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Joshua Becomes Moses' Successor
31 Moses continued speaking to the people of Israel, 2 (A)and said, “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and am no longer able to be your leader. And besides this, the Lord has told me that I will not cross the Jordan. 3 The Lord your God himself will go before you and destroy the nations living there, so that you can occupy their land; and Joshua will be your leader, as the Lord has said. 4 (B)The Lord will destroy those people, just as he defeated Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites, and destroyed their country. 5 The Lord will give you victory over them, and you are to treat them exactly as I have told you. 6 Be determined and confident. Do not be afraid of them. Your God, the Lord himself, will be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you.”
7 Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the presence of all the people of Israel, “Be determined and confident; you are the one who will lead these people to occupy the land that the Lord promised to their ancestors. 8 (C)The Lord himself will lead you and be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you, so do not lose courage or be afraid.”
The Law Is to Be Read Every Seven Years
9 So Moses wrote down God's Law and gave it to the levitical priests, who were in charge of the Lord's Covenant Box, and to the leaders of Israel. 10 (D)He commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, when the year that debts are canceled comes around, read this aloud at the Festival of Shelters. 11 Read it to the people of Israel when they come to worship the Lord your God at the one place of worship. 12 Call together all the men, women, and children, and the foreigners who live in your towns, so that everyone may hear it and learn to honor the Lord your God and to obey his teachings faithfully. 13 In this way your descendants who have never heard the Law of the Lord your God will hear it. And so they will learn to obey him as long as they live in the land that you are about to occupy across the Jordan.”
The Lord's Last Instructions to Moses
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You do not have much longer to live. Call Joshua and bring him to the Tent, so that I may give him his instructions.” Moses and Joshua went to the Tent, 15 and the Lord appeared to them there in a pillar of cloud that stood by the door of the Tent.
16 The Lord said to Moses, “You will soon die, and after your death the people will become unfaithful to me and break the covenant that I made with them. They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter. 17 When that happens, I will become angry with them; I will abandon them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible disasters will come upon them, and then they will realize that these things are happening to them because I, their God, am no longer with them. 18 And I will refuse to help them then, because they have done evil and worshiped other gods.
19 “Now, write down this song. Teach it to the people of Israel, so that it will stand as evidence against them. 20 I will take them into this rich and fertile land, as I promised their ancestors. There they will have all the food they want, and they will live comfortably. But they will turn away and worship other gods. They will reject me and break my covenant, 21 and many terrible disasters will come on them. But this song will still be sung, and it will stand as evidence against them. Even now, before I take them into the land that I promised to give them, I know what they are thinking.”
22 That same day Moses wrote down the song and taught it to the people of Israel.
23 (E)Then the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun and told him, “Be confident and determined. You will lead the people of Israel into the land that I promised them, and I will be with you.”
24 Moses wrote God's Law in a book, taking care not to leave out anything. 25 When he finished, he said to the levitical priests, who were in charge of the Lord's Covenant Box, 26 “Take this book of God's Law and place it beside the Covenant Box of the Lord your God, so that it will remain there as a witness against his people. 27 I know how stubborn and rebellious they are. They have rebelled against the Lord during my lifetime, and they will rebel even more after I am dead. 28 Assemble all your tribal leaders and officials before me, so that I can tell them these things; I will call heaven and earth to be my witnesses against them. 29 I know that after my death the people will become wicked and reject what I have taught them. And in time to come they will meet with disaster, because they will have made the Lord angry by doing what he has forbidden.”
The Song of Moses
30 Then Moses recited the entire song while all the people of Israel listened.
32 “Earth and sky, hear my words,
listen closely to what I say.
2 My teaching will fall like drops of rain
and form on the earth like dew.
My words will fall like showers on young plants,
like gentle rain on tender grass.
3 I will praise the name of the Lord,
and his people will tell of his greatness.
4 “The Lord is your mighty defender,
perfect and just in all his ways;
Your God is faithful and true;
he does what is right and fair.
5 But you are unfaithful, unworthy to be his people,[a]
a sinful and deceitful nation.
6 Is this the way you should treat the Lord,
you foolish, senseless people?
He is your father, your Creator,
he made you into a nation.
7 “Think of the past, of the time long ago;
ask your parents to tell you what happened,
ask the old people to tell of the past.
8 (F)The Most High assigned nations their lands;
he determined where peoples should live.
He assigned to each nation a heavenly being,
9 but Jacob's descendants he chose for himself.
10 “He found them wandering through the desert,
a desolate, wind-swept wilderness.
He protected them and cared for them,
as he would protect himself.
11 Like an eagle teaching its young to fly,[b]
catching them safely on its spreading wings,
the Lord kept Israel from falling.
12 The Lord alone led his people
without the help of a foreign god.
13 “He let them rule the highlands,
and they ate what grew in the fields.
They found wild honey among the rocks;
their olive trees flourished in stony ground.
14 Their cows and goats gave plenty of milk;
they had the best sheep, goats, and cattle,
the finest wheat, and the choicest wine.
15 “The Lord's people grew rich, but rebellious;
they were fat and stuffed with food.
They abandoned God their Creator
and rejected their mighty savior.
16 Their idolatry made the Lord jealous;
the evil they did made him angry.
17 (G)They sacrificed to gods that are not real,
new gods their ancestors had never known,
gods that Israel had never obeyed.
18 They forgot their God, their mighty savior,
the one who had given them life.
19 “When the Lord saw this, he was angry
and rejected his sons and daughters.
20 ‘I will no longer help them,’ he said;
‘then I will see what happens to them,
those stubborn, unfaithful people.
21 (H)With their idols they have made me angry,
jealous with their so-called gods,
gods that are really not gods.
So I will use a so-called nation to make them angry;
I will make them jealous with a nation of fools.
22 My anger will flame up like fire
and burn everything on earth.
It will reach to the world below[c]
and consume the roots of the mountains.
23 “‘I will bring on them endless disasters
and use all my arrows against them.
24 They will die from hunger and fever;
they will die from terrible diseases.
I will send wild animals to attack them,
and poisonous snakes to bite them.
25 War will bring death in the streets;
terrors will strike in the homes.
Young men and young women will die;
neither babies nor old people will be spared.
26 I would have destroyed them completely,
so that no one would remember them.
27 But I could not let their enemies boast
that they had defeated my people,
when it was I myself who had crushed them.’
Confessing and Rejecting Christ(A)
8 “I assure you that those who declare publicly that they belong to me, the Son of Man will do the same for them before the angels of God. 9 But those who reject me publicly, the Son of Man will also reject them before the angels of God.
10 (B)“Whoever says a word against the Son of Man can be forgiven; but whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
11 (C)“When they bring you to be tried in the synagogues or before governors or rulers, do not be worried about how you will defend yourself or what you will say. 12 For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 A man in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide with me the property our father left us.”
14 Jesus answered him, “Friend, who gave me the right to judge or to divide the property between you two?” 15 And he went on to say to them all, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.”
16 Then Jesus told them this parable: “There was once a rich man who had land which bore good crops. 17 He began to think to himself, ‘I don't have a place to keep all my crops. What can I do? 18 This is what I will do,’ he told himself; ‘I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I will store the grain and all my other goods. 19 (D)Then I will say to myself, Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’”
21 And Jesus concluded, “This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's sight.”
Trust in God(E)
22 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “And so I tell you not to worry about the food you need to stay alive or about the clothes you need for your body. 23 Life is much more important than food, and the body much more important than clothes. 24 Look at the crows: they don't plant seeds or gather a harvest; they don't have storage rooms or barns; God feeds them! You are worth so much more than birds! 25 Can any of you live a bit longer[a] by worrying about it? 26 If you can't manage even such a small thing, why worry about the other things? 27 (F)Look how the wild flowers grow: they don't work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers. 28 It is God who clothes the wild grass—grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have!
29 “So don't be all upset, always concerned about what you will eat and drink. 30 (For the pagans of this world are always concerned about all these things.) Your Father knows that you need these things. 31 Instead, be concerned with his Kingdom, and he will provide you with these things.
Riches in Heaven(G)
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom. 33 Sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor. Provide for yourselves purses that don't wear out, and save your riches in heaven, where they will never decrease, because no thief can get to them, and no moth can destroy them. 34 For your heart will always be where your riches are.
32 In spite of all this the people kept sinning;
in spite of his miracles they did not trust him.
33 So he ended their days like a breath
and their lives with sudden disaster.
34 Whenever he killed some of them,
the rest would turn to him;
they would repent and pray earnestly to him.
35 They remembered that God was their protector,
that the Almighty came to their aid.
36 But their words were all lies;
nothing they said was sincere.
37 (A)They were not loyal to him;
they were not faithful to their covenant with him.
38 But God was merciful to his people.
He forgave their sin
and did not destroy them.
Many times he held back his anger
and restrained his fury.
39 He remembered that they were only mortal beings,
like a wind that blows by and is gone.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the desert;
how many times they made him sad!
41 Again and again they put God to the test
and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.
42 They forgot his great power
and the day when he saved them from their enemies
43 and performed his mighty acts and miracles
in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
44 (B)He turned the rivers into blood,
and the Egyptians had no water to drink.
45 (C)He sent flies among them, that tormented them,
and frogs that ruined their land.
46 (D)He sent locusts to eat their crops
and to destroy their fields.
47 (E)He killed their grapevines with hail
and their fig trees with frost.
48 He killed their cattle with hail
and their flocks with lightning.[a]
49 He caused them great distress
by pouring out his anger and fierce rage,
which came as messengers of death.
50 He did not restrain his anger
or spare their lives,
but killed them with a plague.
51 (F)He killed the first-born sons
of all the families of Egypt.
52 (G)Then he led his people out like a shepherd
and guided them through the desert.
53 (H)He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
but the sea came rolling over their enemies.
54 (I)He brought them to his holy land,
to the mountains which he himself conquered.
55 (J)He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced;
he divided their land among the tribes of Israel
and gave their homes to his people.
21 Nothing bad happens to righteous people, but the wicked have nothing but trouble.
22 The Lord hates liars, but is pleased with those who keep their word.
23 Smart people keep quiet about what they know, but stupid people advertise their ignorance.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.