¹⁷ And Jesus came down with them and took His stand on a level spot, with a great crowd of His disciples and a vast throng of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to listen to Him and to be cured of their diseases—

¹⁸ Even those who were disturbed and troubled with unclean spirits, and they were being healed [also].

¹⁹ And all the multitude were seeking to touch Him, for healing power was all the while going forth from Him and curing them all [^[a]saving them from severe illnesses or calamities].

²⁰ And solemnly lifting up His eyes on His disciples, He said: Blessed (happy—^[b]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition—and ^[c]to be envied) are you poor and ^[d]lowly and afflicted (destitute of wealth, influence, position, and honor), for the kingdom of God is yours!

²¹ Blessed (happy—^[e]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition—and ^[f]to be envied) are you who hunger and seek with eager desire now, for you shall be filled and completely satisfied! Blessed (happy—^[g]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition—and ^[h]to be envied) are you who weep and sob now, for you shall laugh!

²² Blessed (happy—^[i]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition—and ^[j]to be envied) are you when people despise (hate) you, and when they exclude and excommunicate you [as disreputable] and revile and denounce you and defame and cast out and spurn your name as evil (wicked) on account of the Son of Man.

²³ Rejoice and be glad at such a time and exult and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is rich and great and strong and intense and abundant in heaven; for even so their forefathers treated the prophets.

²⁴ But woe to (alas for) you who are rich (^[k]abounding in material resources), for you already are receiving your consolation (the solace and sense of strengthening and cheer that come from prosperity) and have taken and enjoyed your comfort in full [having nothing left to be awarded you].

²⁵ Woe to (alas for) you who are full now (completely filled, luxuriously gorged and satiated), for you shall hunger and suffer want! Woe to (alas for) you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep and wail!

²⁶ Woe to (alas for) you when everyone speaks fairly and handsomely of you and praises you, for even so their forefathers did to the false prophets.

²⁷ But I say to you who are listening now to Me: [^[l]in order to heed, make it a practice to] love your enemies, treat well (do good to, act nobly toward) those who detest you and pursue you with hatred,

²⁸ Invoke blessings upon and pray for the happiness of those who curse you, implore God’s blessing (favor) upon those who abuse you [who revile, reproach, disparage, and high-handedly misuse you].

²⁹ To the one who strikes you on the ^[m]jaw or cheek, offer the other ^[n]jaw or cheek also; and from him who takes away your outer garment, do not withhold your undergarment as well.

³⁰ Give away to everyone who begs of you [who is ^[o]in want of necessities], and of him who takes away from you your goods, do not demand or require them back again.

³¹ And as you would like and desire that men would do to you, do exactly so to them.

³² If you [merely] love those who love you, what ^[p]quality of credit and thanks is that to you? For even ^[q]the [very] sinners love their lovers (those who love them).

³³ And if you are kind and good and do favors to and benefit those who are kind and good and do favors to and benefit you, what ^[r]quality of credit and thanks is that to you? For even ^[s]the preeminently sinful do the same.

³⁴ And if you lend money ^[t]at interest to those from whom you hope to receive, what ^[u]quality of credit and thanks is that to you? Even notorious sinners lend money ^[v]at interest to sinners, so as to recover as much again.

³⁵ But love your enemies and be kind and do good [doing favors ^[w]so that someone derives benefit from them] and lend, expecting and hoping for nothing in return but ^[x]considering nothing as lost and despairing of no one; and then your recompense (your reward) will be great (rich, strong, intense, and abundant), and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind and charitable and good to the ungrateful and the selfish and wicked.

³⁶ So be merciful (sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate) even as your Father is [all these].

³⁷ Judge not [neither pronouncing judgment nor subjecting to censure], and you will not be judged; do not condemn and pronounce guilty, and you will not be condemned and pronounced guilty; acquit and forgive and ^[y]release (give up resentment, let it drop), and you will be acquitted and forgiven and ^[z]released.

³⁸ Give, and [gifts] will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will they pour ^[aa]into [the pouch formed by] the bosom [of your robe and used as a bag]. For with the measure you deal out [with the measure you use when you confer benefits on others], it will be measured back to you.

³⁹ He further told them ^[ab]a proverb: Can a blind [man] guide and direct a blind [man]? Will they not both stumble into a ditch or a ^[ac]hole in the ground?

⁴⁰ A pupil is not superior to his teacher, but everyone [when he is] completely trained (readjusted, restored, set to rights, and perfected) will be like his teacher.

⁴¹ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice or consider the beam [of timber] that is in your own eye?

⁴² Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, allow me to take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the beam that is in your own eye? You actor (pretender, hypocrite)! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

⁴³ For there is no good (healthy) tree that bears decayed (worthless, stale) fruit, nor on the other hand does a decayed (worthless, sickly) tree bear good fruit.

⁴⁴ For each tree is known and identified by its own fruit; for figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor is a cluster of grapes picked from a bramblebush.

⁴⁵ The upright (honorable, intrinsically good) man out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart produces what is upright (honorable and intrinsically good), and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is depraved (wicked and intrinsically evil); for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.

⁴⁶ Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not [practice] what I tell you?

⁴⁷ For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like:

⁴⁸ He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or ^[ad]founded on a rock.

⁴⁹ But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great.

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31 And Moses went on speaking these words to all Israel:

² And he said to them, I am 120 years old this day; I can no more go out and come in. And the Lord has said to me, You shall not go over this Jordan.

³ The Lord your God will Himself go over before you, and He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. And Joshua shall go over before you, as the Lord has said.

⁴ And the Lord will do to them as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them.

⁵ And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.

⁶ Be strong, courageous, and firm; fear not nor be in terror before them, for it is the Lord your God Who goes with you; He will not fail you or forsake you.

⁷ And Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong, courageous, and firm, for you shall go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to possess it.

⁸ It is the Lord Who goes before you; He will [march] with you; He will not fail you or let you go or forsake you; [let there be no cowardice or flinching, but] fear not, neither become broken [in spirit—depressed, dismayed, and unnerved with alarm].

⁹ And Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

¹⁰ And Moses commanded them, At the end of every seven years, at the set time of the year of release [of debtors from their debts], at the Feast of Booths,

¹¹ When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses [for His sanctuary], you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

¹² Assemble the people—men, women, and children, and the stranger and the sojourner within your towns—that they may hear and learn [reverently] to fear the Lord your God and be watchful to do all the words of this law,

¹³ And that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn [reverently] to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you go over the Jordan to possess.

¹⁴ And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, your days are nearing when you must die. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, that I may give him his charge. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁵ And the Lord appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the Tent.

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers, and this people will rise up and play the harlot after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them; and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

¹⁷ Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them. And they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?

¹⁸ And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done in turning to other gods.

¹⁹ And now write this song for yourselves and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the Israelites.

²⁰ For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves and become fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise and scorn Me and break My covenant.

²¹ And when many evils and troubles have befallen them, this [sacred] song will confront them as a witness, for it will never be forgotten from the mouths of their descendants. For I know their strong desire and the purposes which they are forming even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore to give them.

²² Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the Israelites.^(A)

²³ And [the Lord] charged Joshua son of Nun, Be strong and courageous and firm, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land which I swore to give them, and I will be with you.

²⁴ And when Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end,

²⁵ He commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord,

²⁶ Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.

²⁷ For I know your rebellion and stubbornness; behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death!

²⁸ Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

²⁹ For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.

³⁰ And Moses spoke in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were ended:

32 Give ear, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

² My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.

³ For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God.

⁴ He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.

⁵ They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish—a perverse and crooked generation!

⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]?

⁷ Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸ When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.

⁹ For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance.

¹⁰ He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

¹¹ As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.^(B)

¹² So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.

¹³ He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock,

¹⁴ Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape.

¹⁵ But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶ They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not to God—to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared.

¹⁸ Of the Rock Who bore you you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth.

¹⁹ And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.

²⁰ And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

²¹ They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.

²² For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³ And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them.

²⁴ They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵ From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶ I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men,

²⁷ Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord.

²⁸ For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

²⁹ O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate!

³⁰ How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?

³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.

³² For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter.

³³ Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?

³⁵ Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily.

³⁶ For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants’ sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free.

³⁷ And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

³⁸ Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand.

⁴⁰ For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,

⁴¹ If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me.

⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the foe.

⁴³ Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people.

⁴⁴ And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea (Joshua) son of Nun.

⁴⁵ And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

⁴⁶ He said to them, Set your [minds and] hearts on all the words which I command you this day, that you may command them to your children, that they may be watchful to do all the words of this law.

⁴⁷ For it is not an empty and worthless trifle for you; it is your [very] life. By it you shall live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess.

⁴⁸ And the Lord said to Moses that same day,

⁴⁹ Get up into this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan which I give to the Israelites for a possession.

⁵⁰ And die on the mountain which you ascend and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

⁵¹ Because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin and because you did not set Me apart as holy in the midst of the Israelites.

⁵² For you shall see the land opposite you at a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land which I give the Israelites.