Deuteronomy 27:1-31:9

Tree of Life Version

27 Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole mitzvah that I am commanding you today. ² Now on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land that Adonai your God is giving you, you are to set up large stones for yourself and coat them with plaster. ³ Then you are to write on them all the words of this Torah when you cross over—so that you may enter the land that Adonai your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey just as Adonai, the God of your fathers, promised you. ⁴ Now when you cross over the Jordan, you are to set up these stones about which I am commanding you today on Mount Ebal, and coat them with plaster. ⁵ There also you will build an altar to Adonai your God, an altar of stones—you are not to use an iron tool on them. ⁶ You are to build the altar of Adonai your God of whole stones, and you are to offer up burnt offerings on it to Adonai your God. ⁷ You are to sacrifice fellowship offerings and eat there, and you will rejoice before Adonai your God. ⁸ You are to write on the stones all the words of this Torah very clearly.”

⁹ Then Moses and the Levitical kohanim spoke to all Israel, saying, “Be silent and listen, O Israel—this day you have become a people for Adonai your God. ¹⁰ Therefore listen to the voice of Adonai your God, and do His mitzvot and statutes that I am commanding you today.”

¹¹ Moses commanded the people on that day saying, ¹² “When you have crossed over the Jordan, these are to stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. ¹³ For the curse these are to stand on Mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

¹⁴ “Then the Levites are to answer and say with a loud voice to every man of Israel: ¹⁵ ‘Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molten image—an abomination to Adonai, the work of a craftsman’s hands—and sets it up in secret.’ Then all the people are to answer and say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁶ ‘Cursed is the one who dishonors his father or mother.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁷ ‘Cursed is the one who removes his neighbor’s boundary marker.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁸ ‘Cursed is the one who misleads a blind person on the road.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁹ ‘Cursed is the one who twists justice for the outsider, orphan and widow.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²⁰ ‘Cursed is the one who lies with his father’s wife, because he has uncovered his father’s nakedness.’^[a] Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²¹ ‘Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²² ‘Cursed is the one who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²³ “Cursed is the one who lies with his mother-in-law.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²⁴ ‘Cursed is the one who strikes down his neighbor in secret.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²⁵ ‘Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to strike down an innocent life.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’

²⁶ ‘Cursed is the one who does not uphold the words of this Torah by doing them.’ Then all the people are to say, ‘Amen.’^[b]

Blessings for Obedience

28 “Now if you listen obediently to the voice of Adonai your God, taking care to do all His mitzvot that I am commanding you today, Adonai your God will set you on high—above all the nations of the earth. ² Then all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of Adonai your God:

³ “Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the field.

⁴ “Blessed will be the fruit of your womb, the produce of your soil, and the offspring of your livestock—the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.

⁵ “Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

⁶ “Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.

⁷ “Adonai will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you. They will come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. ⁸ Adonai will command the blessing on you in your barns and in every undertaking of your hand, and He will bless you in the land Adonai your God is giving you. ⁹ Adonai will establish you as a holy people for Himself, just as He swore to you—if you keep the mitzvot of Adonai your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of Adonai and they will stand in awe of you. ¹¹ Adonai will make you overflow in prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil—on the land Adonai swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² Adonai will open for you His good storehouse—the heavens—to give rain for your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. ¹³ Adonai will make you the head and not the tail, and you will be only above and not below—if you listen to the mitzvot of Adonai your God that I am commanding you today, careful to do them, ¹⁴ and do not turn aside from any of the words I am commanding you today, to the right or the left, to go after other gods in order to serve them.

Curses for Disobedience

¹⁵ “But if you will not listen to the voice of Adonai your God, to take care to do all His mitzvot and statutes that I am commanding you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

¹⁶ “Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the field.

¹⁷ “Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

¹⁸ “Cursed will be the fruit of your womb, the produce of your soil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

¹⁹ “Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.

²⁰ “Adonai will send on you cursing, confusion and frustration in every undertaking of your hand that you will do—until you are destroyed and perish quickly, because of the evil of your deeds by which you have abandoned Me. ²¹ Adonai will make the plague cling to you, until He has put an end to you from the land that you are going in to possess. ²² Adonai will strike you with weakness, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, the sword, blight and mildew—they will pursue you until you perish. ²³ Your sky above your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. ²⁴ Adonai will make the rain of your land powder and dust—it will come down on you from the heavens, until you are destroyed.

²⁵ “Adonai will bring you to defeat before your enemies. You will go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. You will become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your carcass will be food for every bird of the heavens and beast of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

²⁷ “Adonai will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with hemorrhoids, with scabs and with itching, from which you cannot be healed.

²⁸ “Adonai will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with confusion of heart. ²⁹ You will grope at noon as the blind person gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways. You will be only oppressed and robbed all the time, and there will be no one to save you.

³⁰ “You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but you will not dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not put it to use. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen in front of you, and it will not be returned to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

³² “Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while your eyes look on, longing for them all day long—but your hand will be powerless. ³³ A people you do not know will eat up the produce of your soil and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed all the time. ³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sight that your eyes will see.

³⁵ “Adonai will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils, from which you cannot be healed—from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

³⁶ “Adonai will bring you and the king you set over you to a nation you and your fathers have not known—and there you will serve other gods, wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become a horror, a proverb, and a byword—among all the peoples where Adonai will drive you.

³⁸ “Much seed you will take out to the field—but little will you bring in, for the locust will eat it up. ³⁹ Vineyards you will plant and tend—but wine you will not drink or bring in, for the worm will devour it. ⁴⁰ Olive trees you will have in all your territory—but oil you will not rub on yourself, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹ Sons and daughters you will father—but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴² All your trees and the produce of your soil the whirring locust will possess.

⁴³ “The outsider who is in your midst will rise up higher and higher above you, and you will go down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will become the head and you will become the tail.

⁴⁵ “All these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed—because you did not listen to the voice of Adonai your God, to keep His mitzvot and statutes that He commanded you. ⁴⁶ They will be a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Instead of serving Adonai your God with joy and goodness of heart, out of the abundance of everything, ⁴⁸ you will serve your enemies, whom Adonai will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lacking everything; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁴⁹ “Adonai will raise up a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, just as the eagle swoops down—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a brazen-faced nation that will not respect the old or be gracious to the young. ⁵¹ It will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil, until you are destroyed. It will not leave behind for you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until it ruins you. ⁵² It will besiege you within all your town gates throughout your land, until your high and fortified walls—that you trusted in—come down. It will besiege you within all your gates throughout your land that Adonai your God has given you.

⁵³ “You will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters Adonai your God has given you, in the siege and stress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴ The most tender and delicate man among you—his eye will become evil against his brother and the wife of his bosom and the rest of his children that he has left. ⁵⁵ He will not give to a single one of them from his children’s flesh that he will eat, because nothing else is left for him in the siege and stress with which your enemy will distress you within all your town gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who never ventured to set the sole of her foot on the ground out of delicateness and tenderness—her eye will become evil against the husband of her bosom and her son and daughter. ⁵⁷ For in secret she will eat her afterbirth that issues from between her legs and the children she bears, for lack of anything else in the siege and stress with which your enemy will distress you within all your gates.

⁵⁸ “If you do not take care to do all the words of this Torah, the things written in this scroll, to fear this glorious and awesome Name, Adonai your God, ⁵⁹ then Adonai will make your plagues and the plagues of your descendants extraordinary—terrible and prolonged plagues, severe and prolonged illnesses. ⁶⁰ He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt that you were afraid of, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every illness and plague that is not written in the scroll of this Torah, Adonai will bring on you, until you are destroyed.

⁶² “You will be left few in number, instead of being like the stars of the sky in number—because you did not listen to the voice of Adonai your God. ⁶³ Now just as Adonai rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so Adonai will rejoice over you to ruin and destroy you; and you will be uprooted from the land that you are going in to possess.

⁶⁴ “Adonai will scatter you among all peoples from the one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods—wood and stone—that you and your fathers have not known. ⁶⁵ Among these nations you will find no rest, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot. But there Adonai will give you a trembling heart and failing eyes, and a despairing spirit.

⁶⁶ “Your life will hang in the balance before you; you will be afraid night and day, and you will have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!”—from the fear of your heart that you will fear and the sight of your eyes that you will see. ⁶⁸ Adonai will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way that I said to you, ‘You will not see it again.’ There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves and maids, but there will be no buyer.”

Renewing the Covenant

⁶⁹ These are the words of the covenant that Adonai commanded Moses to make with Bnei-Yisrael in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant He made with them at Horeb.^[c]

29 Moses called to all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that Adonai did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land— ² the great trials that your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders. ³ But to this day Adonai has not given you a heart to know, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. ^{[d] 4} I led you 40 years in the wilderness—your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. ⁵ Bread you have not eaten and wine and strong drink you have not drunk—in order that you may know that I am Adonai your God.

⁶ “When you came to this place, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of the Bashan came out against us to battle, but we struck them down. ⁷ We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh. ⁸ So keep the words of this covenant and do them, so that you may prosper in all that you do.

Parashat Nitzavim

You Are Standing Before the Lord

⁹ “You are standing today, all of you, before Adonai your God—the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officials, all the men of Israel, ¹⁰ your children, your wives, and the outsider within your camp (from your woodchopper to your water carrier). ¹¹ Each of you is to cross over into the covenant of Adonai your God that He is cutting with you today, and into His oath.

¹² “This is in order to confirm you today as His people. So He will be your God, just as He promised you and just as He swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. ¹³ Not with you alone am I cutting this covenant and this oath, ¹⁴ but with whomever is standing here with us today before Adonai our God and with whomever is not here with us today.

¹⁵ “Indeed you know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations that we passed through. ¹⁶ You saw their detestable things and their idols^[e]—wood and stone, silver and gold—that were with them. ¹⁷ Beware in case there is among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from Adonai our God to go serve the gods of those nations. Beware in case there is among you a root producing poison and bitter fruit.^[f]

¹⁸ “Now when someone hears the words of this oath and in his heart considers himself blessed, thinking, ‘Shalom will be mine, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart’—thus sweeping away the moist with the dry— ^{[g] 19} Adonai will be unwilling to forgive him. For then the anger of Adonai and His jealousy will smoke against that person. So all the oath that is written in this scroll will settle on him, and Adonai will blot out his name from under the heavens. ²⁰ Adonai will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, according to all the oaths of the covenant written in this scroll of the Torah.

²¹ “The following generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land will say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses Adonai afflicted on it: ²² ‘Sulfur and salt, the whole land burnt! It cannot be planted, it cannot sprout, no grass can grow up on it—like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Adonai overturned in His anger and in His wrath!’

²³ “All the nations will say, ‘Why has Adonai done this to this land? Why this great burning anger?’

²⁴ “Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Adonai, the God of their fathers, which He cut with them when He brought them out from the land of Egypt. ²⁵ They went and served other gods and bowed down to them—gods they never knew, that He had not allotted to them. ²⁶ So Adonai’s anger burned against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this scroll. ²⁷ Adonai has uprooted them from their soil, in anger and wrath and great fury, and hurled them into another land, as is the case this day.’

²⁸ “The secret things belong to Adonai our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever—in order to do all the words of this Torah.

30 “Now when all these things come upon you—the blessing and the curse that I have set before you—and you take them to heart in all the nations where Adonai your God has banished you, ² and you return to Adonai your God and listen to His voice according to all that I am commanding you today—you and your children—with all your heart and with all your soul, ³ then Adonai your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples where Adonai your God has scattered you. ⁴ Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the heavens, from there Adonai your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. ⁵ Adonai your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, and you will possess it; and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers. ⁶ Also Adonai your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants—to love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.

⁷ “Adonai your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. ⁸ Then you—you will return and listen to the voice of Adonai and do all His mitzvot that I am commanding you today. ⁹ Adonai your God will make you prosper in all the work of your hand—in the fruit of your womb, and the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil—for good. For Adonai will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers— ¹⁰ when you listen to the voice of Adonai your God, to keep His mitzvot and His statutes that are written in this scroll of the Torah, when you turn to Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

¹¹ “For this mitzvah that I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it far off. ¹² It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us, and have us hear it so we may do it?’ ¹³ Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross over for us to the other side of the sea and get it for us, and have us hear it so we may do it?’ ¹⁴ No, the word is very near to you—in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.^[h]

¹⁵ “See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil. ¹⁶ What I am commanding you today is to love Adonai your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His mitzvot, statutes and ordinances. Then you will live and multiply, and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are going in to possess. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, but are drawn away and bow down to other gods and worship them, ¹⁸ I tell you today that you will certainly perish! You will not prolong your days on the land, where you are about to cross over the Jordan to go in to possess.

¹⁹ “I call the heavens and the earth to witness about you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰ by loving Adonai your God, listening to His voice, and clinging to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell on the land that Adonai swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob—to give them.

Parashat Vayelech

Chazak! Be Courageous!

31 Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. ² He said to them, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. Adonai has said to me, ‘You are not to cross over this Jordan.’ ³ Adonai your God—He will cross over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you, and you will dispossess them. Joshua will cross over before you, just as Adonai has promised.

⁴ “Adonai will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. ⁵ Adonai will give them over to you, and you are to do to them according to all the mitzvot that I commanded you. ⁶ Chazak! Be courageous! Do not be afraid or tremble before them. For Adonai your God—He is the One who goes with you. He will not fail you or abandon you.”

⁷ Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong! Be courageous! For you are to go with this people into the land Adonai has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you are to enable them to inherit it. ⁸ Adonai—He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you. Do not fear or be discouraged.”

Public Torah Readings

⁹ Moses wrote down this Torah and gave it to the kohanim, the sons of Levi who carry the Ark of the Covenant of Adonai, and to all the elders of Israel.