Discovery Box

Deuteronomy 1:1-4

1:1 This is what ¹  Moses said to the assembly of Israel ²  in the Transjordanian ³  wastelands, the arid country opposite ⁴  Suph, ⁵  between ⁶  Paran ⁷  and Tophel, ⁸  Laban, ⁹  Hazeroth, ¹⁰  and Di Zahab ¹¹  1:2 Now it is ordinarily an eleven-day journey ¹²  from Horeb ¹³  to Kadesh Barnea ¹⁴  by way of Mount Seir. ¹⁵  1:3 However, it was not until ¹⁶  the first day of the eleventh month ¹⁷  of the fortieth year ¹⁸  that Moses addressed the Israelites just as ¹⁹  the Lord had instructed him to do. 1:4 This took place after the defeat ²⁰  of King Sihon ²¹  of the Amorites, whose capital was ²²  in Heshbon, ²³  and King Og of Bashan, whose capital was ²⁴  in Ashtaroth, ²⁵  specifically in Edrei. ²⁶ 

Deuteronomy 5:1--26:19

5:1 Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: ²⁷  “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them! 5:2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 5:3 He ²⁸  did not make this covenant with our ancestors ²⁹  but with us, we who are here today, all of us living now. 5:4 The Lord spoke face to face with you at the mountain, from the middle of the fire. 5:5 (I was standing between the Lord and you at that time to reveal to you the message ³⁰  of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain.) He said:

5:6 “I am the Lord your God, he who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery. 5:7 You must not have any other gods ³¹  besides me. ³²  5:8 You must not make for yourself an image ³³  of anything in heaven above, on earth below, or in the waters beneath. ³⁴  5:9 You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish ³⁵  the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject ³⁶  me, ³⁷  5:10 but I show covenant faithfulness ³⁸  to the thousands ³⁹  who choose ⁴⁰  me and keep my commandments. 5:11 You must not make use of the name of the Lord your God for worthless purposes, ⁴¹  for the Lord will not exonerate anyone who abuses his name that way. ⁴²  5:12 Be careful to observe ⁴³  the Sabbath day just as the Lord your God has commanded you. 5:13 You are to work and do all your tasks in six days, 5:14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath ⁴⁴  of the Lord your God. On that day you must not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your ox, your donkey, any other animal, or the foreigner who lives with you, ⁴⁵  so that your male and female slaves, like yourself, may have rest. 5:15 Recall that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there by strength and power. ⁴⁶  That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to observe ⁴⁷  the Sabbath day. 5:16 Honor ⁴⁸  your father and your mother just as the Lord your God has commanded you to do, so that your days may be extended and that it may go well with you in the land that he ⁴⁹  is about to give you. 5:17 You must not murder. ⁵⁰  5:18 You must not commit adultery. 5:19 You must not steal. 5:20 You must not offer false testimony against another. ⁵¹  5:21 You must not desire ⁵²  another man’s ⁵³  wife, nor should you crave his ⁵⁴  house, his field, his male and female servants, his ox, his donkey, or anything else he owns.” ⁵⁵ 

5:22 The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. ⁵⁶  Then he inscribed the words ⁵⁷  on two stone tablets and gave them to me. 5:23 Then, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was ablaze, all your tribal leaders and elders approached me. 5:24 You said, “The Lord our God has shown us his great glory ⁵⁸  and we have heard him speak from the middle of the fire. It is now clear to us ⁵⁹  that God can speak to human beings and they can keep on living. 5:25 But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the Lord our God we will die! 5:26 Who is there from the entire human race ⁶⁰  who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of the fire as we have, and has lived? 5:27 You go near so that you can hear everything the Lord our God is saying and then you can tell us whatever he ⁶¹  says to you; then we will pay attention and do it.” 5:28 When the Lord heard you speaking to me, he ⁶²  said to me, “I have heard what these people have said to you – they have spoken well. 5:29 If only it would really be their desire to fear me and obey ⁶³  all my commandments in the future, so that it may go well with them and their descendants forever. 5:30 Go and tell them, ‘Return to your tents!’ 5:31 But as for you, remain here with me so I can declare to you all the commandments, ⁶⁴  statutes, and ordinances that you are to teach them, so that they can carry them out in the land I am about to give them.” ⁶⁵  5:32 Be careful, therefore, to do exactly what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn right or left! 5:33 Walk just as he ⁶⁶  has commanded you so that you may live, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long ⁶⁷  in the land you are going to possess.

6:1 Now these are the commandments, ⁶⁸  statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed ⁶⁹  6:2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments ⁷⁰  that I am giving ⁷¹  you – you, your children, and your grandchildren – all your lives, to prolong your days. 6:3 Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number ⁷²  – as the Lord, God of your ancestors, ⁷³  said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.

6:4 Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! ⁷⁴  6:5 You must love ⁷⁵  the Lord your God with your whole mind, ⁷⁶  your whole being, ⁷⁷  and all your strength. ⁷⁸ 

6:6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 6:7 and you must teach ⁷⁹  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ⁸⁰  as you lie down, and as you get up. 6:8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm ⁸¹  and fasten them as symbols ⁸²  on your forehead. 6:9 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. ⁸³ 

6:10 Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you – a land with large, fine cities you did not build, 6:11 houses filled with choice things you did not accumulate, hewn out cisterns you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – and you eat your fill, 6:12 be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, that place of slavery. ⁸⁴  6:13 You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name. 6:14 You must not go after other gods, those ⁸⁵  of the surrounding peoples, 6:15 for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God and his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land. ⁸⁶ 

6:16 You must not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. ⁸⁷  6:17 Keep his ⁸⁸  commandments very carefully, ⁸⁹  as well as the stipulations and statutes he commanded you to observe. 6:18 Do whatever is proper ⁹⁰  and good before the Lord so that it may go well with you and that you may enter and occupy the good land that he ⁹¹  promised your ancestors, 6:19 and that you may drive out all your enemies just as the Lord said.

6:20 When your children ⁹²  ask you later on, “What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?” 6:21 you must say to them, ⁹³  “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way. ⁹⁴  6:22 And he ⁹⁵  brought signs and great, devastating wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on his whole family ⁹⁶  before our very eyes. 6:23 He delivered us from there so that he could give us the land he had promised our ancestors. 6:24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these statutes and to revere him ⁹⁷  so that it may always go well for us and he may preserve us, as he has to this day. 6:25 We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments ⁹⁸  before the Lord our God, just as he demands.” ⁹⁹ 

7:1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ¹⁰⁰  Girgashites, ¹⁰¹  Amorites, ¹⁰²  Canaanites, ¹⁰³  Perizzites, ¹⁰⁴  Hivites, ¹⁰⁵  and Jebusites, ¹⁰⁶  seven ¹⁰⁷  nations more numerous and powerful than you – 7:2 and he ¹⁰⁸  delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate ¹⁰⁹  them. Make no treaty ¹¹⁰  with them and show them no mercy! 7:3 You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 7:4 for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you. 7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹¹¹  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ¹¹²  and burn up their idols. 7:6 For you are a people holy ¹¹³  to the Lord your God. He ¹¹⁴  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹¹⁵  above all others on the face of the earth.

7:7 It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you – for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples. 7:8 Rather it is because of his ¹¹⁶  love ¹¹⁷  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ¹¹⁸  he solemnly vowed ¹¹⁹  to your ancestors ¹²⁰  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ¹²¹  redeeming ¹²²  you from the place of slavery, from the power ¹²³  of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 7:9 So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, ¹²⁴  the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully ¹²⁵  with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 7:10 but who pays back those who hate ¹²⁶  him as they deserve and destroys them. He will not ignore ¹²⁷  those who hate him but will repay them as they deserve! 7:11 So keep the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that I today am commanding you to do.

7:12 If you obey these ordinances and are careful to do them, the Lord your God will faithfully keep covenant with you ¹²⁸  as he promised ¹²⁹  your ancestors. 7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹³⁰  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you. 7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ¹³¹  among you or your livestock. 7:15 The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

7:16 You must destroy ¹³²  all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship ¹³³  their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 7:17 If you think, “These nations are more numerous than I – how can I dispossess them?” 7:18 you must not fear them. You must carefully recall ¹³⁴  what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt, 7:19 the great judgments ¹³⁵  you saw, the signs and wonders, the strength and power ¹³⁶  by which he ¹³⁷  brought you out – thus the Lord your God will do to all the people you fear. 7:20 Furthermore, the Lord your God will release hornets ¹³⁸  among them until the very last ones who hide from you ¹³⁹  perish. 7:21 You must not tremble in their presence, for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a great and awesome God. 7:22 He, ¹⁴⁰  the God who leads you, will expel the nations little by little. You will not be allowed to destroy them all at once lest the wild animals overrun you. 7:23 The Lord your God will give them over to you; he will throw them into a great panic ¹⁴¹  until they are destroyed. 7:24 He will hand over their kings to you and you will erase their very names from memory. ¹⁴²  Nobody will be able to resist you until you destroy them. 7:25 You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent ¹⁴³  to the Lord your God. 7:26 You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath ¹⁴⁴  along with it. ¹⁴⁵  You must absolutely detest ¹⁴⁶  and abhor it, ¹⁴⁷  for it is an object of divine wrath.

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁴⁸  I am giving ¹⁴⁹  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹⁵⁰  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁵¹  8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹⁵²  has brought you these forty years through the desert ¹⁵³  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. 8:3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. ¹⁵⁴  He did this to teach you ¹⁵⁵  that humankind ¹⁵⁶  cannot live by bread ¹⁵⁷  alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. ¹⁵⁸  8:4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years. 8:5 Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, ¹⁵⁹  the Lord your God disciplines you. 8:6 So you must keep his ¹⁶⁰  commandments, live according to his standards, ¹⁶¹  and revere him. 8:7 For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, ¹⁶²  springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills, 8:8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, 8:9 a land where you may eat food ¹⁶³  in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron ¹⁶⁴  and from whose hills you can mine copper. 8:10 You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.

8:11 Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. 8:12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses, 8:13 when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything, 8:14 be sure ¹⁶⁵  you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, 8:15 and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹⁶⁶  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ¹⁶⁷  from a flint rock and 8:16 fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you ¹⁶⁸  and eventually bring good to you. 8:17 Be careful ¹⁶⁹  not to say, “My own ability and skill ¹⁷⁰  have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ¹⁷¹  even as he has to this day. 8:19 Now if you forget the Lord your God at all ¹⁷²  and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated. 8:20 Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you ¹⁷³  because you would not obey him. ¹⁷⁴ 

9:1 Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications. ¹⁷⁵  9:2 They include the Anakites, ¹⁷⁶  a numerous ¹⁷⁷  and tall people whom you know about and of whom it is said, “Who is able to resist the Anakites?” 9:3 Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he ¹⁷⁸  has told you. 9:4 Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land.” It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you. 9:5 It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, ¹⁷⁹  that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he ¹⁸⁰  made on oath to your ancestors, ¹⁸¹  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 9:6 Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn ¹⁸²  people!

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ¹⁸³  – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. ¹⁸⁴  9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ¹⁸⁵  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing. 9:10 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger ¹⁸⁶  of God, and on them was everything ¹⁸⁷  he ¹⁸⁸  said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly. 9:11 Now at the end of the forty days and nights the Lord presented me with the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 9:12 And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” ¹⁸⁹  9:13 Moreover, he said to me, “I have taken note of these people; they are a stubborn ¹⁹⁰  lot! 9:14 Stand aside ¹⁹¹  and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, ¹⁹²  and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

9:15 So I turned and went down the mountain while it ¹⁹³  was blazing with fire; the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 9:16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves a metal calf; ¹⁹⁴  you had quickly turned aside from the way he ¹⁹⁵  had commanded you! 9:17 I grabbed the two tablets, threw them down, ¹⁹⁶  and shattered them before your very eyes. 9:18 Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him. 9:19 For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger ¹⁹⁷  that threatened to destroy you. But he ¹⁹⁸  listened to me this time as well. 9:20 The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him ¹⁹⁹  too. 9:21 As for your sinful thing ²⁰⁰  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ²⁰¹  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain. 9:22 Moreover, you continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, ²⁰²  Massah, ²⁰³  and Kibroth-Hattaavah. ²⁰⁴  9:23 And when he ²⁰⁵  sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, “Go up and possess the land I have given you,” you rebelled against the Lord your God ²⁰⁶  and would neither believe nor obey him. 9:24 You have been rebelling against him ²⁰⁷  from the very first day I knew you!

9:25 I lay flat on the ground before the Lord for forty days and nights, ²⁰⁸  for he ²⁰⁹  had said he would destroy you. 9:26 I prayed to him: ²¹⁰  O, Lord God, ²¹¹  do not destroy your people, your valued property ²¹²  that you have powerfully redeemed, ²¹³  whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. ²¹⁴  9:27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; ignore the stubbornness, wickedness, and sin of these people. 9:28 Otherwise the people of the land ²¹⁵  from which you brought us will say, “The Lord was unable to bring them to the land he promised them, and because of his hatred for them he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” ²¹⁶  9:29 They are your people, your valued property, ²¹⁷  whom you brought out with great strength and power. ²¹⁸ 

10:1 At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark. ²¹⁹  10:2 I will write on the tablets the same words ²²⁰  that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark.” 10:3 So I made an ark of acacia ²²¹  wood and carved out two stone tablets just like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 10:4 The Lord ²²²  then wrote on the tablets the same words, ²²³  the ten commandments, ²²⁴  which he ²²⁵  had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he ²²⁶  gave them to me. 10:5 Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made – they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.

10:6 “During those days the Israelites traveled from Beeroth Bene-Yaaqan ²²⁷  to Moserah. ²²⁸  There Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar became priest in his place. 10:7 From there they traveled to Gudgodah, ²²⁹  and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, ²³⁰  a place of flowing streams. 10:8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi ²³¹  to carry the ark of the Lord’s covenant, to stand before the Lord to serve him, and to formulate blessings ²³²  in his name, as they do to this very day. 10:9 Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance ²³³  among his brothers; ²³⁴  the Lord is his inheritance just as the Lord your God told him. 10:10 As for me, I stayed at the mountain as I did the first time, forty days and nights. The Lord listened to me that time as well and decided not to destroy you. 10:11 Then he ²³⁵  said to me, “Get up, set out leading ²³⁶  the people so they may go and possess ²³⁷  the land I promised to give to their ancestors.” ²³⁸ 

10:12 Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except to revere him, ²³⁹  to obey all his commandments, ²⁴⁰  to love him, to serve him ²⁴¹  with all your mind and being, ²⁴²  10:13 and to keep the Lord’s commandments and statutes that I am giving ²⁴³  you today for your own good? 10:14 The heavens – indeed the highest heavens – belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it. 10:15 However, only to your ancestors did he ²⁴⁴  show his loving favor, ²⁴⁵  and he chose you, their descendants, ²⁴⁶  from all peoples – as is apparent today. 10:16 Therefore, cleanse ²⁴⁷  your heart and stop being so stubborn! ²⁴⁸  10:17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe, 10:18 who justly treats ²⁴⁹  the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing. 10:19 So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. 10:20 Revere the Lord your God, serve him, be loyal to him and take oaths only in his name. 10:21 He is the one you should praise; ²⁵⁰  he is your God, the one who has done these great and awesome things for you that you have seen. 10:22 When your ancestors went down to Egypt, they numbered only seventy, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky. ²⁵¹ 

11:1 You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments ²⁵²  at all times. 11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking ²⁵³  to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments ²⁵⁴  of the Lord your God, which revealed ²⁵⁵  his greatness, strength, and power. ²⁵⁶  11:3 They did not see ²⁵⁷  the awesome deeds he performed ²⁵⁸  in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh king of Egypt and his whole land, 11:4 or what he did to the army of Egypt, including their horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Red Sea ²⁵⁹  overwhelm them while they were pursuing you and he ²⁶⁰  annihilated them. ²⁶¹  11:5 They did not see ²⁶²  what he did to you in the desert before you reached this place, 11:6 or what he did to Dathan and Abiram, ²⁶³  sons of Eliab the Reubenite, ²⁶⁴  when the earth opened its mouth in the middle of the Israelite camp ²⁶⁵  and swallowed them, their families, ²⁶⁶  their tents, and all the property they brought with them. ²⁶⁷  11:7 I am speaking to you ²⁶⁸  because you are the ones who saw all the great deeds of the Lord!

11:8 Now pay attention to all the commandments ²⁶⁹  I am giving ²⁷⁰  you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed, ²⁷¹  11:9 and that you may enjoy long life in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors ²⁷²  and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 11:10 For the land where you are headed ²⁷³  is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, a land where you planted seed and which you irrigated by hand ²⁷⁴  like a vegetable garden. 11:11 Instead, the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy ²⁷⁵  is one of hills and valleys, a land that drinks in water from the rains, ²⁷⁶  11:12 a land the Lord your God looks after. ²⁷⁷  He is constantly attentive to it ²⁷⁸  from the beginning to the end of the year. ²⁷⁹  11:13 Now, if you pay close attention ²⁸⁰  to my commandments that I am giving you today and love ²⁸¹  the Lord your God and serve him with all your mind and being, ²⁸²  11:14 then he promises, ²⁸³  “I will send rain for your land ²⁸⁴  in its season, the autumn and the spring rains, ²⁸⁵  so that you may gather in your grain, new wine, and olive oil. 11:15 I will provide pasture ²⁸⁶  for your livestock and you will eat your fill.”

11:16 Make sure you do not turn away to serve and worship other gods! ²⁸⁷  11:17 Then the anger of the Lord will erupt ²⁸⁸  against you and he will close up the sky ²⁸⁹  so that it does not rain. The land will not yield its produce, and you will soon be removed ²⁹⁰  from the good land that the Lord ²⁹¹  is about to give you. 11:18 Fix these words of mine into your mind and being, ²⁹²  and tie them as a reminder on your hands and let them be symbols ²⁹³  on your forehead. 11:19 Teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ²⁹⁴  as you lie down, and as you get up. 11:20 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates 11:21 so that your days and those of your descendants may be extended in the land which the Lord promised to give to your ancestors, like the days of heaven itself. ²⁹⁵  11:22 For if you carefully observe all of these commandments ²⁹⁶  I am giving you ²⁹⁷  and love the Lord your God, live according to his standards, ²⁹⁸  and remain loyal to him, 11:23 then he ²⁹⁹  will drive out all these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you. 11:24 Every place you set your foot ³⁰⁰  will be yours; your border will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the River (that is, the Euphrates) as far as the Mediterranean Sea. ³⁰¹  11:25 Nobody will be able to resist you; the Lord your God will spread the fear and terror of you over the whole land on which you walk, just as he promised you.

11:26 Take note – I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ³⁰²  11:27 the blessing if you take to heart ³⁰³  the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, 11:28 and the curse if you pay no attention ³⁰⁴  to his ³⁰⁵  commandments and turn from the way I am setting before ³⁰⁶  you today to pursue ³⁰⁷  other gods you have not known. 11:29 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰⁸  11:30 Are they not across the Jordan River, ³⁰⁹  toward the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah opposite Gilgal ³¹⁰  near the oak ³¹¹  of Moreh? 11:31 For you are about to cross the Jordan to possess the land the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess and inhabit it. 11:32 Be certain to keep all the statutes and ordinances that I am presenting to you today.

12:1 These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ³¹²  has given you to possess. ³¹³  12:2 You must by all means destroy ³¹⁴  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ³¹⁵  12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ³¹⁶  burn up their sacred Asherah poles, ³¹⁷  and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place. 12:4 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship. 12:5 But you must seek only the place he ³¹⁸  chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, ³¹⁹  and you must go there. 12:6 And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, ³²⁰  your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 12:7 Both you and your families ³²¹  must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he ³²²  has blessed you. 12:8 You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone ³²³  doing what seems best to him, 12:9 for you have not yet come to the final stop ³²⁴  and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. 12:10 When you do go across the Jordan River ³²⁵  and settle in the land he ³²⁶  is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety. ³²⁷  12:11 Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing ³²⁸  everything I am commanding you – your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, ³²⁹  and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him. ³³⁰  12:12 You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages ³³¹  (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you). ³³²  12:13 Make sure you do not offer burnt offerings in any place you wish, 12:14 for you may do so ³³³  only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribal areas – there you may do everything I am commanding you. ³³⁴ 

12:15 On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you ³³⁵  in all your villages. ³³⁶  Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex. 12:16 However, you must not eat blood – pour it out on the ground like water. 12:17 You will not be allowed to eat in your villages your tithe of grain, new wine, olive oil, the firstborn of your herd and flock, any votive offerings you have vowed, or your freewill and personal offerings. 12:18 Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he ³³⁷  chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites ³³⁸  in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor. ³³⁹  12:19 Be careful not to overlook the Levites as long as you live in the land.

12:20 When the Lord your God extends your borders as he said he would do and you say, “I want to eat meat just as I please,” ³⁴⁰  you may do so as you wish. ³⁴¹  12:21 If the place he ³⁴²  chooses to locate his name is too far for you, you may slaughter any of your herd and flock he ³⁴³  has given you just as I have stipulated; you may eat them in your villages ³⁴⁴  just as you wish. 12:22 Like you eat the gazelle or ibex, so you may eat these; the ritually impure and pure alike may eat them. 12:23 However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself ³⁴⁵  – you must not eat the life with the meat! 12:24 You must not eat it! You must pour it out on the ground like water. 12:25 You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord’s sight. ³⁴⁶  12:26 Only the holy things and votive offerings that belong to you, you must pick up and take to the place the Lord will choose. ³⁴⁷  12:27 You must offer your burnt offerings, both meat and blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices ³⁴⁸  you must pour out on his ³⁴⁹  altar while you eat the meat. 12:28 Pay careful attention to all these things I am commanding you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

12:29 When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land. ³⁵⁰  12:30 After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.” 12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ³⁵¹  For everything that is abhorrent ³⁵²  to him, ³⁵³  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

12:32 (13:1) ³⁵⁴  You ³⁵⁵  must be careful to do everything I am commanding you. Do not add to it or subtract from it! ³⁵⁶  13:1 Suppose a prophet or one who foretells by dreams ³⁵⁷  should appear among you and show you a sign or wonder, ³⁵⁸  13:2 and the sign or wonder should come to pass concerning what he said to you, namely, “Let us follow other gods” – gods whom you have not previously known – “and let us serve them.” 13:3 You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer, ³⁵⁹  for the Lord your God will be testing you to see if you love him ³⁶⁰  with all your mind and being. ³⁶¹  13:4 You must follow the Lord your God and revere only him; and you must observe his commandments, obey him, serve him, and remain loyal to him. 13:5 As for that prophet or dreamer, ³⁶²  he must be executed because he encouraged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, redeeming you from that place of slavery, and because he has tried to entice you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to go. In this way you must purge out evil from within. ³⁶³ 

13:6 Suppose your own full brother, ³⁶⁴  your son, your daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend should seduce you secretly and encourage you to go and serve other gods ³⁶⁵  that neither you nor your ancestors ³⁶⁶  have previously known, ³⁶⁷  13:7 the gods of the surrounding people (whether near you or far from you, from one end of the earth ³⁶⁸  to the other). 13:8 You must not give in to him or even listen to him; do not feel sympathy for him or spare him or cover up for him. 13:9 Instead, you must kill him without fail! ³⁶⁹  Your own hand must be the first to strike him, ³⁷⁰  and then the hands of the whole community. 13:10 You must stone him to death ³⁷¹  because he tried to entice you away from the Lord your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. 13:11 Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid; no longer will they continue to do evil like this among you. ³⁷² 

13:12 Suppose you should hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you as a place to live, that 13:13 some evil people ³⁷³  have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, ³⁷⁴  saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods” (whom you have not known before). ³⁷⁵  13:14 You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you, ³⁷⁶  13:15 you must by all means ³⁷⁷  slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate ³⁷⁸  with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock. 13:16 You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza ³⁷⁹  and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin ³⁸⁰  forever – it must never be rebuilt again. 13:17 You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. ³⁸¹  Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors. 13:18 Thus you must obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am giving ³⁸²  you today and doing what is right ³⁸³  before him. ³⁸⁴ 

14:1 You are children ³⁸⁵  of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald ³⁸⁶  for the sake of the dead. 14:2 For you are a people holy ³⁸⁷  to the Lord your God. He ³⁸⁸  has chosen you to be his people, prized ³⁸⁹  above all others on the face of the earth. 14:3 You must not eat any forbidden ³⁹⁰  thing. 14:4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 14:5 the ibex, ³⁹¹  the gazelle, ³⁹²  the deer, ³⁹³  the wild goat, the antelope, ³⁹⁴  the wild oryx, ³⁹⁵  and the mountain sheep. ³⁹⁶  14:6 You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud. ³⁹⁷  14:7 However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. ³⁹⁸  (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you). 14:8 Also the pig is ritually impure to you; though it has divided hooves, ³⁹⁹  it does not chew the cud. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains. 14:9 These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fins and scales you may eat, 14:10 but whatever does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is ritually impure to you. 14:11 All ritually clean birds you may eat. 14:12 These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle, ⁴⁰⁰  the vulture, ⁴⁰¹  the black vulture, ⁴⁰²  14:13 the kite, the black kite, the dayyah ⁴⁰³  after its species, 14:14 every raven after its species, 14:15 the ostrich, ⁴⁰⁴  the owl, ⁴⁰⁵  the seagull, the falcon ⁴⁰⁶  after its species, 14:16 the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl, ⁴⁰⁷  14:17 the jackdaw, ⁴⁰⁸  the carrion vulture, the cormorant, 14:18 the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, the bat, 14:19 and any winged thing on the ground are impure to you – they may not be eaten. ⁴⁰⁹  14:20 You may eat any clean bird. 14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages ⁴¹⁰  and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. ⁴¹¹ 

14:22 You must be certain to tithe ⁴¹²  all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year. 14:23 In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, ⁴¹³  your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 14:24 When he ⁴¹⁴  blesses you, if the ⁴¹⁵  place where he chooses to locate his name is distant, 14:25 you may convert the tithe into money, secure the money, ⁴¹⁶  and travel to the place the Lord your God chooses for himself. 14:26 Then you may spend the money however you wish for cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and enjoy it. 14:27 As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you. 14:28 At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages. 14:29 Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.

15:1 At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation ⁴¹⁷  of debts. 15:2 This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; ⁴¹⁸  he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, ⁴¹⁹  for it is to be recognized as “the Lord’s cancellation of debts.” 15:3 You may exact payment from a foreigner, but whatever your fellow Israelite ⁴²⁰  owes you, you must remit. 15:4 However, there should not be any poor among you, for the Lord ⁴²¹  will surely bless ⁴²²  you in the land that he ⁴²³  is giving you as an inheritance, ⁴²⁴  15:5 if you carefully obey ⁴²⁵  him ⁴²⁶  by keeping ⁴²⁷  all these commandments that I am giving ⁴²⁸  you today. 15:6 For the Lord your God will bless you just as he has promised; you will lend to many nations but will not borrow from any, and you will rule over many nations but they will not rule over you.

15:7 If a fellow Israelite ⁴²⁹  from one of your villages ⁴³⁰  in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive ⁴³¹  to his impoverished condition. ⁴³²  15:8 Instead, you must be sure to open your hand to him and generously lend ⁴³³  him whatever he needs. ⁴³⁴  15:9 Be careful lest you entertain the wicked thought that the seventh year, the year of cancellation of debts, has almost arrived, and your attitude ⁴³⁵  be wrong toward your impoverished fellow Israelite ⁴³⁶  and you do not lend ⁴³⁷  him anything; he will cry out to the Lord against you and you will be regarded as having sinned. ⁴³⁸  15:10 You must by all means lend ⁴³⁹  to him and not be upset by doing it, ⁴⁴⁰  for because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you attempt. 15:11 There will never cease to be some poor people in the land; therefore, I am commanding you to make sure you open ⁴⁴¹  your hand to your fellow Israelites ⁴⁴²  who are needy and poor in your land.

15:12 If your fellow Hebrew ⁴⁴³  – whether male or female ⁴⁴⁴  – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant ⁴⁴⁵  go free. ⁴⁴⁶  15:13 If you set them free, you must not send them away empty-handed. 15:14 You must supply them generously ⁴⁴⁷  from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress – as the Lord your God has blessed you, you must give to them. 15:15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you to do this thing today. 15:16 However, if the servant ⁴⁴⁸  says to you, “I do not want to leave ⁴⁴⁹  you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, 15:17 you shall take an awl and pierce a hole through his ear to the door. ⁴⁵⁰  Then he will become your servant permanently (this applies to your female servant as well). 15:18 You should not consider it difficult to let him go free, for he will have served you for six years, twice ⁴⁵¹  the time of a hired worker; the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

15:19 You must set apart ⁴⁵²  for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks. 15:20 You and your household must eat them annually before the Lord your God in the place he ⁴⁵³  chooses. 15:21 If they have any kind of blemish – lameness, blindness, or anything else ⁴⁵⁴  – you may not offer them as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. 15:22 You may eat it in your villages, ⁴⁵⁵  whether you are ritually impure or clean, ⁴⁵⁶  just as you would eat a gazelle or an ibex. 15:23 However, you must not eat its blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water.

16:1 Observe the month Abib ⁴⁵⁷  and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month ⁴⁵⁸  he ⁴⁵⁹  brought you out of Egypt by night. 16:2 You must sacrifice the Passover animal ⁴⁶⁰  (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he ⁴⁶¹  chooses to locate his name. 16:3 You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt. 16:4 There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land ⁴⁶²  for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning. ⁴⁶³  16:5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages ⁴⁶⁴  that the Lord your God is giving you, 16:6 but you must sacrifice it ⁴⁶⁵  in the evening in ⁴⁶⁶  the place where he ⁴⁶⁷  chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt. 16:7 You must cook ⁴⁶⁸  and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents. 16:8 You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day. ⁴⁶⁹ 

16:9 You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them ⁴⁷⁰  from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain. 16:10 Then you are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks ⁴⁷¹  before the Lord your God with the voluntary offering ⁴⁷²  that you will bring, in proportion to how he ⁴⁷³  has blessed you. 16:11 You shall rejoice before him ⁴⁷⁴  – you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, ⁴⁷⁵  the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you – in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name. 16:12 Furthermore, remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and so be careful to observe these statutes.

16:13 You must celebrate the Festival of Temporary Shelters ⁴⁷⁶  for seven days, at the time of the grain and grape harvest. ⁴⁷⁷  16:14 You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages. ⁴⁷⁸  16:15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ⁴⁷⁹  chooses, for he ⁴⁸⁰  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ⁴⁸¹  so you will indeed rejoice! 16:16 Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him ⁴⁸²  empty-handed. 16:17 Every one of you must give as you are able, ⁴⁸³  according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

16:18 You must appoint judges and civil servants ⁴⁸⁴  for each tribe in all your villages ⁴⁸⁵  that the Lord your God is giving you, and they must judge the people fairly. ⁴⁸⁶  16:19 You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort ⁴⁸⁷  the words of the righteous. ⁴⁸⁸  16:20 You must pursue justice alone ⁴⁸⁹  so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.

16:21 You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole ⁴⁹⁰  near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself. 16:22 You must not erect a sacred pillar, ⁴⁹¹  a thing the Lord your God detests. 17:1 You must not sacrifice to him ⁴⁹²  a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive ⁴⁹³  to the Lord your God. 17:2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ⁴⁹⁴  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ⁴⁹⁵  and breaks his covenant 17:3 by serving other gods and worshiping them – the sun, ⁴⁹⁶  moon, or any other heavenly bodies which I have not permitted you to worship. ⁴⁹⁷  17:4 When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing ⁴⁹⁸  is being done in Israel, 17:5 you must bring to your city gates ⁴⁹⁹  that man or woman who has done this wicked thing – that very man or woman – and you must stone that person to death. ⁵⁰⁰  17:6 At the testimony of two or three witnesses they must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 17:7 The witnesses ⁵⁰¹  must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people ⁵⁰²  are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

17:8 If a matter is too difficult for you to judge – bloodshed, ⁵⁰³  legal claim, ⁵⁰⁴  or assault ⁵⁰⁵  – matters of controversy in your villages ⁵⁰⁶  – you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses. ⁵⁰⁷  17:9 You will go to the Levitical priests and the judge in office in those days and seek a solution; they will render a verdict. 17:10 You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught. 17:11 You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you. 17:12 The person who pays no attention ⁵⁰⁸  to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the verdict – that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel. 17:13 Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and not be so presumptuous again.

17:14 When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, “I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,” 17:15 you must select without fail ⁵⁰⁹  a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens ⁵¹⁰  you must appoint a king – you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. ⁵¹¹  17:16 Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, ⁵¹²  for the Lord has said you must never again return that way. 17:17 Furthermore, he must not marry many ⁵¹³  wives lest his affections turn aside, and he must not accumulate much silver and gold. 17:18 When he sits on his royal throne he must make a copy of this law ⁵¹⁴  on a scroll ⁵¹⁵  given to him by the Levitical priests. 17:19 It must be with him constantly and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out. 17:20 Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left, and he and his descendants will enjoy many years ruling over his kingdom ⁵¹⁶  in Israel.

18:1 The Levitical priests ⁵¹⁷  – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. ⁵¹⁸  18:2 They ⁵¹⁹  will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; ⁵²⁰  the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. 18:3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment ⁵²¹  from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep – they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. 18:4 You must give them the best of your ⁵²²  grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks. 18:5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand ⁵²³  and serve in his name ⁵²⁴  permanently. 18:6 Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will ⁵²⁵  from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, ⁵²⁶  to the place the Lord chooses 18:7 and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. 18:8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. ⁵²⁷ 

18:9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 18:10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, ⁵²⁸  anyone who practices divination, ⁵²⁹  an omen reader, ⁵³⁰  a soothsayer, ⁵³¹  a sorcerer, ⁵³²  18:11 one who casts spells, ⁵³³  one who conjures up spirits, ⁵³⁴  a practitioner of the occult, ⁵³⁵  or a necromancer. ⁵³⁶  18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things ⁵³⁷  the Lord your God is about to drive them out ⁵³⁸  from before you. 18:13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. 18:14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; ⁵³⁹  you must listen to him. 18:16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ⁵⁴⁰  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.” 18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 18:19 I will personally hold responsible ⁵⁴¹  anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet ⁵⁴²  speaks in my name.

18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ⁵⁴³  him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ⁵⁴⁴  ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ⁵⁴⁵  – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my ⁵⁴⁶  name and the prediction ⁵⁴⁷  is not fulfilled, ⁵⁴⁸  then I have ⁵⁴⁹  not spoken it; ⁵⁵⁰  the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he ⁵⁵¹  is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses, 19:2 you must set apart for yourselves three cities ⁵⁵²  in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession. 19:3 You shall build a roadway and divide into thirds the whole extent ⁵⁵³  of your land that the Lord your God is providing as your inheritance; anyone who kills another person should flee to the closest of these cities. 19:4 Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, ⁵⁵⁴  if he has accidentally killed another ⁵⁵⁵  without hating him at the time of the accident. ⁵⁵⁶  19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else ⁵⁵⁷  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ⁵⁵⁸  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ⁵⁵⁹  from the handle and strikes ⁵⁶⁰  his fellow worker ⁵⁶¹  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ⁵⁶²  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ⁵⁶³  19:6 Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, ⁵⁶⁴  and kill him, ⁵⁶⁵  though this is not a capital case ⁵⁶⁶  since he did not hate him at the time of the accident. 19:7 Therefore, I am commanding you to set apart for yourselves three cities. 19:8 If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he promised your ancestors ⁵⁶⁷  and gives you all the land he pledged to them, ⁵⁶⁸  19:9 and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ⁵⁶⁹  I am giving ⁵⁷⁰  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ⁵⁷¹  to these three. 19:10 You must not shed innocent blood ⁵⁷²  in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. ⁵⁷³  19:11 However, suppose a person hates someone else ⁵⁷⁴  and stalks him, attacks him, kills him, ⁵⁷⁵  and then flees to one of these cities. 19:12 The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger ⁵⁷⁶  to die. 19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent ⁵⁷⁷  from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

19:14 You must not encroach on your neighbor’s property, ⁵⁷⁸  which will have been defined ⁵⁷⁹  in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ⁵⁸⁰ 

19:15 A single witness may not testify ⁵⁸¹  against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established ⁵⁸²  only on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 19:16 If a false ⁵⁸³  witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, ⁵⁸⁴  19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges ⁵⁸⁵  who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, ⁵⁸⁶  19:19 you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge ⁵⁸⁷  evil from among you. 19:20 The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you. 19:21 You must not show pity; the principle will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, and a foot for a foot. ⁵⁸⁸ 

20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry ⁵⁸⁹  and troops ⁵⁹⁰  who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 20:2 As you move forward for battle, the priest ⁵⁹¹  will approach and say to the soldiers, ⁵⁹²  20:3 “Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them, 20:4 for the Lord your God goes with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies to give you victory.” ⁵⁹³  20:5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, ⁵⁹⁴  “Who among you ⁵⁹⁵  has built a new house and not dedicated ⁵⁹⁶  it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else ⁵⁹⁷  dedicate it. 20:6 Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it. 20:7 Or who among you ⁵⁹⁸  has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.” 20:8 In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier’s ⁵⁹⁹  heart as fearful ⁶⁰⁰  as his own.” 20:9 Then, when the officers have finished speaking, ⁶⁰¹  they must appoint unit commanders ⁶⁰²  to lead the troops.

20:10 When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace. 20:11 If it accepts your terms ⁶⁰³  and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves. ⁶⁰⁴  20:12 If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it. 20:13 The Lord your God will deliver it over to you ⁶⁰⁵  and you must kill every single male by the sword. 20:14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you. 20:15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that ⁶⁰⁶  the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing ⁶⁰⁷  to survive. 20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them ⁶⁰⁸  – the Hittites, ⁶⁰⁹  Amorites, ⁶¹⁰  Canaanites, ⁶¹¹  Perizzites, ⁶¹²  Hivites, ⁶¹³  and Jebusites ⁶¹⁴  – just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 20:18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship ⁶¹⁵  their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God. 20:19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ⁶¹⁶  you must not chop down its trees, ⁶¹⁷  for you may eat fruit ⁶¹⁸  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁶¹⁹  20:20 However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, ⁶²⁰  and you may use it to build siege works ⁶²¹  against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

21:1 If a homicide victim ⁶²²  should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, ⁶²³  and no one knows who killed ⁶²⁴  him, 21:2 your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. ⁶²⁵  21:3 Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse ⁶²⁶  must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked – that has never pulled with the yoke – 21:4 and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, ⁶²⁷  to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. ⁶²⁸  There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck. 21:5 Then the Levitical priests ⁶²⁹  will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, ⁶³⁰  and to decide ⁶³¹  every judicial verdict ⁶³² ) 21:6 and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse ⁶³³  must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁶³⁴  21:7 Then they must proclaim, “Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we ⁶³⁵  witnessed the crime. ⁶³⁶  21:8 Do not blame ⁶³⁷  your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person.” ⁶³⁸  Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. 21:9 In this manner you will purge out the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before ⁶³⁹  the Lord.

21:10 When you go out to do battle with your enemies and the Lord your God allows you to prevail ⁶⁴⁰  and you take prisoners, 21:11 if you should see among them ⁶⁴¹  an attractive woman whom you wish to take as a wife, 21:12 you may bring her back to your house. She must shave her head, ⁶⁴²  trim her nails, 21:13 discard the clothing she was wearing when captured, ⁶⁴³  and stay ⁶⁴⁴  in your house, lamenting for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may have sexual relations ⁶⁴⁵  with her and become her husband and she your wife. 21:14 If you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go ⁶⁴⁶  where she pleases. You cannot in any case sell ⁶⁴⁷  her; ⁶⁴⁸  you must not take advantage of ⁶⁴⁹  her, since you have already humiliated ⁶⁵⁰  her.

21:15 Suppose a man has two wives, one whom he loves more than the other, ⁶⁵¹  and they both ⁶⁵²  bear him sons, with the firstborn being the child of the less loved wife. 21:16 In the day he divides his inheritance ⁶⁵³  he must not appoint as firstborn the son of the favorite wife in place of the other ⁶⁵⁴  wife’s son who is actually the firstborn. 21:17 Rather, he must acknowledge the son of the less loved ⁶⁵⁵  wife as firstborn and give him the double portion ⁶⁵⁶  of all he has, for that son is the beginning of his father’s procreative power ⁶⁵⁷  – to him should go the right of the firstborn.

21:18 If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail, ⁶⁵⁸  21:19 his father and mother must seize him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his city. 21:20 They must declare to the elders ⁶⁵⁹  of his city, “Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no attention to what we say – he is a glutton and drunkard.” 21:21 Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge out ⁶⁶⁰  wickedness from among you, and all Israel ⁶⁶¹  will hear about it and be afraid.

21:22 If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse ⁶⁶²  on a tree, 21:23 his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury ⁶⁶³  him that same day, for the one who is left exposed ⁶⁶⁴  on a tree is cursed by God. ⁶⁶⁵  You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

22:1 When you see ⁶⁶⁶  your neighbor’s ⁶⁶⁷  ox or sheep going astray, do not ignore it; ⁶⁶⁸  you must return it without fail ⁶⁶⁹  to your neighbor. 22:2 If the owner ⁶⁷⁰  does not live ⁶⁷¹  near you or you do not know who the owner is, ⁶⁷²  then you must corral the animal ⁶⁷³  at your house and let it stay with you until the owner looks for it; then you must return it to him. 22:3 You shall do the same to his donkey, his clothes, or anything else your neighbor ⁶⁷⁴  has lost and you have found; you must not refuse to get involved. ⁶⁷⁵  22:4 When you see ⁶⁷⁶  your neighbor’s donkey or ox fallen along the road, do not ignore it; ⁶⁷⁷  instead, you must be sure ⁶⁷⁸  to help him get the animal on its feet again. ⁶⁷⁹ 

22:5 A woman must not wear men’s clothing, ⁶⁸⁰  nor should a man dress up in women’s clothing, for anyone who does this is offensive ⁶⁸¹  to the Lord your God.

22:6 If you happen to notice a bird’s nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on them, ⁶⁸²  you must not take the mother from the young. ⁶⁸³  22:7 You must be sure ⁶⁸⁴  to let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself. Do this so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

22:8 If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail ⁶⁸⁵  around your roof to avoid being culpable ⁶⁸⁶  in the event someone should fall from it.

22:9 You must not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed; otherwise the entire yield, both of the seed you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled. ⁶⁸⁷  22:10 You must not plow with an ox and a donkey harnessed together. 22:11 You must not wear clothing made with wool and linen meshed together. ⁶⁸⁸  22:12 You shall make yourselves tassels ⁶⁸⁹  for the four corners of the clothing you wear.

22:13 Suppose a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, ⁶⁹⁰  and then rejects ⁶⁹¹  her, 22:14 accusing her of impropriety ⁶⁹²  and defaming her reputation ⁶⁹³  by saying, “I married this woman but when I had sexual relations ⁶⁹⁴  with her I discovered she was not a virgin!” 22:15 Then the father and mother of the young woman must produce the evidence of virginity ⁶⁹⁵  for the elders of the city at the gate. 22:16 The young woman’s father must say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man and he has rejected ⁶⁹⁶  her. 22:17 Moreover, he has raised accusations of impropriety by saying, ‘I discovered your daughter was not a virgin,’ but this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!” The cloth must then be spread out ⁶⁹⁷  before the city’s elders. 22:18 The elders of that city must then seize the man and punish ⁶⁹⁸  him. 22:19 They will fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, for the man who made the accusation ⁶⁹⁹  ruined the reputation ⁷⁰⁰  of an Israelite virgin. She will then become his wife and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.

22:20 But if the accusation is true and the young woman was not a virgin, 22:21 the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house and stone her to death, for she has done a disgraceful thing ⁷⁰¹  in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living in her father’s house. In this way you will purge ⁷⁰²  evil from among you.

22:22 If a man is caught having sexual relations with ⁷⁰³  a married woman ⁷⁰⁴  both the man who had relations with the woman and the woman herself must die; in this way you will purge ⁷⁰⁵  evil from Israel.

22:23 If a virgin is engaged to a man and another man meets ⁷⁰⁶  her in the city and has sexual relations with ⁷⁰⁷  her, 22:24 you must bring the two of them to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry out though in the city and the man because he violated ⁷⁰⁸  his neighbor’s fiancée; ⁷⁰⁹  in this way you will purge ⁷¹⁰  evil from among you. 22:25 But if the man came across ⁷¹¹  the engaged woman in the field and overpowered her and raped ⁷¹²  her, then only the rapist ⁷¹³  must die. 22:26 You must not do anything to the young woman – she has done nothing deserving of death. This case is the same as when someone attacks another person ⁷¹⁴  and murders him, 22:27 for the man ⁷¹⁵  met her in the field and the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her.

22:28 Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes ⁷¹⁶  her and they are discovered. 22:29 The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives.

22:30 (23:1) ⁷¹⁷  A man may not marry ⁷¹⁸  his father’s former ⁷¹⁹  wife and in this way dishonor his father. ⁷²⁰ 

23:1 A man with crushed ⁷²¹  or severed genitals ⁷²²  may not enter the assembly of the Lord. ⁷²³  23:2 A person of illegitimate birth ⁷²⁴  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so. ⁷²⁵ 

23:3 An Ammonite or Moabite ⁷²⁶  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever ⁷²⁷  do so, ⁷²⁸  23:4 for they did not meet you with food and water on the way as you came from Egypt, and furthermore, they hired ⁷²⁹  Balaam son of Beor of Pethor in Aram Naharaim to curse you. 23:5 But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam and changed ⁷³⁰  the curse to a blessing, for the Lord your God loves ⁷³¹  you. 23:6 You must not seek peace and prosperity for them through all the ages to come. 23:7 You must not hate an Edomite, for he is your relative; ⁷³²  you must not hate an Egyptian, for you lived as a foreigner ⁷³³  in his land. 23:8 Children of the third generation born to them ⁷³⁴  may enter the assembly of the Lord.

23:9 When you go out as an army against your enemies, guard yourselves against anything impure. ⁷³⁵  23:10 If there is someone among you who is impure because of some nocturnal emission, ⁷³⁶  he must leave the camp; he may not reenter it immediately. 23:11 When evening arrives he must wash himself with water and then at sunset he may reenter the camp.

23:12 You are to have a place outside the camp to serve as a latrine. ⁷³⁷  23:13 You must have a spade among your other equipment and when you relieve yourself ⁷³⁸  outside you must dig a hole with the spade ⁷³⁹  and then turn and cover your excrement. ⁷⁴⁰  23:14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat ⁷⁴¹  your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent ⁷⁴²  among you and turn away from you.

23:15 You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. ⁷⁴³  23:16 Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages ⁷⁴⁴  he prefers; you must not oppress him.

23:17 There must never be a sacred prostitute ⁷⁴⁵  among the young women ⁷⁴⁶  of Israel nor a sacred male prostitute ⁷⁴⁷  among the young men ⁷⁴⁸  of Israel. 23:18 You must never bring the pay of a female prostitute ⁷⁴⁹  or the wage of a male prostitute ⁷⁵⁰  into the temple of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to the Lord your God.

23:19 You must not charge interest on a loan to your fellow Israelite, ⁷⁵¹  whether on money, food, or anything else that has been loaned with interest. 23:20 You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess. 23:21 When you make a vow to the Lord your God you must not delay in fulfilling it, for otherwise he ⁷⁵²  will surely ⁷⁵³  hold you accountable as a sinner. ⁷⁵⁴  23:22 If you refrain from making a vow, it will not be sinful. 23:23 Whatever you vow, you must be careful to do what you have promised, such as what you have vowed to the Lord your God as a freewill offering. 23:24 When you enter the vineyard of your neighbor you may eat as many grapes as you please, ⁷⁵⁵  but you must not take away any in a container. ⁷⁵⁶  23:25 When you go into the ripe grain fields of your neighbor you may pluck off the kernels with your hand, ⁷⁵⁷  but you must not use a sickle on your neighbor’s ripe grain.

24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive ⁷⁵⁸  in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house. 24:2 When she has left him ⁷⁵⁹  she may go and become someone else’s wife. 24:3 If the second husband rejects ⁷⁶⁰  her and then divorces her, ⁷⁶¹  gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies, 24:4 her first husband who divorced her is not permitted to remarry ⁷⁶²  her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord. ⁷⁶³  You must not bring guilt on the land ⁷⁶⁴  which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

24:5 When a man is newly married, he need not go into ⁷⁶⁵  the army nor be obligated in any way; he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to ⁷⁶⁶  the wife he has married.

24:6 One must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security. ⁷⁶⁷ 

24:7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, ⁷⁶⁸  and regards him as mere property ⁷⁶⁹  and sells him, that kidnapper ⁷⁷⁰  must die. In this way you will purge ⁷⁷¹  evil from among you.

24:8 Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely ⁷⁷²  all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do. 24:9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam ⁷⁷³  along the way after you left Egypt.

24:10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security. ⁷⁷⁴  24:11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security. ⁷⁷⁵  24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. ⁷⁷⁶  24:13 You must by all means ⁷⁷⁷  return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just ⁷⁷⁸  deed by the Lord your God.

24:14 You must not oppress a lowly and poor servant, whether one from among your fellow Israelites ⁷⁷⁹  or from the resident foreigners who are living in your land and villages. ⁷⁸⁰  24:15 You must pay his wage that very day before the sun sets, for he is poor and his life depends on it. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

24:16 Fathers must not be put to death for what their children ⁷⁸¹  do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin.

24:17 You must not pervert justice due a resident foreigner or an orphan, or take a widow’s garment as security for a loan. 24:18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do all this. 24:19 Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, ⁷⁸²  you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do. ⁷⁸³  24:20 When you beat your olive tree you must not repeat the procedure; ⁷⁸⁴  the remaining olives belong to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow. 24:21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard you must not do so a second time; ⁷⁸⁵  they should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow. 24:22 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt; therefore, I am commanding you to do all this.

25:1 If controversy arises between people, ⁷⁸⁶  they should go to court for judgment. When the judges ⁷⁸⁷  hear the case, they shall exonerate ⁷⁸⁸  the innocent but condemn ⁷⁸⁹  the guilty. 25:2 Then, ⁷⁹⁰  if the guilty person is sentenced to a beating, ⁷⁹¹  the judge shall force him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of blows his wicked behavior deserves. ⁷⁹²  25:3 The judge ⁷⁹³  may sentence him to forty blows, ⁷⁹⁴  but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite ⁷⁹⁵  with contempt.

25:4 You must not muzzle your ⁷⁹⁶  ox when it is treading grain.

25:5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ⁷⁹⁷  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ⁷⁹⁸  25:6 Then ⁷⁹⁹  the first son ⁸⁰⁰  she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel. 25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ⁸⁰¹  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!” 25:8 Then the elders of his city must summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, “I don’t want to marry her,” 25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. ⁸⁰²  She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” ⁸⁰³  25:10 His family name will be referred to ⁸⁰⁴  in Israel as “the family ⁸⁰⁵  of the one whose sandal was removed.” ⁸⁰⁶ 

25:11 If two men ⁸⁰⁷  get into a hand-to-hand fight, and the wife of one of them gets involved to help her husband against his attacker, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his genitals, ⁸⁰⁸  25:12 then you must cut off her hand – do not pity her.

25:13 You must not have in your bag different stone weights, ⁸⁰⁹  a heavy and a light one. ⁸¹⁰  25:14 You must not have in your house different measuring containers, ⁸¹¹  a large and a small one. 25:15 You must have an accurate and correct ⁸¹²  stone weight and an accurate and correct measuring container, so that your life may be extended in the land the Lord your God is about to give you. 25:16 For anyone who acts dishonestly in these ways is abhorrent ⁸¹³  to the Lord your God.

25:17 Remember what the Amalekites ⁸¹⁴  did to you on your way from Egypt, 25:18 how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God. ⁸¹⁵  25:19 So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he ⁸¹⁶  is giving you as an inheritance, ⁸¹⁷  you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven ⁸¹⁸  – do not forget! ⁸¹⁹ 

26:1 When ⁸²⁰  you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it, 26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ⁸²¹  chooses to locate his name. ⁸²²  26:3 You must go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “I declare today to the Lord your ⁸²³  God that I have come into the land that the Lord ⁸²⁴  promised ⁸²⁵  to our ancestors ⁸²⁶  to give us.” 26:4 The priest will then take the basket from you ⁸²⁷  and set it before the altar of the Lord your God. 26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ⁸²⁸  Aramean ⁸²⁹  was my ancestor, ⁸³⁰  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ⁸³¹  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people. 26:6 But the Egyptians mistreated and oppressed us, forcing us to do burdensome labor. 26:7 So we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and he ⁸³²  heard us and saw our humiliation, toil, and oppression. 26:8 Therefore the Lord brought us out of Egypt with tremendous strength and power, ⁸³³  as well as with great awe-inspiring signs and wonders. 26:9 Then he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10 So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him. ⁸³⁴  26:11 You will celebrate all the good things that the Lord your God has given you and your family, ⁸³⁵  along with the Levites and the resident foreigners among you.

26:12 When you finish tithing all ⁸³⁶  your income in the third year (the year of tithing), you must give it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows ⁸³⁷  so that they may eat to their satisfaction in your villages. ⁸³⁸  26:13 Then you shall say before the Lord your God, “I have removed the sacred offering ⁸³⁹  from my house and given it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows just as you have commanded me. ⁸⁴⁰  I have not violated or forgotten your commandments. 26:14 I have not eaten anything when I was in mourning, or removed any of it while ceremonially unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; ⁸⁴¹  I have obeyed you ⁸⁴²  and have done everything you have commanded me. 26:15 Look down from your holy dwelling place in heaven and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us, just as you promised our ancestors – a land flowing with milk and honey.”

26:16 Today the Lord your God is commanding you to keep these statutes and ordinances, something you must do with all your heart and soul. ⁸⁴³  26:17 Today you have declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and obey him. 26:18 And today the Lord has declared you to be his special people (as he already promised you) so you may keep all his commandments. 26:19 Then ⁸⁴⁴  he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. ⁸⁴⁵  You will ⁸⁴⁶  be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.

Deuteronomy 27:11--30:20

27:14 “The Levites will call out to every Israelite ⁸⁴⁸  with a loud voice: 27:15 ‘Cursed is the one ⁸⁴⁹  who makes a carved or metal image – something abhorrent ⁸⁵⁰  to the Lord, the work of the craftsman ⁸⁵¹  – and sets it up in a secret place.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ ⁸⁵²  27:16 ‘Cursed ⁸⁵³  is the one who disrespects ⁸⁵⁴  his father and mother.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:17 ‘Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:18 ‘Cursed is the one who misleads a blind person on the road.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:19 ‘Cursed is the one who perverts justice for the resident foreigner, the orphan, and the widow.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:20 ‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with ⁸⁵⁵  his father’s former wife, ⁸⁵⁶  for he dishonors his father.’ ⁸⁵⁷  Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:21 ‘Cursed is the one who commits bestiality.’ ⁸⁵⁸  Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:22 ‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his sister, the daughter of either his father or mother.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:23 ‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his mother-in-law.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:24 ‘Cursed is the one who kills ⁸⁵⁹  his neighbor in private.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:25 ‘Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ 27:26 ‘Cursed is the one who refuses to keep the words of this law.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

28:1 “If you indeed ⁸⁶⁰  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ⁸⁶¹  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. 28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ⁸⁶²  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁸⁶³  28:4 Your children ⁸⁶⁴  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁸⁶⁵  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁸⁶⁶  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁸⁶⁷  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ⁸⁶⁸  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ⁸⁶⁹  and obey him. ⁸⁷⁰  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ⁸⁷¹  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ⁸⁷²  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ⁸⁷³  promised your ancestors ⁸⁷⁴  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ⁸⁷⁵  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ⁸⁷⁶  commandments which I am urging ⁸⁷⁷  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ⁸⁷⁸  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ⁸⁷⁹  them.

28:15 “But if you ignore ⁸⁸⁰  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ⁸⁸¹  28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 28:17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 28:18 Your children ⁸⁸²  will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. ⁸⁸³ 

28:20 “The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you ⁸⁸⁴  in everything you undertake ⁸⁸⁵  until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. ⁸⁸⁶  28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases ⁸⁸⁷  until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He ⁸⁸⁸  will afflict you with weakness, ⁸⁸⁹  fever, inflammation, infection, ⁸⁹⁰  sword, ⁸⁹¹  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 28:23 The ⁸⁹²  sky ⁸⁹³  above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁸⁹⁴  to all the kingdoms of the earth. 28:26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 28:27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28:28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. ⁸⁹⁵  28:29 You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; ⁸⁹⁶  you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. 28:30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape ⁸⁹⁷  her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. ⁸⁹⁸  28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 28:34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 28:35 The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils – from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 28:36 The Lord will force you and your king ⁸⁹⁹  whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 28:37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. ⁹⁰⁰  28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 28:42 Whirring locusts ⁹⁰¹  will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil. 28:43 The foreigners ⁹⁰²  who reside among you will become higher and higher over you and you will become lower and lower. 28:44 They will lend to you but you will not lend to them; they will become the head and you will become the tail!

28:45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given ⁹⁰³  you. 28:46 These curses ⁹⁰⁴  will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants. ⁹⁰⁵ 

28:47 “Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 28:48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty ⁹⁰⁶  you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They ⁹⁰⁷  will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ⁹⁰⁸  as the eagle flies, ⁹⁰⁹  a nation whose language you will not understand, 28:50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 28:51 They ⁹¹⁰  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ⁹¹¹  or lambs of your flocks ⁹¹²  until they have destroyed you. 28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ⁹¹³  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ⁹¹⁴  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ⁹¹⁵  by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ⁹¹⁶  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ⁹¹⁷  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ⁹¹⁸  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ⁹¹⁹  and her newborn children ⁹²⁰  (since she has nothing else), ⁹²¹  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

28:58 “If you refuse to obey ⁹²²  all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 28:59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants – great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt ⁹²³  that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. ⁹²⁴  28:61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, ⁹²⁵  until you have perished. 28:62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, ⁹²⁶  because you will have disobeyed ⁹²⁷  the Lord your God. 28:63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he ⁹²⁸  will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ⁹²⁹  28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

29:1 (28:69) ⁹³⁰  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ⁹³¹ 

29:2 Moses proclaimed to all Israel as follows: “You have seen all that the Lord did ⁹³²  in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, all his servants, and his land. 29:3 Your eyes have seen the great judgments, ⁹³³  those signs and mighty wonders. 29:4 But to this very day the Lord has not given you an understanding mind, perceptive eyes, or discerning ears! ⁹³⁴  29:5 I have led you through the desert for forty years. Your clothing has not worn out ⁹³⁵  nor have your sandals ⁹³⁶  deteriorated. 29:6 You have eaten no bread and drunk no wine or beer – all so that you might know that I ⁹³⁷  am the Lord your God! 29:7 When you came to this place King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out to make war and we defeated them. 29:8 Then we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh.

29:9 “Therefore, keep the terms ⁹³⁸  of this covenant and obey them so that you may be successful in everything you do. 29:10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes, ⁹³⁹  your elders, your officials, every Israelite man, 29:11 your infants, your wives, and the ⁹⁴⁰  foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water – 29:12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today. ⁹⁴¹  29:13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, ⁹⁴²  just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors ⁹⁴³  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant by oath, 29:15 but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today. ⁹⁴⁴ 

29:16 “(For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations as we traveled. 29:17 You have seen their detestable things ⁹⁴⁵  and idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold.) ⁹⁴⁶  29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ⁹⁴⁷  29:19 When such a person ⁹⁴⁸  hears the words of this oath he secretly ⁹⁴⁹  blesses himself ⁹⁵⁰  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁹⁵¹  This will destroy ⁹⁵²  the watered ground with the parched. ⁹⁵³  29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁹⁵⁴  will rage ⁹⁵⁵  against that man; all the curses ⁹⁵⁶  written in this scroll will fall upon him ⁹⁵⁷  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ⁹⁵⁸  29:21 The Lord will single him out ⁹⁵⁹  for judgment ⁹⁶⁰  from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law. 29:22 The generation to come – your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places – will see ⁹⁶¹  the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it. 29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger. ⁹⁶²  29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger ⁹⁶³  all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. ⁹⁶⁴  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ⁹⁶⁵  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.” 29:29 Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants ⁹⁶⁶  forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.

30:1 “When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses ⁹⁶⁷  I have set before you, you will reflect upon them ⁹⁶⁸  in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you. 30:2 Then if you and your descendants ⁹⁶⁹  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ⁹⁷⁰  just as ⁹⁷¹  I am commanding you today, 30:3 the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he ⁹⁷²  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ⁹⁷³  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 30:5 Then he ⁹⁷⁴  will bring you to the land your ancestors ⁹⁷⁵  possessed and you also will possess it; he will do better for you and multiply you more than he did your ancestors. 30:6 The Lord your God will also cleanse ⁹⁷⁶  your heart and the hearts of your descendants ⁹⁷⁷  so that you may love him ⁹⁷⁸  with all your mind and being and so that you may live. 30:7 Then the Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hate you and persecute you. 30:8 You will return and obey the Lord, keeping all his commandments I am giving ⁹⁷⁹  you today. 30:9 The Lord your God will make the labor of your hands ⁹⁸⁰  abundantly successful and multiply your children, ⁹⁸¹  the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your soil. For the Lord your God will once more ⁹⁸²  rejoice over you to make you prosperous ⁹⁸³  just as he rejoiced over your ancestors, 30:10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commandments and statutes that are written in this scroll of the law. But you must turn to him ⁹⁸⁴  with your whole mind and being.

30:11 “This commandment I am giving ⁹⁸⁵  you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it too remote. 30:12 It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 30:13 And it is not across the sea, as though one must say, “Who will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 30:14 For the thing is very near you – it is in your mouth and in your mind ⁹⁸⁶  so that you can do it.

30:15 “Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. 30:16 What ⁹⁸⁷  I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. ⁹⁸⁸  30:17 However, if you ⁹⁸⁹  turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, 30:18 I declare to you this very day that you will certainly ⁹⁹⁰  perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. ⁹⁹¹  30:19 Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! 30:20 I also call on you ⁹⁹²  to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually ⁹⁹³  in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”