Bible in 90 Days

¹² The latrines^[a] must be outside the camp. You will use them there, outside the camp. ¹³ Carry a shovel with the rest of your gear; once you have relieved yourself, use it to dig a hole, then refill it, covering your excrement.

¹⁴ Do these things because the Lord your God travels with you, right in the middle of your camp, ready to save you and to hand your enemies over to you. For this reason your camp must be holy. The Lord must not see anything indecent among you, or he will turn away from you.

Escaped slaves

¹⁵ Don’t return slaves to owners if they’ve escaped and come to you. ¹⁶ They can stay with you: in your own community or in any place they select from one of your cities, whatever seems good to them. Don’t oppress them.

Consecrated workers

¹⁷ No Israelite daughter is allowed to be a consecrated worker.^[b] Neither is any Israelite son allowed to be a consecrated worker.^{[c] 18} Don’t bring a female prostitute’s fee or a male prostitute’s^[d] payment to the Lord your God’s temple to pay a solemn promise because both of these things are detestable to the Lord your God.

Charging interest

¹⁹ Don’t charge your fellow Israelites interest—whether on money, provisions, or anything one might loan. ²⁰ You can charge foreigners interest, but not your fellow Israelite. Do this so that the Lord your God blesses you in all your work on the land you are entering to possess.

Solemn promise

²¹ When you make a promise to the Lord your God, don’t put off making good on it, because the Lord your God will certainly be expecting it from you; delaying would make you guilty. ²² Now if you simply don’t make any promises, you won’t be guilty of anything. ²³ But whatever you say, you should be sure to make good on, exactly according to the promise you freely made to the Lord your God because you promised it with your own mouth.

Neighbor’s goods

²⁴ If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you can eat as many grapes as you like, until full, but don’t carry any away in a basket. ²⁵ If you go into your neighbor’s grain field, you can pluck ears by hand, but you aren’t allowed to cut off any of your neighbor’s grain with a sickle.

Marriage and divorce

24 Let’s say a man marries a woman, but she isn’t pleasing to him because he’s discovered something inappropriate about her. So he writes up divorce papers, hands them to her, and sends her out of his house. ² She leaves his house and ends up marrying someone else. ³ But this new husband also dislikes her, writes up divorce papers, hands them to her, and sends her out of his house (or suppose the second husband dies). ⁴ In this case, the first husband who originally divorced this woman is not allowed to take her back and marry her again after she has been polluted in this way because the Lord detests that. Don’t pollute the land the Lord your God is giving to you as an inheritance.

⁵ A newly married man doesn’t have to march in battle. Neither should any related duties be placed on him. He is to live free of such responsibilities for one year, so he can bring joy to his new wife.

Pawning

⁶ Millstones or even just the upper millstone must not be pawned, because that would be pawning someone’s livelihood.

Kidnapping

⁷ If someone is caught kidnapping their fellow Israelites, intending to enslave the Israelite or sell them, that kidnapper must die. Remove^[e] such evil from your community!

Skin disease

⁸ Be on guard against outbreaks of skin disease^[f] by being very careful about what you do. You must carefully do everything the levitical priests teach you, just as I have commanded them. ⁹ Remember, after all, what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your departure from Egypt!

Loans

¹⁰ When you make any type of loan to your neighbor, don’t enter their house to receive the collateral. ¹¹ You must wait outside. The person to whom you are lending will bring the collateral to you out there. ¹² Moreover, if the person is poor, you are not allowed to sleep in their pawned coat. ¹³ Instead, be certain to give the pawned coat back by sunset so they can sleep in their own coat. They will bless you, and you will be considered righteous before the Lord your God.

Payment for workers

¹⁴ Don’t take advantage of poor or needy workers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities. ¹⁵ Pay them their salary the same day, before the sun sets, because they are poor, and their very life depends on that pay, and so they don’t cry out against you to the Lord. That would make you guilty.

Generational punishment

¹⁶ Parents shouldn’t be executed because of what their children have done; neither should children be executed because of what their parents have done. Each person should be executed for their own guilty acts.

Rights of widows, orphans, and immigrants

¹⁷ Don’t obstruct the legal rights of an immigrant or orphan. Don’t take a widow’s coat as pledge for a loan. ¹⁸ Remember how you were a slave in Egypt but how the Lord your God saved you from that. That’s why I’m commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹ Whenever you are reaping the harvest of your field and you leave some grain in the field, don’t go back and get it. Let it go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows so that the Lord your God blesses you in all that you do. ²⁰ Similarly, when you beat the olives off your olive trees, don’t go back over them twice. Let the leftovers go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows. ²¹ Again, when you pick the grapes of your vineyard, don’t pick them over twice. Let the leftovers go to the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows. ²² Remember how you were a slave in Egypt. That’s why I am commanding you to do this thing.

Corporal punishment

25 Now two people have a disagreement and they enter into litigation and their case is decided, with the judges declaring one person legally right and the other legally liable. ² If the guilty party is to be beaten, the presiding judge will have that person lie down and be punished in his presence—the number of blows in measure with the guilt determined. ³ Give no more than forty blows. If more than that is given, your fellow Israelite would be completely disgraced in your eyes.

Working oxen

⁴ Don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing grain.

The brother-in-law’s duty

⁵ If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not go outside the family and marry a stranger. Instead, her brother-in-law should go to her and take her as his wife. He will then consummate the marriage according to the brother-in-law’s duty. ⁶ The brother-in-law will name the oldest male son that she bears after his dead brother so that his brother’s legacy will not be forgotten in Israel. ⁷ If the brother does not want to marry his sister-in-law, she can go to the elders at the city gate, informing them: “My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother’s legacy in Israel. He’s not willing to perform the brother-in-law’s duty with me.” ⁸ The city’s elders will summon him and talk to him about this. If he doesn’t budge, insisting, “I don’t want to marry her,” ⁹ then the sister-in-law will approach him while the elders watch. She will pull the sandal off his foot and spit in his face. Then she will exclaim: “That’s what’s done to any man who won’t build up his own brother’s family!” ¹⁰ Subsequently, that man’s family will be known throughout Israel as “the house of the removed sandal.”

Improper touching

¹¹ If two men are fighting with each other—a man and his fellow Israelite—and the wife of one of them gets into the fight, trying to save her husband from his attacker and does so by reaching out and grabbing his genitals, ¹² you must cut off her hand. Show no mercy.

Honest business practices

¹³ Don’t have two different types of money weights in your bag, a heavy one and a light one. ¹⁴ Don’t have two different types of ephahs in your house, a large one and a small one. ¹⁵ Instead, you must have only one weight, complete and correct, and only one ephah, also complete and correct, so that your life might be long in the fertile land the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ What’s more, all who do such things, all who do business dishonestly, are detestable to the Lord your God. ¹⁷ Remember, after all, what Amalek did to you on your departure from Egypt: ¹⁸ how he met up with you on the way, striking from behind those who were lagging back because you were weak and tired, and because he didn’t fear God. ¹⁹ So once the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies that surround you in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you must wipe out Amalek’s memory from under the heavens. Don’t forget this!

The ceremony upon entering the land

26 Once you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and are settled there, ² take some of the early produce of the fertile ground that you have harvested from the land the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket. Then go to the location the Lord your God selects for his name to reside. ³ Go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him: “I am declaring right now before the Lord my^[g] God that I have indeed arrived in the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

⁴ The priest will then take the basket from you and place it before the Lord your God’s altar. ⁵ Then you should solemnly state before the Lord your God:

“My father was a starving Aramean. He went down to Egypt, living as an immigrant there with few family members, but that is where he became a great nation, mighty and numerous. ⁶ The Egyptians treated us terribly, oppressing us and forcing hard labor on us. ⁷ So we cried out for help to the Lord, our ancestors’ God. The Lord heard our call. God saw our misery, our trouble, and our oppression. ⁸ The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with awesome power, and with signs and wonders. ⁹ He brought us to this place and gave us this land—a land full of milk and honey. ¹⁰ So now I am bringing the early produce of the fertile ground that you, Lord, have given me.”

Set the produce before the Lord your God, bowing down before the Lord your God. ¹¹ Then celebrate all the good things the Lord your God has done for you and your family—each one of you along with the Levites and the immigrants who are among you.

¹² When you have finished paying the entire tenth part of your produce on the third year—that is the year for paying the tenth-part—you will give it to the Levites, the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows so they can eat in your cities until they are full. ¹³ Then announce before the Lord your God: “I have removed the holy portion from my^[h] house, and I have given it to the Levites, the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows—in full compliance with your entire commandment that you commanded me. I haven’t broken your commandments. I haven’t forgotten one! ¹⁴ I haven’t eaten from the holy portion while mourning, nor did I remove it while I was polluted, nor have I dedicated any of it to the dead. I’ve obeyed the Lord my God’s voice. I’ve done everything just as you commanded me. ¹⁵ Please look down from your holy home, from heaven itself, and bless your people Israel and the fertile land that you have given us—a land full of milk and honey—just like you promised our ancestors.”

Conclusion to the regulations and case laws

¹⁶ This very moment the Lord your God is commanding you to keep these regulations and case laws. So keep them and do them with all your mind and with your entire being! ¹⁷ Today you have affirmed that the Lord will be your God and that you will walk in his ways and follow his regulations, his commandments, and his case laws, and that you will obey his voice. ¹⁸ Today the Lord has gotten your agreement^[i] that you will be his treasured people, just like he promised—by keeping his commandments— ¹⁹ in order to set you high above all the other nations that he made in praise, fame, and honor; and so that you are a people holy to the Lord your God, just as he said you would be.

Stones of the Instruction

27 Then Moses and Israel’s elders commanded the people:

Keep all of the commandment that I am giving you right now. ² The same day you cross the Jordan River to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up large stones and cover them with plaster. ³ Once you have crossed over, write on the stones all the words of this Instruction because you will have entered^[j] the land the Lord your God is giving to you—a land full of milk and honey—exactly as the Lord, your ancestors’ God, promised you. ⁴ Once you have crossed over the Jordan River, set up these stones that I’m telling you about right now on Mount Ebal. Cover them with plaster ⁵ and build an altar there for the Lord your God—an altar of stones that haven’t been cut with iron tools. ⁶ (You must build the Lord your God’s altar with uncut stones.) Then offer up on that altar entirely burned sacrifices to the Lord your God. ⁷ Offer up well-being sacrifices and eat them there, celebrating in the Lord your God’s presence. ⁸ Make sure to write all the words of this Instruction on the stones plainly and clearly. ⁹ Then Moses and the levitical priests said to all Israel: Quiet down and listen, Israel! This very moment you have become the people of the Lord your God. ¹⁰ So obey the Lord your God’s voice. Do his commandments and his regulations that I’m giving you right now.

Ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

¹¹ That same day Moses commanded the people: ¹² Once you have crossed over the Jordan River, the following tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. ¹³ And these are the tribes that will stand on Mount Ebal for the cursing: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. ¹⁴ The Levites will address every individual Israelite with a loud voice:

¹⁵ “Cursed is anyone who makes an idol or an image—things detestable to the Lord, made by artisans—and sets it up secretly.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”^[k]

¹⁶ “Cursed is anyone who belittles their father or mother.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

¹⁷ “Cursed is anyone who tampers with their neighbor’s property lines.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

¹⁸ “Cursed is anyone who misleads a blind person on a road.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

¹⁹ “Cursed is anyone who obstructs the legal rights of immigrants, orphans, or widows.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²⁰ “Cursed is anyone who has sex with his father’s wife, because that exposes his father’s private matters.”^[l]

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²¹ “Cursed is anyone who has sex with any kind of animal.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²² “Cursed is anyone who has sex with his sister, whether his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²³ “Cursed is anyone who has sex with his mother-in-law.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²⁴ “Cursed is anyone who kills his neighbor in secret.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²⁵ “Cursed is anyone who accepts money to kill an innocent person.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

²⁶ “Cursed is anyone who doesn’t support the words of this Instruction by carrying them out.”

All the people will reply: “We agree!”

Future blessing

28 Now if you really obey the Lord your God’s voice, by carefully keeping all his commandments that I am giving you right now, then the Lord your God will set you high above all nations on earth. ² All these blessings will come upon you and find you if you obey the Lord your God’s voice: ³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁴ Your own fertility, your soil’s produce, and your livestock’s offspring—the young of both cattle and flocks—will be blessed. ⁵ Your basket and your kneading bowl will be blessed. ⁶ You will be blessed when you are out and about and blessed when you come back. ⁷ The Lord will defeat any enemies who attack you. They will come against you from one direction but will run for their lives away from you in seven different directions. ⁸ The Lord will command the blessing to be with you—in your barns and on all the work you do—and he will bless you on the land the Lord your God is giving you. ⁹ The Lord will establish you as his own, a holy nation, just as he swore to you, if you keep the Lord your God’s commandments and walk in his ways. ¹⁰ All the earth’s peoples will see that you are called by the Lord’s name, and they will be in awe of you. ¹¹ The Lord will make good things abound for you—whether the fertility of your womb, your livestock’s offspring, or your fertile soil’s produce—on the very land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to you. ¹² The Lord will open up for you his own well-stocked storehouse, the heavens, providing your land with rain at just the right time and blessing all your work. You will lend to many nations, but you won’t have any need to borrow. ¹³ The Lord will make you the head of things, not the tail; you will be at the top of things, not the bottom, as long as you obey the Lord your God’s commandments that I’m commanding you right now, by carefully doing them. ¹⁴ Don’t deviate even a bit from any of these words that I’m commanding you right now by following other gods and serving them.

Future curses

¹⁵ But if you don’t obey the Lord your God’s voice by carefully doing all his commandments and his regulations that I am commanding you right now, all these curses will come upon you and find you. ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. ¹⁷ Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed. ¹⁸ Your own fertility, your soil’s produce, your cattle’s young, and your flock’s offspring will be cursed. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you are out and about and cursed when you come back. ²⁰ The Lord will send calamity, confusion, and frustration on you no matter what work you are doing until you are wiped out and until you disappear—it’ll be quick!—because of the evil acts by which you have abandoned him.^{[m] 21} The Lord will make a plague stick to you until he has totally wiped you off the fertile land you are entering to possess. ²² The Lord will strike you with consumption, fever, and inflammation; with scorching heat and drought;^[n] with destruction and disease for your crops.^[o] These things will chase you until you are dead and gone. ²³ The sky over your head will be as hard as bronze; the earth under your feet will be like iron. ²⁴ The Lord will turn the rain on your land into dust. Only dirt will fall down on you from the sky until you are completely wiped out. ²⁵ The Lord will hand you over defeated to your enemies. You will go out against them by one direction, but you will run for your life away from them in seven different directions. All the earth’s kingdoms will be horrified by you. ²⁶ Your corpses will be food for every bird in the sky and animal on earth; no one will frighten them off. ²⁷ The Lord will afflict you with Egyptian inflammation, hemorrhoids,^[p] rash, and itch. You will be untreatable. ²⁸ The Lord will make you go crazy, make you blind, make your mind confused. ²⁹ You will fumble around at high noon as blind people fumble around in darkness. Your plans won’t prosper. Instead, you will be constantly oppressed and taken advantage of without any savior. ³⁰ You might get engaged to a woman, but another man will have sex with her. You might build a house, but you won’t get to live in it. You might plant a vineyard, but you won’t enjoy it. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered while you watch, but you won’t get to eat any of it. Your donkey will be stolen right out from under you, and it won’t come back. Your flocks will be given to your enemies. No one will save you. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation while you watch; you will long for them constantly, but you won’t have the power to do anything about it. ³³ The produce of your land and all your hard work will be consumed by people you don’t know. You will be nothing but oppressed and mistreated constantly. ³⁴ The sights your eyes see will drive you insane. ³⁵ The Lord will strike you with horrible inflammation in your knees and legs, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. You will be untreatable. ³⁶ The Lord will send you and the king that you appoint over you far away to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known. There you will worship other gods made of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become a horror, fit only for use in proverbs and in insults by all the nations where the Lord drives you. ³⁸ You might scatter a lot of seed on the field, but you will gather almost nothing because the locusts will eat it all. ³⁹ You might plant lots of vineyards and work hard in them, but you won’t drink any wine or harvest the grapes because worms will devour them. ⁴⁰ You might have many olive trees throughout your territories, but you won’t cover yourself with their oil because your olive trees will fail. ⁴¹ You might have sons and daughters, but they won’t be yours for long because they will be taken away as prisoners. ⁴² Crickets will take over all your trees and your soil’s produce. ⁴³ The immigrants who live among you will be promoted over you, higher and higher! But you will be demoted, lower and lower! ⁴⁴ They will lend to you, but you will have nothing to lend to them. They will be the head of things; you will be the tail.

⁴⁵ That’s how all these curses will come over you, pursuing you, reaching you until you are completely wiped out, because you didn’t obey the Lord your God’s voice by keeping his commandments and his regulations that he gave you. ⁴⁶ These things will be a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you didn’t serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly above all else,^{[q] 48} you will serve your enemies—the ones the Lord will send against you—during famine, drought, nakedness, and total deprivation. God will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has wiped you out. ⁴⁹ The Lord will bring a distant nation—one from the far ends of the earth—against you as fast as the eagle flies: a nation that speaks a language you can’t understand, ⁵⁰ a stern nation that doesn’t go easy on the very old or show pity to the very young. ⁵¹ That nation will devour your livestock’s offspring and your soil’s produce until you yourselves are destroyed because you will have no grain, wine, or oil left—nor any young from your cattle or offspring from your flocks—that is, until that nation annihilates you. ⁵² That nation will attack you in all your cities until your high, reinforced walls that you thought were so safe fall down across your entire countryside. That nation will attack you in all your cities throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. ⁵³ You will eat the offspring of your own womb—the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God gave you—because of the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy has brought on you.

⁵⁴ Even the most gentle and refined man among you will scowl at his brother or his own dear wife, or the last of his surviving children. ⁵⁵ He won’t want to give them any of his children’s flesh that he will be eating because he has no other food due to the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy has brought on you in all your cities. ⁵⁶ Even the most gentle and refined woman among you, who is so refined and gentle she wouldn’t stomp her foot on the ground, will scowl at her own dear husband, her son, or her daughter— ⁵⁷ not wanting to give them any of the afterbirth she pushed out or the babies she bore, because she will be eating them secretly while starving due to the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy will bring on you in your cities.

⁵⁸ If you don’t carefully keep all the words of this Instruction that are written in this scroll, by fearing the awesome and glorious name of the Lord your God— ⁵⁹ the Lord will overwhelm you and your descendants with severe and chronic afflictions, and with terrible and untreatable sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He’ll put on you all the Egyptian diseases about which you were so afraid; they will stick to you! ⁶¹ What’s more, the Lord will bring on you all the other diseases and plagues that aren’t written in this Instruction scroll until you are completely wiped out. ⁶² Once as countless as the stars in the night sky, only a few of you will be left alive—all because you didn’t obey the Lord your God’s voice. ⁶³ And just as before, the Lord enjoyed doing good things for you and increasing your numbers, now the Lord will enjoy annihilating and destroying you. You will be torn off the very fertile land you are entering to possess. ⁶⁴ The Lord will scatter you among every nation, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known—gods of wood and stone. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will have no rest and no place to call your own.^[r] There the Lord will give you an agitated mind, failing eyes, and a depressed spirit. ⁶⁶ Your life will seem to dangle before your very eyes. You will be afraid night and day. You won’t be able to count on surviving for long. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say: “I wish it was nighttime,” but at nighttime you will say, “I wish it was morning”—on account of your tortured mind, which will be terrified, and because of the horrible sights that your eyes will see. ⁶⁸ Finally, the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the route I promised you would never see again. There you will try to sell yourselves as slaves—both male and female—but no one will want to buy you.

The third heading: The new covenant at Moab

29 ^[s] These are the words of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ^2 [t] Moses summoned all Israel, saying to them:

You’ve seen with your own eyes everything the Lord did in Egypt, to Pharaoh, his servants, and all his land— ³ the great trials your eyes witnessed, those awesome signs and wonders! ⁴ But until this very moment, the Lord hasn’t given you insight to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear. ⁵ I’ve led you in the wilderness forty years now; neither the clothes on your back nor the sandals on your feet have worn out. ⁶ Neither have you eaten bread nor drunk wine or beer during this time—so that you would know that I am the Lord your God.^{[u] 7} When you arrived here, Sihon, Heshbon’s king, and Og, Bashan’s king, marched out to fight against us, but we defeated them. ⁸ We took possession of their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, Gadites, and half of Manasseh’s tribe. ⁹ So then keep the words of this covenant and do them so you can succeed in all you do.

¹⁰ Right now, all of you are in the presence of the Lord your God—the leaders of your tribes,^[v] your elders, and your officials, all the Israelite males, ¹¹ your children, your wives, and the immigrants who live with you in your camp, the ones who chop your wood and those who draw your water— ¹² ready to enter into the Lord your God’s covenant and into the agreement that the Lord your God is making with you right now. ¹³ That means the Lord will make you his own people right now—he will be your God just as he promised you and just as he swore to our ancestors: to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ¹⁴ But I’m not making this covenant and this agreement with you alone ¹⁵ but also with those standing here with us right now before the Lord our God, and also with those who aren’t here with us right now.

¹⁶ You know firsthand how we used to live in Egypt and how we passed right through the nations that you passed through. ¹⁷ You saw the horrific things, the filthy idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, that they had with them. ¹⁸ Make sure there isn’t any one among you right now—male or female, clan or tribe—whose mind is turning from being with the Lord our God in favor of going to serve these nations’ gods. Make sure there isn’t any root among you that is sprouting poison and bitterness. ¹⁹ When that kind of person hears the words of this agreement, they congratulate themselves, thinking: I’ll be fine even though I insist on being stubborn. This would cause something wet to dry up and become like something parched.^{[w] 20} The Lord won’t be willing to forgive that kind of person; instead, the Lord’s anger and passion will smolder against that person. Every curse written in this scroll will stretch out over them, and the Lord will wipe out their name from under the heavens. ²¹ Out of all Israel’s tribes, the Lord will single them out for disaster in compliance with all the covenant curses that are written in this Instruction scroll.

²² Future generations, your children after you, or foreigners from distant lands will say: Look^[x] at all that land’s plagues and the sicknesses that the Lord laid on it! ²³ Look at all its land burned by sulfur and salt, unsuitable for planting, unable to grow or produce any vegetation, as devastated as Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord devastated in anger and wrath! ²⁴ Indeed, all nations will ask: Why did the Lord do this to this land? What led to this terrible display of anger? ²⁵ They will deduce: It was because those people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, their ancestors’ God, which he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. ²⁶ They followed other gods, serving them and worshipping them—other gods that they hadn’t experienced before and that the Lord hadn’t designated for them. ²⁷ Then the Lord’s anger burned against that land, and he brought against it every curse written in this scroll. ²⁸ The Lord ripped them off their land in anger, wrath, and great fury. He threw them into other lands, and that’s how things still stand today.

²⁹ The secret things belong to the Lord our God. The revealed things belong to us and to our children forever: to keep all the words of this covenant.

30 Now, once all these things happen to you, the blessing and the curse that I’m setting before you, you must call them to mind as you sit among the various nations where the Lord your God has driven you; ² and you must return to the Lord your God, obeying his voice, in line with all that I’m commanding you right now—you and your children—with all your mind and with all your being. ³ Then the Lord your God will restore you as you were before and will have compassion on you, gathering you up from all the peoples where the Lord your God scattered you. ⁴ Even if he has driven you to the far end of heaven, the Lord your God will gather you up from there; he will take you back from there. ⁵ The Lord your God will bring you home to the land that your ancestors possessed; you will possess it again. And he will do good things for you and multiply you—making you more numerous even than your ancestors!

⁶ Then the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your being in order that you may live. ⁷ The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you and chase you. ⁸ But you will change and obey the Lord’s voice and do all his commandments that I’m commanding you right now. ⁹ The Lord your God will help you succeed in everything you do—in your own fertility, your livestock’s offspring, and your land’s produce—everything will be great! Because the Lord will once again enjoy doing good things for you just as he enjoyed doing them for your ancestors, ¹⁰ and because you will be obeying the Lord your God’s voice, keeping his commandments and his regulations that are written in this Instruction scroll, and because you will have returned to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your being.

¹¹ This commandment that I’m giving you right now is definitely not too difficult for you. It isn’t unreachable. ¹² It isn’t up in heaven somewhere so that you have to ask, “Who will go up for us to heaven and get it for us that we can hear it and do it?” ¹³ Nor is it across the ocean somewhere so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the ocean for us and get it for us that we can hear it and do it?” ¹⁴ Not at all! The word is very close to you. It’s in your mouth and in your heart, waiting for you to do it.

Life and death

¹⁵ Look here! Today I’ve set before you life and what’s good versus death and what’s wrong. ¹⁶ If you obey the Lord your God’s commandments that^[y] I’m commanding you right now by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments, his regulations, and his case laws, then you will live and thrive, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and so are misled, worshipping other gods and serving them, ¹⁸ I’m telling you right now that you will definitely die. You will not prolong your life on the fertile land that you are crossing the Jordan River to enter and possess. ¹⁹ I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live— ²⁰ by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by clinging to him. That’s how you will survive and live long on the fertile land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors: to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moses announces his death

31 Then Moses said^[z] these words to all Israel, ² telling them:

I’m 120 years old today. I can’t move around well anymore. Plus, the Lord told me “You won’t cross the Jordan River.” ³ But the Lord your God, he’s the one who will cross over before you! He’s the one who will destroy these nations before you so you can displace them. Joshua too will cross over before you just like the Lord indicated. ⁴ The Lord will do to these enemies the same thing he did to the Amorite kings Sihon and Og, and to their land, when he destroyed them. ⁵ The Lord will lay them out before you, and you will do to them exactly what the command I’ve given you dictates. ⁶ Be strong! Be fearless! Don’t be afraid and don’t be scared by your enemies, because the Lord your God is the one who marches with you. He won’t let you down, and he won’t abandon you.

⁷ Then Moses called Joshua and, with all Israel watching, said to him: “Be strong and fearless because you are the one who will lead^[aa] this people to the land the Lord swore to their ancestors to give to them; you are the one who will divide up the land for them. ⁸ But the Lord is the one who is marching before you! He is the one who will be with you! He won’t let you down. He won’t abandon you. So don’t be afraid or scared!”

Regular reading of the Instruction

⁹ Then Moses wrote this Instruction down and gave it to the priests—the Levites who carry the chest containing the Lord’s covenant—and to all of the Israelite elders. ¹⁰ Moses then commanded them:

At the end of seven years, at the appointed time in the year of debt cancellation, during the Festival of Booths, ¹¹ when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the location he selects, you must read this Instruction aloud, in the hearing of all the people. ¹² Gather everyone—men, women, children, and the immigrants who live in your cities—in order that they hear it, learn it, and revere the Lord your God, carefully doing all the words of this Instruction, ¹³ and so that their children, who don’t yet know the Instruction, may hear it and learn to revere the Lord your God for as long as you live on the ground you are crossing the Jordan River to possess.

Joshua commissioned

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses: “It’s almost time for you to die. Summon Joshua. The two of you must present yourselves at the meeting tent so I can command him.” So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the meeting tent. ¹⁵ The Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud; the cloud pillar stood at the tent’s entrance. ¹⁶ The Lord then said to Moses:

“Soon you will rest with your ancestors, and the people will rise up and act unfaithfully, going after strange gods of the land they are entering. They will abandon me, breaking my covenant that I made with them. ¹⁷ At that point my anger will burn against them, and I’ll be the one who abandons them! I’ll hide my face from them. They will become nothing but food for their enemies,^[ab] and all sorts of bad things and misfortunes will happen to them. Then they will say: ‘Haven’t these terrible things happened to us because our God is no longer with us?’ ¹⁸ But I will hide my face at that time because of the many wrong things they have done, because they have turned to other gods! ¹⁹ So in light of all that, you must write down this poem and teach it to the Israelites. Put it in their mouths so that the poem becomes a witness for me against them. ²⁰ When I bring the Israelites to the land I swore to their ancestors, which is full of milk and honey, and they eat, get full, then fat, and then turn toward other gods, serving them and disrespecting me and breaking my covenant, ²¹ then, when all kinds of bad things and misfortunes happen to them, this poem will witness against them, giving its testimony, because it won’t be lost from the mouths of their descendants. Yes, I know right now what they are inclined to do, even before I’ve brought them into the land I swore.”

²² So Moses wrote this poem down that very day, and he taught it to the Israelites.

²³ Then the Lord commissioned Joshua, Nun’s son: “Be strong and fearless because you are the one who will bring the Israelites to the land I swore to them. I myself will be with you.”

Life after Moses

²⁴ Once Moses had finished writing in their entirety all the words of this Instruction scroll, ²⁵ he commanded the Levites who carry the chest containing the Lord’s covenant as follows:

²⁶ “Take this Instruction scroll and put it next to the chest containing the Lord your God’s covenant. It must remain there as a witness against you ²⁷ because I know how rebellious and hardheaded you are. If you are this rebellious toward the Lord while I’m still alive, it’s bound to get worse once I’m dead! ²⁸ Assemble all of your tribes’ elders and your officials in front of me, so I can speak these words in their hearing, and so I can call heaven and earth as my witnesses against them, ²⁹ because I know that after I’m dead, you will ruin everything, departing from the path I’ve commanded you. Terrible things will happen to you in the future because you will do evil in the Lord’s eyes, aggravating him with the things your hands have made.”

The poem of Instruction

³⁰ Then Moses recited in their entirety the words of this poem in the hearing of the entire assembly of Israel:

⁴⁴ So Moses came and recited all the words of this poem in everyone’s hearing; Joshua,^[be] Nun’s son, joined him. ⁴⁵ When Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶ he told them: Set your mind on all these words I’m testifying against you right now, because you must command your children to perform carefully all the words of this Instruction. ⁴⁷ This is no trivial matter for you—this is your very life! It is by this means^[bf] alone that you will prolong your life on the fertile land you are crossing the Jordan River to possess.

Moses’ death imminent

⁴⁸ The Lord spoke to Moses that very same day: ⁴⁹ “Hike up the Abarim mountains, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho. Take a good look at the land of Canaan, which I’m giving to the Israelites as their property. ⁵⁰ You will die on the mountain you have hiked up, and you will be gathered to your people just like your brother Aaron, who died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, ⁵¹ because the two of you were unfaithful toward me in front of the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh, in the Zin wilderness, because you didn’t treat me with proper respect before the Israelites. ⁵² You can look at the land from the other side of the river,^[bg] but you won’t enter there.”^[bh]

The fourth heading: Moses’ blessing

33 This is the blessing that Moses the man of God gave the Israelites before he died. ² He said:

Moses’ death

34 Then Moses hiked up from the Moabite plains to Mount Nebo, the peak of the Pisgah slope, which faces Jericho. The Lord showed him the whole land: the Gilead region as far as Dan’s territory; ² all the parts belonging to Naphtali along with the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as the entirety of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea; ³ also the arid southern plain, and the plain—including the Jericho Valley, Palm City—as far as Zoar.

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses: “This is the land that I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I promised: ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have shown it to you with your own eyes; however, you will not cross over into it.”

⁵ Then Moses, the Lord’s servant, died—right there in the land of Moab, according to the Lord’s command. ⁶ The Lord buried him in a valley in Moabite country across from Beth-peor. Even now, no one knows where Moses’ grave is.

⁷ Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyesight wasn’t impaired, and his vigor hadn’t diminished a bit.

⁸ Back down in the Moabite plains, the Israelites mourned Moses’ death for thirty days. At that point, the time for weeping and for mourning Moses was over.

⁹ Joshua, Nun’s son, was filled with wisdom because Moses had placed his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to Joshua, and they did exactly what the Lord commanded Moses.

¹⁰ No prophet like Moses has yet emerged in Israel; Moses knew the Lord face-to-face! ¹¹ That’s not even to mention all those signs and wonders that the Lord sent Moses to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to his entire land— ¹² as well as all the extraordinary power that Moses displayed before Israel’s own eyes!