Israel’s History after the Exodus

1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all ^[a]Israel [while they were still] beyond [that is, on the east side of] the Jordan [River] in the wilderness [across from Jerusalem], in the Arabah [the long, deep valley running north and south from the eastern arm of the Red Sea to beyond the Dead Sea] opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab (place of gold). ² It is [only] eleven days’ journey from Horeb (Mount Sinai) by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan’s border; yet Israel ^[b]wandered in the wilderness for forty years before crossing the border and entering Canaan, the promised land]. ³ In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them, ⁴ after he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived at Ashtaroth in Edrei. ⁵ Beyond (east of) the Jordan in the ^[c]land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying,

⁶ “The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain. ⁷ Turn and resume your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland (the Shephelah), in the Negev (South country) and on the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ⁸ Look, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore (solemnly promised) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.’

⁹ “I spoke to you at that time, saying, ‘I am not able to bear the burden of you alone. ¹⁰ The Lord your God has multiplied you, and look, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. ¹¹ May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, just as He has promised you! ¹² How can I alone bear the weight and pressure and burden of you and your strife (contention) and complaining? ¹³ Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads (leaders) over you.’ ¹⁴ And you answered me, ‘The thing which you have said to do is good.’ ¹⁵ So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and made them leaders over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers (administrators) for your tribes.

¹⁶ “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the matters between your brothers [your fellow countrymen], and judge righteously and fairly between a man and his brother, or the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is with him. ¹⁷ You shall not ^[d]show partiality in judgment; you shall hear and pay attention to the [cases of the] least [important] as well as the great. You shall not ^[e]fear man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you [to judge], you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’ ¹⁸ I commanded you at that time [regarding] all the things that you should do.

¹⁹ “Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the ^[f]Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰ And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us. ²¹ Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

²² “Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men [into the land] before us, so that they may explore and search the area for us, and bring back to us word regarding the way we should go, and the cities we should enter.’ ²³ The plan pleased me and I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. ²⁴ They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. ²⁵ Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they reported back to us, and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’

²⁶ “Yet you were not willing to go up [to take possession of it], but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ You murmured and were ill-tempered (discontented) in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us He has brought us from the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸ Where can we go up? Our brothers (spies) have made our hearts melt [in fear] and demoralized us by saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large, and fortified [all the way up] to heaven. And besides, we saw the [giant-like] sons of the Anakim there.”’ ²⁹ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be shocked, nor fear them. ³⁰ The Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you Himself, just as He did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried and protected you, just as a man carries his son, all along the way which you traveled until you arrived at this place.’ ³² Yet in spite of this word, you did not trust [that is, confidently rely on and believe] the Lord your God, ³³ who went before you along the way, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to seek a place for you to make camp and to show you the way in which you should go.

³⁴ “And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying, ³⁵ ‘Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore (solemnly promised) to give to your fathers, ³⁶ except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has walked, because he has followed the Lord completely [and remained true to Him].’ ³⁷ The Lord was angry with me also because of you, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter Canaan. ³⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there. Encourage and strengthen him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. ³⁹ Moreover, your little ones whom you said would become prey, and your sons, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter Canaan, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it. ⁴⁰ But as for you, turn around and set out for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds).’

⁴¹ “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God has commanded us.’ So you ^[g]equipped every man with weapons of war, and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country. ⁴² But the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you [because of your rebellion]; otherwise you will be [badly] defeated by your enemies.”’ ⁴³ So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴ Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do, and struck you down in Seir as far as Hormah. ⁴⁵ And you returned and wept before the Lord; but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor pay attention to you. ⁴⁶ So you stayed in Kadesh; many days you stayed there.

Israel Urged to Obey God’s Law

4 “Now, O Israel, listen and pay attention to the statutes and the judgments (God’s legal decisions) which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ² You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you. ³ Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor; for all the men who followed [and participated in the worship of] Baal of Peor, the Lord your God destroyed them from among you,^{(A) 4} but you who held tightly to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

⁵ “Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may do them in the land which you are entering to possess. ⁶ So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ ⁷ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God [is to us] whenever we call on Him? ⁸ Or what great nation has statutes and judgments so righteous (upright, just) as this whole law which I am ^[a]placing before you today?

⁹ “Only pay attention and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your grandchildren [impressing these things on their mind and penetrating their heart with these truths]— ¹⁰ especially the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai), when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me and I will let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect] all the days they live on the land, and so that they may teach their children.’ ¹¹ You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the [very] heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. ¹² Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form—there was only a voice. ¹³ So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to follow, ^[b]the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and judgments, so that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.

¹⁵ “So pay attention and watch ^[c]yourselves carefully—for you did not see any form [of God] on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire— ¹⁶ so that you do not act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved or sculpted image [to worship] in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, or of any winged bird that flies in the ^[d]sky, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that crawls on the ground, or of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth. ¹⁹ And beware that you do not raise your eyes toward heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and let yourselves be led astray and worship them and serve them, [mere created bodies] which the Lord your God has allotted to [serve and benefit] all the peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰ But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron [smelting] furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as [you are] this day.

²¹ “Now the Lord was angry with me [at the waters of Meribah] because of you, and He swore [an oath] that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. ²² For I am going to die in this land, I am not going to cross the Jordan, but you shall cross over and take possession of this good land. ²³ So be on your guard and watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He has made with you, and make for yourselves a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. ²⁴ For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; He is a ^[e]jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His].

²⁵ “When you become the father of children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, then if you corrupt yourselves by making a carved or sculpted image in the form of anything [for the purpose of worship], and do evil [things] in the sight of the Lord your God, provoking Him to anger, ²⁶ I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ The Lord will scatter and disperse you among the peoples (pagan nations), and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you. ²⁸ And there you will serve [false and foreign] gods, the work of human hands, [lifeless images of] wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell [the offerings of food given to them]. ²⁹ But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. ³⁰ When you are in distress and tribulation and all these things come on you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful and compassionate God; He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

³² “Indeed, ask now about the days that are past, [those days] which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? ³³ Did [any] people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and [still] live? ³⁴ Or has any [man-made] god ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes? ³⁵ It was shown to you so that you might have [personal] knowledge and comprehend that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him. ³⁶ Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline and admonish you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. ³⁷ And because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants who followed them, and brought you from Egypt with His Presence, with His great and awesome power, ³⁸ dispossessing and driving out from before you nations, [nations that were] greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. ³⁹ Therefore know and understand today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below; there is no other. ⁴⁰ So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and so that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

⁴¹ Then Moses set apart three cities [of refuge] beyond the Jordan toward the rising of the sun (eastward), ⁴² so that someone who committed manslaughter could flee there, [that is, a person] who killed his neighbor unintentionally and without previously having hostility toward him, and that by escaping to one of these cities he might [claim the right of asylum and] save his life: ⁴³ Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

⁴⁴ This is the law which Moses placed before the sons of Israel; ⁴⁵ these are the testimonies (legal provisions) and the statutes and the judgments which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt, ⁴⁶ beyond the Jordan in the Valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out from Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who reigned across the Jordan to the east, ⁴⁸ from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the [river] Arnon, as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), ⁴⁹ with all the Arabah (desert lowlands) across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea), at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.

Cities of Refuge

19 “When the Lord your God cuts off (destroys) the nations whose land He is giving you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and in their houses, ² you shall designate three cities for yourself in the central area of the land, which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ You shall prepare and maintain for yourself the roads [to these cities], and divide the territory of your land into three parts, so that anyone who kills another unintentionally may escape there [for asylum].

⁴ “Now this is the case of the offender (manslayer) who may escape there and live [protected from vengeance]: when he kills his neighbor unintentionally, not having hated him previously— ⁵ as [for example] when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, but the iron head slips off the wooden handle and hits his companion and he dies—the offender may escape to one of these cities and live; ⁶ otherwise the ^[a]avenger of blood might pursue the offender in the heat of anger, and overtake him, because it is a long way, and take his life, even though he did not deserve to die, since he did not hate his neighbor beforehand. ⁷ Therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You shall set aside three cities [of refuge] for yourself.’

⁸ “If the Lord your God enlarges your border, as He has sworn to your fathers to do, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers— ⁹ if you keep and carefully observe all these commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God, and to walk [that is, to live each and every day] always in His ways—then you shall add three more cities [of refuge] for yourself, besides these three, ¹⁰ so that innocent blood will not be shed [by blood avengers] in your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and blood guilt will not be on you [for the death of an innocent man].

¹¹ “But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait and ambush for him and attacks him and strikes him down so that he dies, and the assailant escapes to one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his own city shall send for him and have him taken back from there and turn him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may be put to death. ¹³ You shall not pity him [the guilty one], but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

Laws of Landmark and Testimony

¹⁴ “You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary mark, which the forefathers [who first divided the territory] have set, in the land which you will inherit in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵ “A single witness shall not appear in a trial against a man for any wrong or any sin which he has committed; [only] ^[b]on the testimony or evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be confirmed. ¹⁶ If a malicious witness rises up against a man to [falsely] accuse him of wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both parties to the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office at that time. ¹⁸ The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness, and he has accused his brother falsely, ¹⁹ then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from among you. ²⁰ Those who remain will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you. ²¹ You shall not show pity [to the guilty one]: it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.