAI your God that I have come to the land ADONAI swore to our ancestors that he would give us.'
4 The cohen will take the basket from your hand and put it down in front of the altar of ADONAI your God.
5 'Then, in the presence of ADONAI your God, you are to say, 'My ancestor was a nomad from Aram. He went down into Egypt few in number and stayed. There he became a great, strong, populous nation.
6 But the Egyptians treated us badly; they oppressed us and imposed harsh slavery on us.
7 So we cried out to ADONAI, the God of our ancestors. ADONAI heard us and saw our misery, toil and oppression;
8 and ADONAI brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders.
9 Now he has brought us to this place and given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 Therefore, as you see, I have now brought the firstfruits of the land which you, ADONAI, have given me.' You are then to put the basket down before ADONAI your God, prostrate yourself before ADONAI your God,
11 and take joy in all the good that ADONAI your God has given you, your household, the Levi and the foreigner living with you.
12 'After you have separated a tenth of the crops yielded in the third year, the year of separating a tenth, and have given it to the Levi, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, so that they can have enough food to satisfy them while staying with you;
13 you are to say, in the presence of ADONAI your God, 'I have rid my house of the things set aside for God and given them to the Levi, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, in keeping with every one of the mitzvot you gave me. I haven't disobeyed any of your mitzvot or forgotten them.
14 I haven't eaten any of this food when mourning, I haven't put any of it aside when unclean, nor have I given any of it for the dead. I have listened to what ADONAI my God has said, and I have done everything you ordered me to do.
15 Look out from your holy dwelling-place, from heaven; and bless your people Isra'el and the land you gave us, as you swore to our ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.'
16 'Today ADONAI your God orders you to obey these laws and rulings. Therefore, you are to observe and obey them with all your heart and all your being.
17 You are agreeing today that ADONAI is your God and that you will follow his ways; observe his laws, mitzvot and rulings; and do what he says.
18 In turn ADONAI is agreeing today that you are his own unique treasure, as he promised you; that you are to observe all his mitzvot;
19 and that he will raise you high above all the nations he has made, in praise, reputation and glory; and that, as he said, you will be a holy people for ADONAI your God.'
1 Then Moshe and all the leaders of Isra'el gave orders to the people. They said, 'Observe all the mitzvot I am giving you today.
2 When you cross the Yarden to the land ADONAI your God is giving you, you are to set up large stones, put plaster on them,
3 and, after crossing over, write this Torah on them, every word -so that you can enter the land ADONAI your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as ADONAI, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4 When you have crossed the Yarden, you are to set up these stones, as I am ordering you today, on Mount 'Eival; and put plaster on them.
5 There you are to erect an altar to ADONAI your God, an altar made of stones. You are not to use any iron tool on them,
6 but are to build the altar of ADONAI your God of uncut stones; and you are to offer burnt offerings on it to ADONAI your God.
7 Also you are to sacrifice peace offerings, eat there and be joyful in the presence of ADONAI your God.
8 You are to write on the stones all the words of this Torah very clearly.'
9 Next Moshe and the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, spoke to all Isra'el. They said, 'Be quiet; and listen, Isra'el! Today you have become the people of ADONAI your God.
10 Therefore you are to listen to what ADONAI your God says and obey his mitzvot and laws, which I am giving you today.'
11 That same day Moshe commissioned the people as follows:
12 'These are the ones who are to stand on Mount G'rizim and bless the people after you have crossed the Yarden: Shim'on, Levi, Y'hudah, Yissakhar, Yosef and Binyamin;
13 while these are to stand on Mount 'Eival for the curse: Re'uven, Gad, Asher, Z'vulun, Dan and Naftali.
14 The L'vi'im, speaking loudly, will proclaim to every man of Isra'el:
15 ''A curse on anyone who makes a carved or metal image, something ADONAI detests, the handiwork of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret!'All the people are to respond by saying, 'Amen!'
16 ''A curse on anyone who dishonors his father or mother.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
17 ''A curse on anyone who moves his neighbor's boundary marker.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
18 ''A curse on anyone who causes a blind person to lose his way on the road.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
19 ''A curse on anyone who interferes with justice for the foreigner, orphan or widow.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
20 ''A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his father's wife, because he has violated his father's rights.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
21 ''A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with any kind of animal.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
22 ''A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his sister, no matter whether she is the daughter of his father or of his mother.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
23 ''A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his mother-in-law.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
24 ''A curse on anyone who secretly attacks a fellow member of the community.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
25 ''A curse on anyone who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
26 ''A curse on anyone who does not confirm the words of this Torah by putting them into practice.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
1 'If you listen closely to what ADONAI your God says, observing and obeying all his mitzvot which I am giving you today, ADONAI your God will raise you high above all the nations on earth;
2 and all the following blessings will be yours in abundance -if you will do what ADONAI your God says:
3 'A blessing on you in the city, and a blessing on you in the countryside.
4 'A blessing on the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land and the fruit of your livestock - the young of your cattle and flocks.
5 'A blessing on your grain-basket and kneading-bowl.
6 'A blessing on you when you go out, and a blessing on you when you come in.
7 'ADONAI will cause your enemies attacking you to be defeated before you; they will advance on you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 'ADONAI will order a blessing to be with you in your barns and in everything you undertake; he will bless you in the land ADONAI your God is giving you.
9 'ADONAI will establish you as a people separated out for himself, as he has sworn to you - if you will observe the mitzvot of ADONAI your God and follow his ways.
10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that ADONAI's name, his presence, is with you; so that they will be afraid of you.
11 'ADONAI will give you great abundance of good things - of the fruit of your body, the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your land in the land ADONAI swore to your ancestors to give you.
12 ADONAI will open for you his good treasure, the sky, to give your land its rain at the right seasons and to bless everything you undertake. You will lend to many nations and not borrow;
13 ADONAI will make you the head and not the tail; and you will be only above, never below - if you will listen to, observe and obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God
14 and not turn away from any of the words I am ordering you today, neither to the right nor to the left, to follow after other gods and serve them.
15 'But if you refuse to pay attention to what ADONAI your God says, and do not observe and obey all his mitzvot and regulations which I am giving you today, then all the following curses will be yours in abundance:
16 'A curse on you in the city, and a curse on you in the countryside.
17 'A curse on your grain-basket and kneading-bowl.
18 'A curse on the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land and the young of your cattle and flocks.
19 'A curse on you when you come in, and a curse on you when you go out.
20 'ADONAI will send on you curses, disasters and frustration in everything you set out to do, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of your evil actions in abandoning me.
21 'ADONAI will bring on you a plague that will stay with you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
22 ADONAI will strike you down with wasting diseases, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, drought, blasting winds and mildew; and they will pursue you until you perish.
23 'The sky over your head will be brass and the earth under you iron.
24 ADONAI will turn the rain your land needs into powder and dust that will fall on you from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 'ADONAI your God will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will advance on them one way and flee before them seven. You will become an object of horror to every kingdom on earth.
26 Your carcasses will become food for all the birds in the air and the wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them away.
27 ADONAI will strike you down with the boils that broke out on the Egyptians, tumors, skin lesions and itching, all incurable.
28 ADONAI will strike you with insanity, blindness and utter confusion.
29 You will grope about at noon like a blind person groping in the dark, unable to find your way. 'You will be continually oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.
30 You will get engaged to a woman, but another man will marry her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not use its fruit.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you won't eat any of its meat. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force as you watch, and you won't get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.
32 Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another people; you will watch for them longingly all day but not see them; and there will be nothing you can do about it.
33 A nation unknown to you will eat the fruit of your land and labor. Yes, you will be continually oppressed and crushed,
34 till you go crazy from what your eyes have to see.
35 ADONAI will strike you down in the knees and legs with painful and incurable boils; they will spread from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 ADONAI will bring you and your king whom you have put over yourselves to a nation you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors; and there you will serve other gods made of wood and stone.
37 You will be so devastated as to become a proverb and a laughingstock among all the peoples to which ADONAI will drive you.
38 'You will carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, because locusts will devour it.
39 You will plant vineyards and dress them but neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.
40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will fall off unripe.
41 You will father sons and daughters, but they won't belong to you, because they will go into captivity.
42 The bugs will inherit all your trees and the produce of your land.
43 'The foreigner living with you will rise higher and higher while you sink lower and lower.
44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head and you the tail.
45 'All these curses will come on you, pursuing you and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you didn't pay attention to what ADONAI your God said, observing his mitzvot and regulations that he gave you.
46 These curses will be on you and your descendants as a sign and a wonder forever.
47 Because you didn't serve ADONAI your God with joy and gladness in your heart when you had such an abundance of everything;
48 ADONAI will send your enemy against you; and you will serve him when you are hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed and lacking everything; he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he destroys you.
49 Yes, ADONAI will bring against you a nation from far away that will swoop down on you from the end of the earth like a vulture, a nation whose language you don't understand,
50 a nation grim in appearance, whose people neither respect the old nor pity the young.
51 They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil, until you have been destroyed. They will leave you without grain, wine, olive oil, or your young cattle and sheep - until they have caused you to perish.
52 They will besiege all your towns until your high, fortified walls, in which you trusted, collapse everywhere in your land, which ADONAI your God gave you.
53 Then, because of the severity of the siege and distress that your enemies are inflicting on you, you will eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom ADONAI your God has given you.
54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will be without pity for his brother, his beloved wife or his surviving children,
55 to the degree that he will refuse to share with any of them the flesh of his children whom he is eating; because if he did, he would have nothing left for himself -in the severity of the siege and distress your enemies are inflicting on you in all your towns.
56 The most delicate and sensitive woman among you, so sensitive and delicate that she wouldn't think of touching the sole of her foot to the ground, will so begrudge her own beloved husband, son and daughter
57 that she will secretly eat the afterbirth that comes out of her and even her own children as she bears them -so desperately hungry will she be in the severity of the siege and distress your enemies are inflicting on you in your towns.
58 'If you will not observe and obey all the words of this Torah that are written in this book, so that you will fear this glorious and awesome name, ADONAI your God;
59 then ADONAI will strike down you and your descendants with extraordinary plagues and severe sicknesses that go on and on.
60 He will bring back upon you all the diseases the Egyptians had, which you were in dread of; and they will cling to you.
61 Not only that, but ADONAI will bring upon you all the sicknesses and plagues that are not written in this book of the Torah - until you are destroyed.
62 You will be left few in number, whereas you were once as numerous as the stars in the sky -because you did not pay attention to the voice of ADONAI your God.
63 'Thus it will come about that just as once ADONAI took joy in seeking to do you good and increase your numbers, so now ADONAI will take joy in causing you to perish and be destroyed, and you will be plucked off the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
64 ADONAI will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, made of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.
65 Among these nations you will not find repose, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; rather ADONAI will give you there anguish of heart, dimness of eyes and apathy of spirit.
66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be afraid night and day and have no assurance that you will stay alive.
67 In the morning you will say, 'Oh, how I wish it were evening!' and in the evening you will say, 'Oh, how I wish it were morning!'-because of the fear overwhelming your heart and the sights your eyes will see.
68 Finally, ADONAI will bring you back in ships to Egypt, the place of which I said to you, 'You will never ever see it again'; and there you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies, but no one will buy you.'
1 These are the words of the covenant which ADONAI ordered Moshe to make with the people of Isra'el in the land of Mo'av, in addition to the covenant which he made with them in Horev.
2 Then Moshe summoned all Isra'el and said to them, 'You saw everything ADONAI did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants and to all his land;
3 the great testings which you saw with your own eyes, and the signs and those great wonders.
4 Nevertheless, to this day ADONAI has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see or ears to hear!
5 I led you forty years in the desert. Neither the clothes on your body nor the shoes on your feet wore out.
6 You didn't eat bread, and you didn't drink wine or other intoxicating liquor; this was so that you would know that 'I am ADONAI your God.'
7 When you arrived at this place, Sichon the king of Heshbon and 'Og the king of Bashan advanced against us in battle, and we defeated them,
8 took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Re'uveni, the Gadi and the M'nashi.
9 Therefore, observe the words of this covenant and obey them; so that you can make everything you do prosper.
10 'Today you are standing, all of you, before ADONAI your God - your heads, your tribes, your leaders and your officers - all the men of Isra'el,
11 along with your little ones, your wives and your foreigners here with you in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water.
12 The purpose is that you should enter into the covenant of ADONAI your God and into his oath which ADONAI your God is making with you today,
13 so that he can establish you today for himself as a people, and so that for you he will be God -as he said to you and as he swore to your ancestors, to Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov.
14 'But I am not making this covenant and this oath only with you.
15 Rather, I am making it both with him who is standing here with us today before ADONAI our God and also with him who is not here with us today.
16 For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we came directly through the nations you passed through;
17 and you saw their detestable things and their idols of wood, stone, silver and gold that they had with them.
18 So let there not be among you a man, woman, family or tribe whose heart turns away today from ADONAI our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Let there not be among you a root bearing such bitter poison and wormwood.
19 If there is such a person, when he hears the words of this curse, he will bless himself secretly, saying to himself, 'I will be all right, even though I will stubbornly keep doing whatever I feel like doing; so that I, although 'dry,' [sinful,] will be added to the 'watered' [righteous].'
20 But ADONAI will not forgive him. Rather, the anger and jealousy of ADONAI will blaze up against that person. Every curse written in this book will be upon him. ADONAI will blot out his name from under heaven.
21 ADONAI will single him out from all the tribes of Isra'el to experience what is bad in all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the Torah.
22 'When the next generation, your children who will grow up after you, and the foreigner who arrives from a distant land, see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which ADONAI has made it sick,
23 and that the whole land has become burning sulfur and salt, that it isn't being sown or bearing crops or even producing grass - like the overthrow of S'dom, 'Amora, Admah and Tzvoyim, which ADONAI overthrew in his furious anger -
24 then all the nations will ask, 'Why did ADONAI do this to this land? What is the meaning of such frenzied, furious anger?'
25 People will answer, 'It's because they abandoned the covenant of ADONAI, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
26 They went and served other gods, prostrating themselves before them, gods they had not known and which he had not assigned them.
27 For this reason, the anger of ADONAI blazed up against this land and brought upon it every curse written in this book;
28 and ADONAI, in anger, fury and incensed with indignation, uprooted them from their land and threw them out into another land - as it is today.'
29 'Things which are hidden belong to ADONAI our God. But the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe all the words of this Torah.
1 'When the time arrives that all these things have come upon you, both the blessing and the curse which I have presented to you; and you are there among the nations to which ADONAI your God has driven you; then, at last, you will start thinking about what has happened to you;
2 and you will return to ADONAI your God and pay attention to what he has said, which will be exactly what I am ordering you to do today - you and your children, with all your heart and all your being.
3 At that point, ADONAI your God will reverse your exile and show you mercy; he will return and gather you from all the peoples to which ADONAI your God scattered you.
4 If one of yours was scattered to the far end of the sky, ADONAI your God will gather you even from there; he will go there and get you.
5 ADONAI your God will bring you back into the land your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you prosper there, and you will become even more numerous than your ancestors.
6 Then ADONAI your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children, so that you will love ADONAI your God with all your heart and all your being, and thus you will live.
7 ADONAI your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hated and persecuted you;
8 but you will return and pay attention to what ADONAI says and obey all his mitzvot which I am giving you today.
9 Then ADONAI your God will give you more than enough in everything you set out to do - the fruit of your body, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your land will all do well; for ADONAI will once again rejoice to see you do well, just as he rejoiced in your ancestors.
10 'However, all this will happen only if you pay attention to what ADONAI your God says, so that you obey his mitzvot and regulations which are written in this book of the Torah, if you turn to ADONAI your God with all your heart and all your being.
11 For this mitzvah which I am giving you today is not too hard for you, it is not beyond your reach.
12 It isn't in the sky, so that you need to ask, 'Who will go up into the sky for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?'
13 Likewise, it isn't beyond the sea, so that you need to ask, 'Who will cross the sea for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?'
14 On the contrary, the word is very close to you - in your mouth, even in your heart; therefore, you can do it!
15 'Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil -
16 in that I am ordering you today to love ADONAI your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings ; for if you do, you will live and increase your numbers; and ADONAI your God will bless you in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
17 But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you are drawn away to prostrate yourselves before other gods and serve them;
18 I am announcing to you today that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to enter and possess.
19 'I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants,
20 loving ADONAI your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him - for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land ADONAI swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov.'
1 Moshe went and spoke the following words to all Isra'el:
2 'I am 120 years old today. I can't get around any longer; moreover, ADONAI has said to me, 'You will not cross this Yarden.'
3 ADONAI your God -he will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess them. Y'hoshua - he will cross over ahead of you, as ADONAI has said.
4 ADONAI will do to them what he did to Sichon and 'Og, the kings of the Emori, and to their land -he destroyed them.
5 ADONAI will defeat them ahead of you, and you are to do to them just as I have ordered you to do.
6 Be strong, be bold, don't be afraid or frightened of them, for ADONAI your God is going with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.'
7 Next Moshe summoned Y'hoshua and, in the sight of all Isra'el, said to him, 'Be strong, be bold, for you are going with this people into the land ADONAI swore to their ancestors he would give them. You will be the one causing them to inherit it.
8 But ADONAI - it is he who will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you, so don't be afraid or downhearted.'
9 Then Moshe wrote down this Torah and gave it to the cohanim, the descendants of Levi who carried the ark with the covenant of ADONAI, and to all the leaders of Isra'el.
10 Moshe gave them these orders: 'At the end of every seven years, during the festival of Sukkot in the year of sh'mittah,
11 when all Isra'el have come to appear in the presence of ADONAI at the place he will choose, you are to read this Torah before all Isra'el, so that they can hear it.
12 Assemble the people-the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners you have in your towns -so that they can hear, learn, fear ADONAI your God and take care to obey all the words of this Torah;
13 and so that their children, who have not known, can hear and learn to fear ADONAI your God, for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Yarden to possess.'
14 ADONAI said to Moshe, 'The time is coming for you to die. Summon Y'hoshua, and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, so that I can commission him.' Moshe and Y'hoshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting.
15 ADONAI appeared in the tent in a column of cloud; the column of cloud stood above the entrance to the tent.
16 ADONAI said to Moshe, 'You are about to sleep with your ancestors. But this people will get up and offer themselves as prostitutes to the foreign gods of the land where they are going. When they are with those gods, they will abandon me and break my covenant which I have made with them.
17 Then my anger will flare up, and I will abandon them and hide my face from them. They will be devoured, and many calamities and troubles will come upon them. Then they will ask, 'Haven't these calamities come upon us because our God isn't here with us?'
18 But I will be hiding my face from them because of all the evil they will have done in turning to other gods.
19 'Therefore, write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the people of Isra'el. Have them learn it by heart, so that this song can be a witness for me against the people of Isra'el.
20 For when I have brought them into the land I swore to their ancestors, flowing with milk and honey; and they have eaten their fill, grown fat and turned to other gods, serving them and despising me, and broken my covenant;
21 then, after many calamities and troubles have come upon them, this song will testify before them as a witness, because their descendants will still be reciting it and will not have forgotten it. For I know how they think even now, even before I have brought them into the land about which I swore.'
22 So Moshe wrote this song that same day and taught it to the people of Isra'el.
23 ADONAI also commissioned Y'hoshua the son of Nun with these words: 'Be strong and full of courage; for you are to bring the people of Isra'el into the land about which I swore to them; and I will be with you.'
24 Moshe kept writing the words of this Torah in a book until he was done. When he had finished,
25 Moshe gave these orders to the L'vi'im who carried the ark with the covenant of ADONAI:
26 'Take this book of the Torah and put it next to the ark with the covenant of ADONAI your God, so that it can be there to witness against you.
27 For I know how rebellious and stiffnecked you are! Here, even while I am still alive with you today, you have rebelled against ADONAI; so how much more will you do so after my death?
28 Assemble for me all the leaders of your tribes and your officials, so that I can say these things in their hearing, calling heaven and earth to witness against them -
29 because I know that after my death you will become very corrupt and turn aside from the way that I have ordered you, and that disaster will come upon you in the acharit-hayamim, because you will do what ADONAI sees as evil and provoke him by your deeds.'
30 Then Moshe spoke in the hearing of the whole assembly of Isra'el the words of this song, from beginning to end:
1 'Hear, oh heavens, as I speak! Listen, earth, to the words from my mouth!
2 May my teaching fall like rain. May my speech condense like dew, like light rain on blades of grass, or showers on growing plants.
3 'For I will proclaim the name of ADONAI. Come, declare the greatness of our God!
4 The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is righteous and straight.
5 'He is not corrupt; the defect is in his children, a crooked and perverted generation.
6 You foolish people, so lacking in wisdom, is this how you repay ADONAI? He is your father, who made you his! It was he who formed and prepared you!
7 'Remember how the old days were; think of the years through all the ages. Ask your father -he will tell you; your leaders too -they will inform you.
8 'When 'Elyon gave each nation its heritage, when he divided the human race, he assigned the boundaries of peoples according to Isra'el's population;
9 but ADONAI's share was his own people, Ya'akov his allotted heritage.
10 'He found his people in desert country, in a howling, wasted wilderness. He protected him and cared for him, guarded him like the pupil of his eye,
11 like an eagle that stirs up her nest, hovers over her young, spreads out her wings, takes them and carries them as she flies.
12 'ADONAI alone led his people; no alien god was with him.
13 He made them ride on the heights of the earth. They ate the produce of the fields. He had them suck honey from the rocks and olive oil from the crags,
14 curds from the cows and milk from the sheep, with lamb fat, rams from Bashan and goats, with the finest wheat flour; and you drank sparkling wine from the blood of grapes.
15 'But Yeshurun grew fat and kicked (you grew fat, thick, gross!). He abandoned God his Maker; he scorned the Rock, his salvation.
16 They roused him to jealousy with alien gods, provoked him with abominations.
17 They sacrificed to demons, non-gods, gods that they had never known, new gods that had come up lately, which your ancestors had not feared.
18 You ignored the Rock who fathered you, you forgot God, who gave you birth.
19 'ADONAI saw and was filled with scorn at his sons' and daughters' provocation.
20 He said, 'I will hide my face from them and see what will become of them; for they are a perverse generation, untrustworthy children.
21 They aroused my jealousy with a non-god and provoked me with their vanities; I will arouse their jealousy with a non-people and provoke them with a vile nation.
22 ''For my anger has been fired up. It burns to the depths of Sh'ol, devouring the earth and its crops, kindling the very roots of the hills.
23 I will heap disasters on them and use up all my arrows against them.
24 ''Fatigued by hunger, they will be consumed by fever and bitter defeat; I will send them the fangs of wild beasts, and the poison of reptiles crawling in the dust.
25 Outside, the sword makes parents childless; inside, there is panic, as young men and girls alike are slain, sucklings and graybeards together.
26 ''I considered putting an end to them, erasing their memory from the human race;
27 but I feared the insolence of their enemy, feared that their foes would mistakenly think, 'We ourselves accomplished this; ADONAI had nothing to do with it.'
28 ''They are a nation without common sense, utterly lacking in discernment.
29 If they were wise they could figure it out and understand their destiny.
30 After all, how can one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to rout, unless their Rock sells them to their enemies, unless ADONAI hands them over?
31 For our enemies have no rock like our Rock -even they can see that!
32 ''Rather, their vine is from the vine of S'dom, from the fields of 'Amora -their grapes are poisonous, their clusters are bitter;
33 their wine is snake poison, the cruel venom of vipers.
34 ''Isn't this hidden with me, sealed in my storehouses?
35 Vengeance and payback are mine for the time when their foot slips; for the day of their calamity is coming soon, their doom is rushing upon them.'
36 'Yes, ADONAI will judge his people, taking pity on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone, that no one is left, slave or free.
37 Then he will ask, 'Where are their gods, the rock in whom they trusted?
38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let him get up and help you, let him protect you!
39 See now that I, yes, I, am he; and there is no god beside me. I put to death, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; no one saves anyone from my hand!
40 ''For I lift up my hand to heaven and swear, 'As surely as I am alive forever,
41 if I sharpen my flashing sword and set my hand to judgment, I will render vengeance to my foes, repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, my sword will devour flesh the blood of the slain and the captives, flesh from the wild-haired heads of the enemy.''
43 'Sing out, you nations, about his people! For he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance to his adversaries and make atonement for the land of his people.'
44 Moshe came and proclaimed all the words of this song in the hearing of the people and of Hoshea the son of Nun.
45 When he had finished speaking all these words to all Isra'el,
46 he said to them, 'Take to heart all the words of my testimony against you today, so that you can use them in charging your children to be careful to obey all the words of this Torah.
47 For this is not a trivial matter for you; on the contrary, it is your life! Through it you will live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to possess.'
48 That same day ADONAI said to Moshe,
49 'Go up into the 'Avarim Range, to Mount N'vo, in the land of Mo'av across from Yericho; and look out over the land of Kena'an, which I am giving the people of Isra'el as a possession.
50 On the mountain you are ascending you will die and be gathered to your people, just as Aharon your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
51 The reason for this is that both of you broke faith with me there among the people of Isra'el at the M'rivat-Kadesh Spring, in the Tzin Desert; you failed to demonstrate my holiness there among the people of Isra'el.
52 So you will see the land from a distance, but you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Isra'el.'
1 This is the blessing that Moshe, the man of God, spoke over the people of Isra'el before his death:
2 'ADONAI came from Sinai; from Se'ir he dawned on his people, shone forth from Mount Pa'ran; and with him were myriads of holy ones; at his right hand was a fiery law for them.
3 He truly loves the peoples -all his holy ones are in your hand; sitting at your feet, they receive your instruction,
4 the Torah Moshe commanded us as an inheritance for the community of Ya'akov.
5 Then a king arose in Yeshurun when the leaders of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Isra'el together.
6 'Let Re'uven live and not die out, even though his numbers grow few.'
7 Of Y'hudah he said: 'Hear, ADONAI, the cry of Y'hudah! Bring him in to his people, let his own hands defend him; but you, help him against his enemies.'
8 Of Levi he said: 'Let your tumim and urim be with your pious one, whom you tested at Massah, with whom you struggled at M'rivah Spring.
9 Of his father and mother he said, 'I don't know them'; he didn't acknowledge his brothers or children. For he observed your word, and he kept your covenant.
10 They will teach Ya'akov your rulings, Isra'el your Torah. They will set incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.
11 ADONAI, bless his possessions, accept the work he does; but crush his enemies hip and thigh; may those who hate him rise no more.'
12 Of Binyamin he said: 'ADONAI's beloved lives securely. He protects him day after day. He lives between his shoulders.'
13 Of Yosef he said: 'May ADONAI bless his land with the best from the sky, for the dew, and for what comes from the deep beneath,
14 with the best of what the sun makes grow, with the best of what comes up each month,
15 with the best from the mountains of old, with the best from the eternal hills,
16 with the best from the earth and all that fills it, and the favor of him who lived in the [burning] bush. May blessing come on the head of Yosef, on the brow of the prince among his brothers.
17 His firstborn bull - glory is his; his horns are those of a wild ox; With them he will gore the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth. These are the myriads of Efrayim; these are the thousands of M'nasheh.'
18 Of Z'vulun he said: 'Rejoice, Z'vulun, as you go forth, and you, Yissakhar, in your tents.
19 They will summon peoples to the mountain and there offer righteous sacrifices; for they will draw from the abundance of the seas and from the hidden treasures of the sand.'
20 Of Gad he said: 'Blessed is he who makes Gad so large; he lies there like a lion, tearing arm and scalp.
21 He chose the best for himself when the princely portion was assigned. When the leaders of the people came, he carried out ADONAI's justice and his rulings concerning Isra'el.'
22 Of Dan he said: 'Dan is a lion cub leaping forth from Bashan.'
23 Of Naftali he said: 'You, Naftali, satisfied with favor and full of blessing from ADONAI, take possession of the sea and the south.'
24 Of Asher he said: 'May Asher be most blessed of sons, may he be the favorite among his brothers and bathe his feet in oil.
25 May your bolts be of iron and bronze and your strength last as long as you live.
26 'Yeshurun, there is no one like God, riding through the heavens to help you, riding on the clouds in his majesty.
27 The God of old is a dwelling-place, with everlasting arms beneath. He expelled the enemy before you and he said, 'Destroy!'
28 So Isra'el lives in security; the fountain of Ya'akov is alone in a land of grain and new wine, where the skies drip with dew.
29 Happy are you, Isra'el! 'Who is like you, a people saved by ADONAI, your defender helping you and your sword of triumph? Your enemies will cringe before you, but you will trample down their high places.'
1 Moshe ascended from the plains of Mo'av to Mount N'vo, to the summit of Pisgah, across from Yericho. There ADONAI showed him all the land -Gil'ad as far as Dan,
2 all Naftali, the land of Efrayim and M'nasheh, the land of Y'hudah all the way to the sea beyond,
3 the Negev, and the 'Aravah, including the valley where Yericho, the City of Date-Palms, as far away as Tzo'ar.
4 ADONAI said to him, 'This is the land concerning which I swore to Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over there.'
5 So Moshe, the servant of ADONAI, died there in the land of Mo'av, as ADONAI had said.
6 He was buried in the valley across from Beit-P'or in the land of Mo'av, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.
7 Moshe was 120 years old when he died, with eyes undimmed and vigor undiminished.
8 The people of Isra'el mourned Moshe on the plains of Mo'av for thirty days; after this, the days of crying and mourning for Moshe ended.
9 Y'hoshua the son of Nun was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moshe had laid his hands on him, and the people of Isra'el heeded him and did what ADONAI had ordered Moshe.
10 Since that time there has not arisen in Isra'el a prophet like Moshe, whom ADONAI knew face to face.
11 What signs and wonders ADONAI sent him to perform in the land of Egypt upon Pharaoh, all his servants and all his land!
12 What might was in his hand! What great terror he evoked before the eyes of all Isra'el!