Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30

Complete Jewish Bible

Parashah 51: Nitzavim (Standing) 29:9(10)–30:20

[In regular years read with Parashah 52, in leap years read separately]

⁹⁽¹⁰⁾“Today you are standing, all of you, before Adonai your God — your heads, your tribes, your leaders and your officers — all the men of Isra’el, ¹⁰⁽¹¹⁾along with your little ones, your wives and your foreigners here with you in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water. ¹¹⁽¹²⁾The purpose is that you should enter into the covenant of Adonai your God and into his oath which Adonai your God is making with you today, (LY: ii) ¹²⁽¹³⁾so that he can establish you today for himself as a people, and so that for you he will be God — as he said to you and as he swore to your ancestors, to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.

¹³⁽¹⁴⁾“But I am not making this covenant and this oath only with you. ¹⁴⁽¹⁵⁾Rather, I am making it both with him who is standing here with us today before Adonai our God and also with him who is not here with us today. (LY: iii) ¹⁵⁽¹⁶⁾For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we came directly through the nations you passed through; ¹⁶⁽¹⁷⁾and you saw their detestable things and their idols of wood, stone, silver and gold that they had with them. ¹⁷⁽¹⁸⁾So let there not be among you a man, woman, family or tribe whose heart turns away today from Adonai our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Let there not be among you a root bearing such bitter poison and wormwood. ¹⁸⁽¹⁹⁾If there is such a person, when he hears the words of this curse, he will bless himself secretly, saying to himself, ‘I will be all right, even though I will stubbornly keep doing whatever I feel like doing; so that I, although “dry,” [sinful,] will be added to the “watered” [righteous].’ ¹⁹⁽²⁰⁾But Adonai will not forgive him. Rather, the anger and jealousy of Adonai will blaze up against that person. Every curse written in this book will be upon him. Adonai will blot out his name from under heaven. ²⁰⁽²¹⁾Adonai will single him out from all the tribes of Isra’el to experience what is bad in all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the Torah.

²¹⁽²²⁾“When the next generation, your children who will grow up after you, and the foreigner who arrives from a distant land, see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which Adonai has made it sick, ²²⁽²³⁾and that the whole land has become burning sulfur and salt, that it isn’t being sown or bearing crops or even producing grass — like the overthrow of S’dom, ‘Amora, Admah and Tzvoyim, which Adonai overthrew in his furious anger — ²³⁽²⁴⁾then all the nations will ask, ‘Why did Adonai do this to this land? What is the meaning of such frenzied, furious anger?’ ²⁴⁽²⁵⁾People will answer, ‘It’s because they abandoned the covenant of Adonai, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁵⁽²⁶⁾They went and served other gods, prostrating themselves before them, gods they had not known and which he had not assigned them. ²⁶⁽²⁷⁾For this reason, the anger of Adonai blazed up against this land and brought upon it every curse written in this book; ²⁷⁽²⁸⁾and Adonai, in anger, fury and incensed with indignation, uprooted them from their land and threw them out into another land — as it is today.’

²⁸⁽²⁹⁾“Things which are hidden belong to Adonai our God. But the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe all the words of this Torah.

30 (RY: ii, LY: iv) “When the time arrives that all these things have come upon you, both the blessing and the curse which I have presented to you; and you are there among the nations to which Adonai your God has driven you; then, at last, you will start thinking about what has happened to you; ²and you will return to Adonai your God and pay attention to what he has said, which will be exactly what I am ordering you to do today — you and your children, with all your heart and all your being. ³At that point, Adonai your God will reverse your exile and show you mercy; he will return and gather you from all the peoples to which Adonai your God scattered you. ⁴If one of yours was scattered to the far end of the sky, Adonai your God will gather you even from there; he will go there and get you. ⁵Adonai your God will bring you back into the land your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you prosper there, and you will become even more numerous than your ancestors. ⁶Then Adonai your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children, so that you will love Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being, and thus you will live. (RY: iii, LY: v) ⁷Adonai your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hated and persecuted you; ⁸but you will return and pay attention to what Adonai says and obey all his mitzvot which I am giving you today. ⁹Then Adonai your God will give you more than enough in everything you set out to do — the fruit of your body, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your land will all do well; for Adonai will once again rejoice to see you do well, just as he rejoiced in your ancestors.

¹⁰“However, all this will happen only if you pay attention to what Adonai your God says, so that you obey his mitzvot and regulations which are written in this book of the Torah, if you turn to Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being. (LY: vi) ¹¹For this mitzvah which I am giving you today is not too hard for you, it is not beyond your reach. ¹²It isn’t in the sky, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will go up into the sky for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?’ ¹³Likewise, it isn’t beyond the sea, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?’ ¹⁴On the contrary, the word is very close to you — in your mouth, even in your heart; therefore, you can do it!

(RY: iv, LY: vii) ¹⁵“Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil — ¹⁶in that I am ordering you today to love Adonai your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings ; for if you do, you will live and increase your numbers; and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it. ¹⁷But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you are drawn away to prostrate yourselves before other gods and serve them; (LY: Maftir) ¹⁸I am announcing to you today that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to enter and possess.

¹⁹“I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, ²⁰loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him — for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.”

Haftarah Nitzavim: Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) 61:10–63:9

B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah Nitzavim: Romans 9:30–10:13; Messianic Jews (Hebrews) 12:14 –15

Parashah 52: Vayelekh (He went) 31:1–30

[In regular years read with Parashah 51, in leap years read separately]

31 Moshe went and spoke the following words to all Isra’el: ²“I am 120 years old today. I can’t get around any longer; moreover, Adonai has said to me, ‘You will not cross this Yarden.’ ³Adonai your God — he will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess them. Y’hoshua — he will cross over ahead of you, as Adonai has said. (LY: ii) ⁴Adonai will do to them what he did to Sichon and ‘Og, the kings of the Emori, and to their land — he destroyed them. ⁵Adonai will defeat them ahead of you, and you are to do to them just as I have ordered you to do. ⁶Be strong, be bold, don’t be afraid or frightened of them, for Adonai your God is going with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

(RY: v, LY: iii) ⁷Next Moshe summoned Y’hoshua and, in the sight of all Isra’el, said to him, “Be strong, be bold, for you are going with this people into the land Adonai swore to their ancestors he would give them. You will be the one causing them to inherit it. ⁸But Adonai — it is he who will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you, so don’t be afraid or downhearted.”

⁹Then Moshe wrote down this Torah and gave it to the cohanim, the descendants of Levi who carried the ark with the covenant of Adonai, and to all the leaders of Isra’el. (LY: iv) ¹⁰Moshe gave them these orders: “At the end of every seven years, during the festival of Sukkot in the year of sh’mittah, ¹¹when all Isra’el have come to appear in the presence of Adonai at the place he will choose, you are to read this Torah before all Isra’el, so that they can hear it. ¹²Assemble the people — the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners you have in your towns — so that they can hear, learn, fear Adonai your God and take care to obey all the words of this Torah; ¹³and so that their children, who have not known, can hear and learn to fear Adonai your God, for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Yarden to possess.”

(RY: vi, LY: v) ¹⁴Adonai said to Moshe, “The time is coming for you to die. Summon Y’hoshua, and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, so that I can commission him.” Moshe and Y’hoshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting. ¹⁵Adonai appeared in the tent in a column of cloud; the column of cloud stood above the entrance to the tent. ¹⁶Adonai said to Moshe, “You are about to sleep with your ancestors. But this people will get up and offer themselves as prostitutes to the foreign gods of the land where they are going. When they are with those gods, they will abandon me and break my covenant which I have made with them. ¹⁷Then my anger will flare up, and I will abandon them and hide my face from them. They will be devoured, and many calamities and troubles will come upon them. Then they will ask, ‘Haven’t these calamities come upon us because our God isn’t here with us?’ ¹⁸But I will be hiding my face from them because of all the evil they will have done in turning to other gods.

¹⁹“Therefore, write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the people of Isra’el. Have them learn it by heart, so that this song can be a witness for me against the people of Isra’el. (RY: vii, LY: vi) ²⁰For when I have brought them into the land I swore to their ancestors, flowing with milk and honey; and they have eaten their fill, grown fat and turned to other gods, serving them and despising me, and broken my covenant; ²¹then, after many calamities and troubles have come upon them, this song will testify before them as a witness, because their descendants will still be reciting it and will not have forgotten it. For I know how they think even now, even before I have brought them into the land about which I swore.” ²²So Moshe wrote this song that same day and taught it to the people of Isra’el.

²³Adonai also commissioned Y’hoshua the son of Nun with these words: “Be strong and full of courage; for you are to bring the people of Isra’el into the land about which I swore to them; and I will be with you.”

²⁴Moshe kept writing the words of this Torah in a book until he was done. When he had finished, (LY: vii) ²⁵Moshe gave these orders to the L’vi’im who carried the ark with the covenant of Adonai: ²⁶“Take this book of the Torah and put it next to the ark with the covenant of Adonai your God, so that it can be there to witness against you. ²⁷For I know how rebellious and stiffnecked you are! Here, even while I am still alive with you today, you have rebelled against Adonai; so how much more will you do so after my death? (Maftir) ²⁸Assemble for me all the leaders of your tribes and your officials, so that I can say these things in their hearing, calling heaven and earth to witness against them — ²⁹because I know that after my death you will become very corrupt and turn aside from the way that I have ordered you, and that disaster will come upon you in the acharit-hayamim, because you will do what Adonai sees as evil and provoke him by your deeds.”